A “white” man named Shaun King will soon be writing for the New York Daily News, presumably to share a black man’s perspective on current affairs. King, who insists he is a black man even though his birth certificate, a police report, and his own relatives said he is actually white, is considered to be a leading figure in the anti-law enforcement Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
That movement, much like King’s position as a black leader, was apparently founded on a false narrative in Ferguson, Missouri, when a man who aggressively stole from a convenience store and physically assaulted an elderly person later attacked a police officer. The attacker was shot and killed as the police officer defended himself. Supporters claimed the attacker had his hands up when the justifiable shooting occurred.
The hire by the Daily News brings needed attention to the floundering paper, as Real Clear Politics reported in 2014 that the outlet was facing major financial woes and had suffered a 10 percent decline in circulation since 2007. CNN also mentioned the paper’s failures in a piece about King’s hiring. CNN’s Frank Pallotta wrote: “The hiring of King along with several others comes at a turbulent time for the paper in which its newsroom endured widespread layoffs of veteran reporters and editors.”
Though presenting King’s hiring as a desperate ploy to get attention for a fledgling business may seem harsh, it is next to impossible that King was hired for any other reason. King’s evidentiary standards–or lack thereof–were recently put on full display when he attempted to associate Townhall.com editor and Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich with alleged nooses at a university. Twitchy caught King deleting his post on social media about the incident when it turned out he had accused Pavlich before he had the facts.
The Daily News claims that King was hired to cover “justice.” Its editor told CNN, “Shaun’s writing on social inequality, police brutality and race relations in America has been some of the best work done in the country. His passion and attention to detail on topics that are of critical importance to our readers — both online and in print — make him a perfect fit for the Daily News.”
As shown above, however, the part about “attention to detail” is utter hogwash. The other claim to justify his hiring deserves special attention. The Daily News editor is implying that King is somehow carrying the torch of Martin Luther King, Jr. and addressing racial disparities and social justice.
Such claims about King and the BLM are frequently made by left-of-center figures, but let’s be honest–King and his BLM are carrying the torches of the Black Panther Party and Robert F. Williams, not MLK.
Any half-honest person knows that the platform released by activists prominent in the BLM is really just a reworked 10-point Black Panther Party platform (program). The constant chants at BLM rallies in support of convicted cop-killers like Mumia abu Jamal and Assata Shakur further illuminate the point. Two distinct poles in the historic American Civil Rights movement were between the MLK faction and the Robert F. Williams faction–or, to put it simply, between nonviolent civil disobedience and armed militancy.
Anyone who has read Robert F. Williams’ Negroes with Guns knows this and can see it. MLK fought hard against the very seductive militancy that was promoted by the people King and his BLM are promoting. Robert F. Williams and the like led to the Panthers, and the Panthers led to the armed and militant Black Liberation Army. Assata Shakur was in that crowd. That was not the MLK crowd, but rather the very crowd that MLK fought diligently against. Whether most journalists and other public figures who support King and his BLM are intentionally being dishonest, or if they are simply ignorant of historical facts, is unclear, but they are wrong.
It seems apparent that a failing news outlet hired a “white” man who claims to be black in a last-ditch effort to gain traffic and circulation before it goes under.
Follow Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby on Twitter: @brandondarby
(Disclosure: The author is close personal friends with the Katie Pavlich discussed in this article.)
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