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Dear John.
With Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham on air, hate speech has two nightly platforms on Fox News.
Tucker Carlson, host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, recently launched into a racist hate fueled monologue against Rep. IIhan Omar calling her “a living fire alarm” for being a Black, immigrant, and Muslim Congresswoman fighting for our country to live up to its ideals. Tucker also made grossly dehumanizing generalizations about immigrants that would get most users banned from social media platforms. Smears like this are ripped directly from white nationalist talking points to otherize, paint us as threats, and engender violence towards Omar and Black migrants.
Advertisers should not be underwriting this hate speech. We've stopped advertisers from funding hate on Fox before, and we're going to do it again. Demand advertisers drop "Tucker Carlson Tonight" and “The Ingraham Angle."
Fox News Laura Ingraham recently defended white supremacist Paul Nehlen and dismissed the ongoing debate surrounding reparations for descendants of slaves with inflammatory coded remarks copied straight from white supremacist Richard Spencer. According to Laura Ingraham’s justification for the 250 years of brutal exploitation of Black people, white people “won,” and Black people “lost.”
Ingraham explicitly told the world that America is a white nation, white settlers have triumphed, and Black people must deal with the resulting exploitation. Mythologizing the brutality and impact of slavery, and promoting mysgynistic anti-immigration racism should not be a depiction of American news.
Ingraham and Carlson have made careers providing on-ramps for hateful ideologies. These two are much more than a foil characters in political theater. They are consistent political voices who scapegoat class theory to push hateful, racist remarks. Carlson and Ingraham’s comments are a chilling reminder of the power of media and the speed at which it can disrupt positive change and silence productive and progressive discourse. Allowing Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham to continue to broadcast hate speech on a national platform is not enabling freedom of speech, but promoting a dangerous ideology that has taken the lives of many within US borders.
It is time advertisers stop enabling political pundits who serve as representatives for white supremacist ideologies.
Stand with Rep. Omar and demand advertisers to drop these shows.
Until justice is real,
--Brandi, Rashad, Arisha, Evan, Johnny, Future, Eesha, Samantha, Marcus, FolaSade and the rest of the Color Of Change team
References:
- “Tucker Carlson’s Racism Is Not “Political,” GQ, December 19th, 2018, https://act.colorofchange.org/go/151123?t=9&akid=34059%2E4731121%2ENNq88I
- “Laura Ingraham on Reparations: "It's Called Conquest … We Won, You Lost, That's That,” Media Matters, June 20, 2019, https://act.colorofchange.org/go/149866?t=11&akid=34059%2E4731121%2ENNq88I
- “Laura Ingraham Ranting about Reparations Sounds a Lot Like White Supremacist Richard Spencer,” Media Matters, June 21, 2019, https://act.colorofchange.org/go/149867?t=13&akid=34059%2E4731121%2ENNq88I
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