The Media's Double Standard when it comes to Race

The Washington Examiner is reporting that an email was sent out last Wednesday to Department of Education employees from Secretary Arne Duncan's office asking them to attend race hustler Al Sharpton's much smaller counter rally, to Glenn Beck's Restore the Honor rally (above) in Washington D.C. last weekend on the anniversery of Martin Luthr King Jr's famous I Have a Dream speech . Could you imagine if a Bush appointee sent out an email to employees asking them to attend such a rally like Beck's? I wonder how that would have been received. Condemnation probably would have been immediate and one would expect that there would be calls for the Secretary to step down. But since Duncan is a member of the favored party, no such calls will be forthcoming from the Mainstream Media complex for his scalp.

One might with equal reason assume that a challenge offered by columnist Mychal Massie to Sharpton and others will similarly be ignored. Massie specifically points out that "Walter Fauntroy blasted Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally and said the Ku Klux Klan and the tea party have to be "used interchangeably." To which Massie began to educate Mr. Fauntroy on the historical inaccuracies in his comparison...

"First of all, Fauntroy should acquaint himself with factual history. It was the Democratic Party, which he belongs to, that founded the Ku Klux Klan. Secondly, as long as he and liberal Democrats are offended that Beck would have his rally on the same date and venue as Dr. King's march, they should explore another piece of factual history.

The Ku Klux Klan was founded on Dec. 24, 1865. Shouldn't he, as a minister, be offended that the party he belongs to and shills for founded a terrorist hate group whose expressed purpose was to terrorize, intimidate and murder Jews, Blacks, Catholics and whosoever else they would, on the sacred eve of Christ's birth? As a minister, which should be more offensive, Beck's rally or that tidbit of fact?"

Concerning his debate challenge, Massie adds..

"Specific to that point, I say it's time for the likes of Fauntroy, Marc Morial of the National Urban League and Al Sharpton to defend their rhetoric. Over the years, I have quietly offered to debate these types – now I throw down the gauntlet and publicly challenge them. I will personally secure a venue to debate any one, or all of them together, pursuant to the legitimacy of their comments. After all, perhaps they have been misquoted or taken out of context. Perhaps they intended to say something else.

Fauntroy, [Marc] Morial and Sharpton are brave attackers in the comfort of their minions – but my challenge is now on the table to see if they have the collective backbone to face me in a debate. It's easy to throw stones from behind a fence, but let them step out and defend themselves publicly.

After all, it's just little ol' me. They can't be afraid to face me in a debate. Fauntroy and Sharpton are former presidential candidates, and Morial is certainly accustomed to making accusations from the secure confines of the National Urban League. Here is their chance to defend their convictions, in a public forum, against a lowly essayist such as myself.

C'mon boys, are you going to step up, or are you cowards talking loud and saying nothing, for the sake of fomenting discord?"

I don't really know that much about the respective records of Fauntroy or Morial regarding race relations. However, in the case of Sharpton, it would be highly inconsistent for him to accept such a debate when he has built an entire career upon "fomenting discord" and dodging the facts in efforts of self-promotion and the continued balkanization of American society.