Think Progress
Bill O’Reilly: ‘The Only Person In The Galaxy Who Is Able To Imagine A Raceless Human Being’
On Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor last night, Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill argued that when politicians like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin invoke “Joe Six Pack,” they are using a “code word” that excludes African-Americans. “Why can’t an African-American guy be Joe six pack?” asked O’Reilly.
“What I’m saying is that when people think of Joe Six Pack, when — the immediate image that comes to your mind is not a black man. It is often a white man,” said Lamont. O’Reilly then claimed that when he imagined “Joe Six Pack,” he pictured a person with “no color”:
HILL: What I’m saying is that when people think of Joe six pack, when — the immediate image that comes to your mind is not a black man. It is often a white man.
O’REILLY: The immediate image – no, the immediate image that comes to my mind is a guy of no color with a six pack of Bud. No color.
HILL: You might be the only person in the galaxy who is able to imagine a raceless human being. For most people our images of our people are racialized. And oftentimes the index of the normal average American is a white person.
Watch it:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: 2008 election cycle, media coverage, otherize, symbolic racism
