Fox News host Laura Ingraham is known to make attacks on minorities doing positive work.
Last year, she told LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” when he was advocating for basic human respect. In January, she did an impression of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s, D-Minn., accent, which is explicitly racist.
She can’t get much worse, right? Wrong.
On Friday during a segment of "The Ingraham Angle," she mocked late rapper Nipsey Hussle who was tragically murdered last month.
Mocking a murder victim is a disgusting. It takes an ignorant person to negatively speak on someone who just passed away.
After briefly discussing a tribute to Hussle in a dismissive light, the station diverted straight into degrading anything that is not conservative. Additionally, they did not provide any visuals or meaningful context on the tribute which is disrespectful in itself.
Ingraham decided to demean Hussle and play a song he was featured in, “FDT," or “F*** Donald Trump,” a protest song refuting Trump’s controversial views.
Although some would consider the song distasteful, it is a musical expression about how many minorities felt about Trump becoming president.
The beginning of the music video has a specific message, saying “As young people with an interest in the future of America…we have to exercise our intelligence and choose who leads us into it wisely. 2016 will be a turning point in this country’s history... the question is…in which direction will we go?”
Vulgar language or not, it is a protest song on change.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It does not matter how much she might dislike the song or how much profanity is in it. That does not give her a pass to ridicule a man who lost his life.
Fact checking is a basic principle of journalism, but it was heavily lacking in this segment of "The Ingraham Angle."
Ingraham said the song was recently released, although it came out in March 2016. She also said it was released by Hussle, but it was released by Compton rapper YG on his album "Still Brazy."
The station played the chorus of the song, which was performed by YG. The video played did not even include visuals of Hussle.
Not every black person looks the same. It’s a shame that it doesn’t go without saying.
Her lack of knowledge on hip-hop culture is clear. Her lack of basic common courtesy is clear as well.
When the clip ended, Ingraham laughed and jokingly called it a “creative refrain.” There is nothing funny about the murder of a man who gave his life to the black community. She even made an irrelevant jab at the end mentioning the low black unemployment rate.
Ingraham did not touch on Hussle’s community advocacy or the positive work he was doing to uplift everyone around him, but is anyone really surprised by that?
He was in a beautiful relationship. He was a father. A son. A brother. A friend. An artist. An activist. A human being.
He was a self-made man who grew up in a low-income area plagued by violence who used his background as an inspiration to make change. He inspired millions, was constantly creating and invested in his community.
The only thing Ingraham seems invested in is hate.
She needs to manifest that negative energy into something worthwhile.
Maybe she should hit the books again as a reminder of journalistic ethics. According to the Ethical Journalism Network, it is important to be aware that words and visuals used can do damage.
“It’s not the job of a journalist to do undue harm,” Ethical Journalism Network director Aidan White said in a video online. “We are part of a humanitarian process.”
Or to make it a little easier for her, maybe she should look up the word “empathy” because it is clearly nonexistent in her vocabulary and character.
