Bill O'Reilly, Racist

Starting with Andrew Sullivan's link to a detailed Crooks and Liars piece about O'Reilly's declared "war" against the New York Times for a recent editorial on immigration and "nativism," I was led to this piece on Blogger where Bill reveals his ugly, racist foundation as a "journalist" or "commentator." In the piece, O'Reilly is interviewing a demographer at the Brookings Institution:

O'REILLY: Now, Doctor, the Census Bureau really doesn't tell us how this is going to affect the country. Do you have any theories on it?

WILLIAM FREY, PH.D., BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Well, I really think what's happening is going to be this phasing out or fading out of the white baby boom population. It is a 50-year time period we're talking about...

O'REILLY: Yes. We'll all be dead. Thank God, right?

My italics.

Now, call me paranoid (and you'd be partially right), but when a national public figure like O'Reilly makes a comment like this on national TV, it's of course clear evidence of his own racism and xenophobia, but it's also evidence that there is a huge segment of the American populace that agrees with him. It's unfortunately something that the New York Times editorial merely glosses over. This is what the editorial stated:

It is easy to mock white-supremacist views as pathetic and to assume that nativism in the age of Obama is on the way out. The country has, of course, made considerable progress since the days of Know-Nothings and the Klan. But racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we may want it to, and thus the perpetual need for vigilance.

It is all around us. Much was made of the Republican mailing of the parody song “Barack the Magic Negro,” but the same notorious CD included “The Star Spanglish Banner,” a puerile bit of Latino-baiting. It is easily found on YouTube. Google the words “Bill O’Reilly” and “white, Christian male power structure” for another YouTube taste of the Fox News host assailing the immigration views of “the far left” (including The Times) as racially traitorous.

The last paragraph is what set O'Reilly off, conflating him with white supremacist ideology. Well if the foo shits... y'all know what I'm saying?

For the record, I do not support open borders and unlimited access to citizenship for anyone who crosses this border. As a Californian, I saw first hand what happened to my beloved Los Angeles after the last amnesty campaign in the late 1980s. Life did change for the white majority in Los Angeles, and not always for the better. I believe in a secure border to keep out gang members, career criminals, and those who take advantage of public health care and an all-too-willing employer community willing to hire undocumented workers in order to keep wages low and avoid paying for Worker's Comp insurance.

But I also see the futility in expelling those who are already here, as well as the need for unskilled workers who will perform the jobs that many Americans deem beneath them. We need large numbers of workers at this level in order for our society to function properly. In much of the country there is a definite need for immigrant workers. Since there already are millions of them here, why not change the way we treat them and give them a way to become legal citizens of this country?

For racists like O'Reilly and others, however, this is completely about the loss of power -- white, male power -- that has dominated politics, industry, and thought in this country for centuries.

To twist O'Reilly's own words, someday they'll all be dead, thank God.