Sportswriter Jason Whitlock appeared on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show Friday where he tore into the media and liberals for manipulating language in order to get black Americans to “live up to our skin color.”
What’s the background?
Whitlock’s fiery rebuttal of the left came after the Associated Press amended its style guide in June, declaring news organizations should capitalize the “b” in “black” when referring to black Americans and black culture.
Capitalize the term Black as an adjective in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense: Black people, Black culture, Black… https://t.co/92ATB7b1Ox
— APStylebook (@APStylebook)1593024211.0
In an essay on OutKick, Whitlock wrote last week, “My skin color doesn’t define me. It’s simply the wonderful packaging God chose for me. When people see me and hear my name, I want them to think Christian, American, intelligent and honest. Those are the characteristics I want to define me.”
What did Whitlock tell Carlson?
While speaking with Carlson, Whitlock made it clear why he thinks it’s problematic for the media and liberals to give such special attention to the word “black” — and why the problem is much bigger than the mere capitalization of one letter.
“It is a way of defining to black people that your most prized possession, your greatest asset, your most defining characteristic is your skin color,” Whitlock said.
He continued:
No one else has to live up to their skin color. They are free to accentuate their intelligence, their faith in God, their commitment to family, their love of freedom. But we, as black people, as defined by the white liberals, in my view, running the mainstream media, running Hollywood, we have to live up to our skin color above all else, and that’s just not much of an attribute, in terms of— it’s a great packaging. I’m very proud of being black. But that’s not my number one attribute.
I want to be defined by my faith in God. I want to be defined by my intelligence. That’s what I want people to see when they think about me, not my skin color.
In fact, Whitlock said that liberals and the media emphasize “black” as a means of control, and related it to the mindset of slave owners.
“These people, 400 years later, these are the ideological descendants of those bigots from 400 years ago, doubling down a written reminder to black people, your skin color is your defining characteristic. And therefore, we are going to limit your freedom. You spend all of your energy trying to be unapologetically black. Everybody else gets to go out and try to be intelligent, responsible, God-fearing, patriotic,” he said.
What’s worse, Whitlock said, is that the media and white liberals — citing comedian Chelsea Handler, who recently said she had to remind rapper 50 Cent that he was black because he said he would support President Donald Trump — take it upon themselves to define what is and is not “black.”
“We are not even in control of that, so we are actually trying to meet standards defined for us by other people, live up to their standards, and they are defining blackness as a lot of things that just aren’t healthy for us,” Whitlock explained.
Tucker Carlson – Jason Whitlock On Being Defined By Skin Color
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