Wesley Lowery, a mixed race, race reporter for The Washington Post, sat tie-less on a Fox News panel Monday night with George Will and Charles Krauthammer. Hot topics included the confederate flag debate and President Obama‘s use of the n-word.
First off: What’s Lowery, 24, doing on a panel with Will and Krauthammer?
OK, get past that and let’s listen to what he has to say.
What does he have to say on the confederate flag issue?
“I’m wearing a necktie emblazoned with the symbols of South Carolina’s state flag, which is the flag that matters, the Palmetto tree and the crescent moon,” said Will. “…There are those who would like to use the acts of one mad man to indict a state or a region or the whole nation for some kind of failing of which he is supposedly symptomatic. How this has to do with the confederate flag is unclear to me.”
Wesley, in a dark blazer, red checkered shirt and white undershirt, had a more political message: “I think Governor Haley played this the way she needed to. …Even had this tragedy, this massacre not occurred this would have likely been thrust into this race anyway. …In a lot of ways it puts a little bow on this issue in way that is potentially making it less divisive.”
Krauthammer says it should’ve been done long ago, but won’t link it to the tragedy. “I think they are on their way to extinction over time,” he said of the flags. “…It’s a good thing that it’s being done. This is a total irrelevance. This has nothing to do what happened. …The massacre would have happened in any case. …But this is the standard liberal impulse. Something happened that’s really bad. …We have to do something, even if the something is entirely irrelevant.”
The odd trio also weighed in on President Obama‘s use of the n-word, which FNC bleeped out.
Wesley: “Any time he weighs in on race — we saw this in Ferguson, we saw this in Eric Garner, we’re seeing it now — it’s going to become a bit of a political distraction. I don’t have any issue with the President’s use of the n-word in this instance. …I think the political furor around it is a little disingenuous. …You can’t erase 200 or 300 years of institutionalized racism whether that be slavery or Jim Crow. …A conversation about race in the United States has to be a little deeper than just overt racism, it may need to speak to systemic issues.”
Will: “It’s an unfortunate indictment of the nation. He should take it back.”
Krauthammer: “America is way ahead of the rest of the world despite what happened in Charleston.”
Charleston aside, Lowery couldn’t sit on a panel like this and not bring up Ferguson, where his journalistic fame sprouted after he was detained for refusing to leave a McDonald’s when police asked him to.
At the end of the show Lowery could be seen on air with his head buried in his phone on air.
Perhaps he couldn’t wait to check out all those Twitter hot takes on how he did. It was also a chance for him to come clean about his feelings about FNC viewers.
Like this guy, who wasn’t having Lowery’s attire.
Roger B had deeper reasons for not enjoying Lowery’s performance on FNC.
Lowery apparently doesn’t like being called names.
