Ed Henry Calls Kaepernick ‘Disgraced Anthem-Kneeler’, Fox Guest Says African Americans Today Don’t ‘Understand Their Own Black History’
Fox News National Correspondent Ed Henry called former NFL star Colin Kaepernick a “disgraced anthem-kneeler” during a segment in which he also appeared to agree with a guest who claimed people like Kaepernick “don’t understand their own black history.”
On July 4th, Kaepernick marked the occasion by tweeting quotes from an 1852 Frederick Douglass speech entitled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
“What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? This Fourth of July is yours, not mine…There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.”
– Frederick Douglass pic.twitter.com/IWLujGCJHn— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) July 4, 2019
On Fox & Friends this weekend, “hard news” personality Henry introduced a segment on Kaepernick’s tweet by referring to him as “disgraced anthem-kneeler Colin Kaepernick,” and was joined by self-styled black history expert David Barton, a white person, to explain Frederick Douglass to the Fox News audience.
Both Barton and Henry noted portions of the speech in which Douglass praised the founding fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution.
“So the whole tone is quite different from what Kaepernick did by going and taking two sentences, putting an ellipse between them, and making it seem like Douglas did not like America,” Barton said.
“What Douglass did is the same thing Lincoln did at the Gettysburg address, he said look we’ve got great principles, we don’t always live up to them. And so what Douglass did is said we don’t live up to the principles of all men are created equal and are endowed with liberty, he said, but america is making rapid progress,” Barton claimed.
But the bulk of Douglass’ speech is aimed at the abolition of slavery, and among the many other quotes that Kaepernick couldn’t fit into his tweet were things like “I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future” and “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”
“So the whole tone of the speech is very positive, very uplifting,” Barton continued.
What Henry and Barton did, in fact, was cherry-picking Frederick Douglass quotes out of context to change the character of the speech. In other words, exactly what they are accusing Kaepernick of having done, but with the added virtue of blindingly whitesplaining to actual black people.
Henry then explained to Barton and the Fox News audience why it was that Jackie Robinson said he could not stand for the national anthem, and that “he wasn’t necessarily attacking America, he loved his country, and in fact Jackie Robinson served in the US army, something Colin Kaepernick certainly didn’t do.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly right, and if you go back even to that, you look at the Civil War time, when there was genuine oppression and slavery,” Barton said, then added “which today we don’t have the slavery.”
“You look at seven African Americans who received the Medal of Monor for defending the American flag, and you look at what they say about how they’re willing to bleed and die for that because of what it represents, I mean the tone is so different from previous generations to the generation today that really doesn’t appear to understand their own black history, quite frankly,” Barton said. There have been 89 black recipients of the Medal of Honor.
“Yet a reminder, don’t just stick with 140 characters,” Henry agreed. “Somebody can tweet anything they want, the statement itself might be accurate, but it might be taken a little out of context, or a lot out of context.”
Watch the clip above, via Fox News.
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