The New York Times, Racism, and Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson often notes that Dr. Martin Luther King believed that Black Americans should be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.  The New York Times responds by claiming that Tucker Carlson’s show is the “most racist program in the history of cable news.” 

There is much more of interest in The American Spectator article by Jeffrey Lord on the New York Times and its claims that Tucker Carlson is a racist.  Tucker once said that the mass immigration of illegals made America poorer and dirtier.  Of course the immediate effect of the immigrants lack of wealth and income was to make America poorer, but the dirtier comment was especially met with howls of protest.  Yet, many federal and state reports had previously noted that the illegal aliens had left huge amounts of garbage behind them along our border areas and very extensive and expensive clean-ups had been required over the years.  Tucker had to explain this was what he was alluding to, though it would have been better had he explained that immediately.  The New York Times made further attacks on Carlson, whose criticisms hit the sensitive nerve centers of the left so often.

The Lord article makes many interesting observations about The New York Times and racism.  For the record, the newspaper that claims to be the newspaper of the record, The New York Times, is owned by a family whose wealth derived from the ownership of slaves.  Adolph S. Ochs began his publishing career as owner of The Chattanooga Times before he acquired The New York Times.  Several of his family members had fought for the Confederacy.  His mother had smuggled medicine to the Confederate Army.  In 1900, Ochs’ New York Times editorialized that the Democratic Party “may justly insist that the evils of negro suffrage were wantonly inflicted on them.”  The Lord article notes that Ochs made many contributions to the erection of Confederate memorials. 

The New York Times has ever since been true to the Democratic Party that embraced and fought for slavery for many decades and then denied Black Americans the vote for many more decades.  To this day, The New York Times and the Democratic Party tell us we ought to judge people by the color of their skin.  They tell us that Black Americans cannot be competitive in a merit-based society, so we must declare any appreciation of merit to be racist.  The logical conclusion of their belief is that Black Americans should not even seek to develop merit in their character.  They still tell us it is racist to judge individuals by the content of their character, just as they did historically.  Give them credit for the consistency of their racism, even as you declare their beliefs terribly wrongheaded.

I look forward to the day when my granddaughters will be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.  That will not happen if The New York Times and the Democratic Party have their way.