Happy Friday. It’s time for another “difficult” conversation about race, and we have Tucker Carlson to thank.
In the hours after the Jan. 6 insurrection, the former Fox News host sent a racist text message to an unnamed producer that “set off a panic at the highest levels of Fox” and may have helped secure his ouster, the New York Times reported this week.
The text was part of a trove of documents amassed in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. In it, he describes how he watched a video of violent Trump supporters attacking an “Antifa kid.” It triggered something in him, he said. “It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight,” he texted. “Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be.”
There’s a lot to unpack—“becoming” is doing a lot of work, for example. But for our purposes, let’s focus on Carlson’s comment, “It’s not how white men fight.” Ironically, thanks in part to Carlson and the culture of virulent white supremacy he’s helped popularize, that’s exactly how many white men fight.
I’m thinking of Jordan Neely, the 30-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator who often performed in the New York City subway. He was also homeless with mental health issues. On Monday, he was in distress, agitatedly yelling at passengers that he was hungry and wanted to die.
While his outburst was sad, these things are not unusual for New York subway riders.
But on this particular day, a white passenger, unable to tolerate Neely’s anguish, put him in a chokehold for 15 minutes. The video, which I will not share, was brutal, and Neely died at the scene. The city’s medical examiner has ruled it a homicide, and the white passenger who killed Neely has not yet been charged or named, pending further investigation.
I’m also thinking about Ralph Yarl, the Black teen recently shot by a homeowner for ringing the wrong doorbell, and the growing number of “stand your ground” shootings that are lowering the bar for what can be justifiably considered a threat. The long history of regular white folks “policing” the behavior of Black people in public spaces—parks, pools, stores—is the toxic foundation upon which the current culture of fear and resentment thrives. But with the power of the airwaves, Carlson and his cronies made it acceptable, even thrilling, for aggrieved white people to take matters into their own hands at the slightest provocation.
Carlson ends his text pointlessly wondering how he had become part of the bloodthirsty mob he helped create. “I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this [Antifa] kid and would be crushed if he was killed,” he wrote. “If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
This edition of raceAhead was edited by Ruth Umoh.
On Point
Biden’s military pick will diversify Pentagon leadership
President Joe Biden is expected to nominate Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff, succeeding Gen. Mark A. Milley, whose term ends in September. If confirmed, it would mean Black men hold the two top leadership roles in the military.
New York Times
A Māori artist hacks the coronation of King Charles
Put off by the media swirl around the royal coverage, a Māori artist created a free plug-in that replaces news of the coronation with news from Indigenous people worldwide. “People are sick of it—they don’t care about how much a diamond costs and who’s wearing what dress,” Hāmiora Bailey told the Guardian. “Across the globe, Indigenous folk are tired of [this] rhetoric around frivolity and class.”
The Guardian
More news about Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow
The latest from ProPublica finds that in addition to providing luxury trips and taking care of the Supreme Court Justice's mother, real estate developer Crow also paid the tuition for Clarence's grandnephew, whom the Justice had been “raising as a son.” “This is way outside the norm. This is way in excess of anything I’ve seen,” said Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer for former President George W. Bush.
ProPublica
Keep up with the attacks on college diversity efforts
The Chronicle of Higher Education is tracking legislation that would prohibit colleges from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or staff; ban the use of diversity statements in hiring and promotion; or prohibit colleges from using race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in admissions or employment. Free to read after registration.
Chronicle of Higher Education
On Background
Let's all de-escalate
Would you know what to do if you saw someone being harassed in public? Belittled in the office? Intervening effectively is a skill. If your organization doesn’t offer this training, consider finding an outside resource for yourself or your team. Right to Be, formerly known as Hollaback, is a nonprofit that offers bystander and de-escalation training, among other services. Find out more here.
If a homeless person is sleeping and taking up space on public transportation, simply leave them alone. Don’t take a photo, don’t shame them, and learn why housing is a problem in your community, says the Chicago Reader.
If you want to go deeper, try the CAIRO method to de-escalate. Words and behaviors that are calm, assertive, informing, reflect/redirect, and opening.
Parting Words
"What we found was that the elements that he borrows and sands down from the far right are not just, you know, kind of isolated incidents on the show or things he pops into here and there. They are a constant theme, a drumbeat spanning hundreds of episodes of the show, hundreds of segments."
—New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore on his in-depth story about Carlson, his show, and ideas that were once "caged in a dark corner of American life"
