Several conservative sites this week declared they had “debunked” New York Times columnist Charles Blow’s story about his son, who was allegedly stopped recently at gunpoint by a Yale police officer.
What was the bombshell that Blow had supposedly kept secret? The officer was apparently black.
In an op-ed published Sunday, Blow had relayed a story from his son Tahj about his recent run-in with a campus police officer who allegedly raised his gun and told the student to turn around and get on the ground.
Blow wrote that he was “exceedingly happy” that he had spoken to his son previously about precautions young black men should take when confronted by a police officer.
“In these moments, what you’ve done matters less than how you look,” he wrote.
Yale University later issued a campus-wide email that, among other things, noted that the officer in question was black, according to The Root.
Conservative media was convinced the officer’s race blew the entire story wide open.
“RACE-HOAX DEBUNKED: COP WHO DETAINED CHARLES BLOW’S SON IS BLACK,” was the Drudge-like headline at Breitbart News.
Editor-in-chief John Nolte slammed the “racially-charged” column, calling it another case of “prominent Leftists caught red-handed hurling false accusations of racism.”
“He Omitted One HUGE Fact,” read the headline at the Tea Party News Network, which condemned Blow along with the “anarchists and race hustlers” pushing his story, and “Communist New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio” for good measure.
Finally, over at the conservative media watchdog Newsbusters: “Race Matters: NY Times Columnist Charles Blow Omits His Son Detained by (Black) Cop at Yale.”
The site wrote that Blow was simply “pretending” that he had educated his son about racial inequities in American law enforcement, pointing to the “(ahem, black) cops” in this case.
Blow appeared on CNN Thursday night and told host Anderson Cooper that the racial component doesn’t change the point of what happened.
“It was more about culture of the police officers dealing with these young black men than individual officers dealing with these young black men,” he said.
