Fox News: Is Calling Michael Brown An ‘Unarmed Teen’ Playing The Race Card?

Fox & Friends co-host and guest discuss how using the phrase "unarmed teenager" to describe Michael Brown might be misleading.
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Fox News contributor Linda Chavez appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Monday to discuss how the use of the phrase “unarmed teen” to describe Michael Brown was misleading because he was “an 18-year-old man who is six foot four and weighs almost three hundred pounds.”

As surveillance footage ran onscreen showing Michael Brown allegedly robbing a convenience store shortly before his death, Chavez said the phrase “unarmed teen” was being used to influence the perception of the shooting. She also claimed the description was “enhancing” racial fears.

Appearing on the show to discuss her op-ed column about Attorney General Eric Holder, Chavez explained to co-host Steve Doocy that Holder is “coming in before an investigation has even been complete” and “basically picking a side.”

Chavez, the one-time nominee of President George W. Bush to lead the Department of Labor, then went on to discuss how this approach is “a travesty of justice.” She said that the actions of this administration are “enhancing” racial fears by using “this mantra of the unarmed black teenager shot by a white cop” to incite the public and influence the incident.

“I think it is an exploitation of the black community,” Chavez said. “I think it is playing the race card and I think it’s disgraceful.”

Watch the video, courtesy of Media Matters:

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Notable Replies

  1. According to Fox Not the News it is. They are touchy. They think ‘meatpuppet’ is an insult, not a description of Brian Kilmeade

  2. Avatar for mcbain mcbain says:

    Calling someone an “unarmed teen” is simply calling someone an “unarmed teen”. There is nothing further you can possibly read into it.

    … puts on Fox News hat …

    Well, I guess you can assume the person is not a true american tea party patriot, otherwise they would have been white and armed. So it must be playing the race card.

  3. Such is the state of affairs that the assumption is that as a black kid in America, he was armed unless proven otherwise.

    If Brown was white, do you think anyone would be using that adjective?

  4. Clearly, in order to avoid “playing the race card” and “picking a side,” the media should refer to Brown as a “hulking, menacing sub-human drug-crazed Thug who forfeited his right to live by failing to instantly drop to the ground lie face down with his hand behind his head as soon as a police officer looked in his direction.” Those People bring these things on themselves by their failure to do that.

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