NAACP to Protest

[Professor]

NAACP to Protest At 5 NC Fox Affiliates Thursday, Joining 70 Protests Nationwide

The above cartoon from The New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has sparked an avalanche of protest nationally. On Thursday at 11 a.m., NAACP leaders in five North Carolina cities with Fox affiliates, also owned by Murdoch -- Charlotte, Durham, Wilmington, High Point, and Morehead City -- will gather at the stations to ask their general managers to join the protest.

"It's an invitation to the assassination of the 44th president," says the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, president of the NC NAACP. The nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization is asking that the Fox Corporation immediately fire the cartoonist, the editor-in-chief and increase diversity in the news room.

The NC State Conference of the NAACP and its affiliates will deliver letters to WCCB-TV in Charlotte, WRAZ-TV in Durham, WGHP-TV in High Point, WFXI-TV in Morehead City, and WSFX in Wilmington, asking the general managers to write a letter to Fox Corporation owner Rupert Murdoch supporting their demands.

"Dr. King says it is the silence of our friends that allows evil to flourish," Rev. Barber stated. "We are calling on our local Fox affiliate general manager to join us in expressing opposition to the hate speech of the New York Post, which is owned by their parent company. We ask Fox affiliates in North Carolina to be good corporate citizens and go on record against this abhorrent display of overt racism."

The cartoon, which showed police shooting an ape with a caption saying "I guess they'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," was juxtaposed against a photo of President Obama signing the stimulus package. Both Fox News and the New York Post have come under criticism by a variety of media watchdog groups for racially insensitive and biased reporting. Fox News was widely condemned for calling Michelle Obama "Obama's baby mama" and then-candidate Barak Obama's fist bump with this wife a "terrorist fist jab."

While Murdoch has recently apologized for the cartoon, the NAACP does not believe that is enough.

"There is a pattern of lack of diversity in the newsroom and racial insensitivity in the news at Fox News and the New York Post," Rev. Barber says. "Likening our African American president to a monkey is unacceptable. African Americans have for too long been called primates as a way of dehumanizing an entire race of people. It's time for this pattern at Fox news to stop."

NAACP supporters have sent more than 20,000 e-mails demanding that New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch apologize for the racist cartoon and fire the people responsible for it. Murdoch, who also owns Fox TV, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal, apologized in the Post Tuesday morning - but he hasn't said how he's going to fix the problem.

Mr. Murdoch could resolve this unfortunate situation in 15 minutes by meeting to develop substantive measures to ensure that this type of incendiary incident doesn't happen again.

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