In this clip, a Fox News correspondent rudely badgers a Baltimore City Councilman in a desperate attempt to smear the protesters for the riots that broke out on Monday evening, and gets shut down by the nuanced and impassioned arguments of Nick Mosby, 7th District.
When asked if it broke his heart to see the violence, Mosby replies that “Oh, definitely, I mean what its young boys, young folks of this community showing decades old anger and frustration for a system that has failed them. This is bigger than Freddie Gray, this is about the socioeconomics of poor urban America, these guys are frustrated and upset, and unfortunately showing in very destructive manner. You know, when folks are under-educated they don’t have the same intellectual voice to express it, and that’s what we see here tonight.”
Entirely ignoring everything that was just said, the FOX reporter attempted to redirect attention back to the “thug image”: “We just watched this liquor store being looted! Whats going on? The police are all the way down there! As you’re a city councilman, is this right?”
Mosby barely represses an eye-roll before responding “No, the violence is wrong, but it’s a symptom of something here. What I’m trying to articulate to you, is the lack of education, lack of commercial development, lack of opportunities, its the socioeconomics of it, this could happen anywhere in poor urban America.
The reporter again ignores any recognition of mitigating factors and turns back to race: “Well, we’ve definitely seen this before, Ferguson comes to mind-“
At which point Mosby gets irritated and snaps that “We’ve also seen it in Kentucky, when they lost that basketball game, we see crowds that loot and flip over cars and stuff. You know all the 95% of positive rallying that has been occurring here in Baltimore, the national media is going to focus on this.”
These riots are the outbreak of years of tensions and poverty and the disenfranchisement of impoverished communities. There is much more at hand here than a couple of “thugs and criminals”, but FOX doesn’t care about anything but to fan the flames of racial fear-mongering and prejudice.
Watch it here: