Thursday, July 05, 2007

America's Most Trusted News Source?

I saw something on CNN several days ago and it's been bugging me ever since. I'll get it off my chest here so I can move on.

I can't find the name of the newscaster who was anchoring the show but he was a black male probably in his mid to late 30's and was interviewing a political analyst regarding the '08 elections. They were discussing the amount of fundraising dollars the presidential candidates have raised thus far. Obama was in the lead with $32 mil, HC was next at $27 mil and then there's Rudy at $17 mil. Mitt and McCain round out the top 5 with $14 and $11.2 mil respectively.

The anchor said something like this (since I can't remember his name, I'm not able to locate transcripts so forgive the paraphrasing here)

Anchor: "Let's look at Obama's numbers. Now, speaking as a black male in our society, when in this country have we seen a black man receive this much money aside from shooting hoops on the basketball court?"

The PA seemed sort of dumbfounded by this and I can't remember his response, probably because I was still replaying the initial question in my head. So here's what's been bugging me: Do you think this anchor would still be employed if he was say, Don Imus? I am not so sure. So just because this anchor is a black man he gets a free ticket to spout off bigoted stereotypes? I'm tired of these "acceptable" double standards in our society, on the media and throughout our country. Any way you slice it, what he said was undeniably prejudiced. There, I feel better now.

And while I was google searching all sorts of words and phrases regarding this particular segment I came across this picture. Check out the guy in the white shirt in the background. How awesome is that?

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