MSNBC Host Calls Out O'Reilly's 'Super-Racist Rant,' Says Conversation About Race Should Focus on 'Problems with White Culture

MSNBC host Chris Hayes called Fox News' Bill O’Reilly's recent comments on problems in the black community a “super-racist rant,” adding that the national conversation on race should focus instead on the “problems with white culture.”

MSNBC

During his show Tuesday night, Hayes played cuts of O'Reilly's biting critique of President Barack Obama’s remarks about the death of Trayvon Martin, including how Obama and many others ignore the “real problems” facing black people, the entertainment industry's push to sell “gangsta culture,” and statistics showing disproportionally large numbers of black men in trouble with the law compared to whites and Hispanics combined.

“...race hustlers and the grievance industry have intimidated the so-called conversation,” noted another O’Reilly clip from his Monday show, “turning any valid criticism of African-American culture into charges of racial bias.”

Hayes continued with another clip of O'Reilly asking, "How about Jackson and Sharpton? How about President Obama? You want a conversation? You got it. You want a better situation for blacks? Give 'em a chance to revive their neighborhoods and culture."

MSNBC

Hayes mocked O'Reilly by pointing out that “everything he’s saying is easily debunked with about 20 minutes of Googling.”

“That’s not really the point,” Hayes continued. “The real reason Bill O’Reilly peddles this stuff is because it gives a cheap, crack-like high to the old fearful white audience that watches Bill O’Reilly and gives Fox News its power, also known as the Republican base. These are the folks Bill O’Reilly is feeding when he laments not being able to criticize black culture.”

Hayes then played an audio clip of O’Reilly’s 2007 description of a dinner with Al Sharpton at Harlem’s Sylvia’s restaurant: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’” You know, I mean, everybody was — it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”

To which has remarked, “If Bill O’Reilly is representative of white culture, with his stereotyping and his victim-blaming and domineering tone, then I’m pretty sure we need to start having a national conversation about the problems with white culture.”

Here’s the clip from MSNBC's "All in with Chris Hayes":

To see our recap of O'Reilly's original comments and to watch them in their entirety, you can see our separate story.

(H/T: Weasel Zippers)

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