-By Warner Todd Huston
During Wednesday’s Republican convention an incident occurred that was immediately portrayed as an example of Republican “racism.” It was on the lips of every newscaster, in every paper, and on every cable TV show. But was it really an example of racism? There is much room for doubt.
The incident happened to a CNN camerawoman, who happened to be black. Peanuts were thrown at her by some convention goers. These same guys then yelled something to the effect of, “that’s how w treat the animals.”
The two men were not delegates and were not officials of any kind but were simply attendees up in the cheap seats.
This incident was immediately portrayed as racism. An obvious case of racist white men throwing peanuts to the black woman as if she were a monkey.
But was it? There are no reports at all from the two who were thrown out. We have no statements from them as to their intentions and they didn’t yell anything else as far as anyone knows to make their point any clearer.
I’ll tell you what I thought the second I heard the story. The key words for me was “animals” and “CNN.” My immediate thought is that this was an anti-media taunt, not a racist attack on a black woman.
Now, it most certainly could have been a racist attack on a black woman. But, on the other hand, since no one has any actual proof that this was exactly what was meant, then we can’t say definitively that it was obvious racism.
And yet, every report on this incident made it out to be a sure-fire case of racism despite the lack of actual proof.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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