Tucker Carlson consistently denies that he is racist, we should definitely mention that. But we should also definitely mention that he has a well documented history of engaging in unmistakably white supremacist speech, and inviting unmistakably white supremacist guests on his Fox News show, so much so that even the New York Times has reported that Tucker Carlson has “what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.”
In unrelated news, on Tuesday Carlson delivered an astonishing diatribe that touched on the murder of Tyre Nichols. During his remarks, he repeatedly denied that racism against Black people by white people is still a problem, insisted that Nichols’ murder by Memphis police had nothing to do with racism, and all but accused Democrats of making the problem of racism up as part of a conspiracy to manipulate and control Americans. And the cherry on top is that he sarcastically invoked the murder of George Floyd as part of it.
You can watch the clip above right now (via Kat Abu on Twitter), but if you’d rather not hear the voice to go along with the words, read on.
As a chyron that read “Democrats need an emergency to govern” displayed along the bottom of the screen, Carlson said, “So clearly the Democratic Party needs a new emergency, at least until we start sending ground troops to Ukraine and the population becomes suitably hysterical again. So because they needed an emergency, they found one. And the new emergency turns out to be the old emergency, which is ‘white racism,’” Carlson said.
“Now unfortunately for the Democratic Party, white racism is one commodity, like cedar boards, that’s getting harder to find,” Carlson said while chuckling at his unfunny joke for some reason.
“Very few unarmed Black men are killed by white cops these days. Where’s George Floyd when you need him,” Carlson added with heavy sarcasm. “So instead, in a pinch, they’ve settled for an unarmed Black man killed by Black cops, which they’ve informed us, nevertheless, despite all appearances, is still the product of white racism.”
Tucker followed these falsehoods up with a sing-songy rant with… we’ll say, uh, unmistakable overtones involving former President Barack Obama, murdered teenager Trayvon Martin, and several civil rights icons. That bit you’ll have to watch for yourself.
We want to touch on two things Carlson said specifically. First, it actually isn’t true that “very few unarmed Black men are being killed by white cops.” Now, we don’t have a breakdown of police killers by race, but we do know that according to federal statistics, the vast majority of police officers are white. In fact, according to the most recent information only 10% of police officers in America are Black.
Police departments also tend to keep inconsistent records and there is no national database of police violence. And the federal agency that does attempt to keep track of such things has grossly undercounted the number of people killed by police over the last 40 years, according to a study by the University of Washington.
Individual nongovernmental groups are forced to track such information themselves, wading through often obscure or incomplete local records. Which means it’s impossible to know for certain just how many people police officers kill, armed or unarmed.
But there are facts that can be assessed. For instance, over half of the 1,127 people killed in America by police in 2020 were unarmed.
The Washington Post has also compiled a specific database of people shot by police, which you can filter to see how the number of unarmed Black men shot and killed by cops has changed year by year since 2015. And of course, as the horrifying case of George Floyd and now Tyre Nichols proves, a great many unarmed people killed by cops aren’t shot.
And according to The Hill, a study found that Black people killed by police are more likely to be unarmed than any other group.
As for Carlson’s claim that the race of police officers proves Nichols’ murder had nothing to do with racism, the problem of Black cops and how they treat other Black people has been discussed in countless articles, works of fiction, books and even a memorable line in the NWA song “F– that Police.” The debate over precisely what it means is alive and well. But it is a fact that Black people are killed by police at a higher rate than any other group, and, as we’ve discussed, police departments in America are overwhelmingly white.
