FOX Using Black Panthers Case to Stoke White Fear

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder

Just when you thought FOX News could not get any lower, they prove you wrong. FOX News' audience is 95 percent white and many of their stories play on white fears. John Gibson, a former FOX News contributor, reporting on a story about the nation's changing demographics came out point blank and said that "white people need to have more babies."

The latest story to get white people diving under the beds and reaching for their guns is a claim that the Department of Justice dropped a case involving white voter intimidation. During the 2008 election some members of the New Black Panther party were spotted patrolling election booths to guard against voter intimidation. They were armed with dangerous weapons such as "sticks."

FOX News tried to promote the story, but it disappeared quickly. Now former Justice Department lawyer J. Christian Adams is claiming Attorney General Eric Holder deliberately dropped the case because "voter intimidation cases involving white people were not important."Adams is a self-described conservative who also writes for Pajamas Media, a right-wing web site, so he is not exactly objective. Media Matters also reports that while Adams was with the Justice Department, officials declined to pursue civil rights charges against the Minutemen for intimidating Hispanic voters.

Justice Department officials have described Adams as a "disgruntled employee who distorted the facts." And judging by the many incidents of death row inmates being released due to false testimony, this would definetly not be the first case of a prosecuting attorney embellishing the facts.

There are several things wrong with this story. First of all, any black person who has had a run in with the law knows that the authorities have no problem throwing brothers in jail. Secondly the Justice Department, under the Bush administration, was a hot bed of cronies who were selected based on their loyalty to the president, rather than on their legal ability. In addition, the Bush Justice Department was infamous for not acting on civil rights cases. The Black Panthers in question where guarding a voting booth in a largely black neighborhood, which probably did not attract many white voters. And it is sadly ironic that the Bush administration tried to pursue a voting intimidation case against black people, when there were hundreds of clear cases of voter intimidation in black neighborhoods in the 2000 election.

The Holder Justice Department looked into the case and likely dropped it because they knew there was nothing to it. One of the Black Panthers was an accredited poll watcher and he did not have a weapon in his hand.

Of course that never stops FOX. They have folded this story into their continued narrative about white people being under threat by the encroaching black and brown hordes. Evidently FOX never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. By the way Adams' story has been picked up by Stormfront, white supremacists' favorite online destination.