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Racist Fox News hosts call D.C. ‘third world’ city, say it must ‘behave’ if it wants statehood [1]
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Date: 2023-01-19
x Fox host describes Washington, DC as "basically a third [world country], Somalia, just a crime-ridden mess."
Another host: "If you're not going to behave, DC is never going to be a state." pic.twitter.com/VUBtnlqAKW — Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) January 18, 2023
Wednesday’s episode of The Five focused on crime in D.C.—hence the indictment of activists vying for the city to become a state in light of a recent vote to override D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto of the Revised Criminal Code. Critics say the revised code softens penalties on prison time for some violent crimes, including those involving a gun. Those in favor of code revisions say judges were rarely handing out the stiffest penalties anyway. It was the first revision of the codes since 1901.
“The mayor and I get along on a lot of issues… but on this one, I just have to say this… it is irresponsible for the mayor to characterize this as ‘this bill does not make us safer.’ That is irresponsible rhetoric,” Chairman Phil Mendelson said.
But despite what Fox News would have you believe, a city that’s 50% Black isn’t automatically “crime-ridden.”
In fact, according to Axios, violent crime in D.C. dropped 7% in 2022. Assault with a dangerous weapon was down by 17%; sex abuse was down by 13%; homicide was down by 10%; and burglary was down by 10%. Of the 20 American cities with the highest rates of violent crime, according to World Population Review, D.C. isn’t even on the list.
But what Fox News is really saying is that it wants to control the city, and it’s terrified that its 50% Black voting-aged residents would have full federal voting representation in Congress and local government autonomy.
This month, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a statehood bill to Congress with 165 of its original sponsors. It passed the House for the first time in history in 2020, and passed again in 2021.
"Thank you to those who signed on as original cosponsors,” Norton said. “In June of 2019, our D.C. statehood bill passed the House for the first time in our 220 years as the nation's capital, and passed again in April of 2021. Despite Republicans’ best efforts to stop us, we're on our way to becoming the 51st state.”
Of course, with a Republican-led House, the chances of D.C.’s 700,000 residents getting full representation is highly unlikely, despite having a larger population than the entire state of Wyoming.
“You can’t get statehood without Republicans and Democrats being for it,” Norton said in an interview with the GW Hatchet. “But you can’t get statehood without moving it every single year, and that’s why I’m going to move it this year, despite the fact that we have a Republican House.”
The reality is that Fox News is a bastion of racist rhetoric—whether hosts call D.C. a “third world” nation or Tucker Carlson implies that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Vice President Kamala Harris both got their jobs because they were Black. This would be like saying Carlson only has his because he’s white (which is partially true), but I digress.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/19/2148082/-Racist-Fox-News-hosts-call-D-C-third-world-city-say-it-must-behave-if-it-wants-statehood
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