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Civil Rights Group Calls on MSNBC to Fire Pat Buchanan

Following the release of his book, Buchanan appeared on white supremacist radio show attacking the country’s increasing diversity

New York, NY – Thousands of members of African-American civil rights organization ColorOfChange.org are calling on MSNBC to fire political analyst Pat Buchanan after Buchanan was interviewed on white nationalist radio program, The Political Cesspool, to promote his new book.

The Political Cesspool describes itself as representing “a philosophy that is pro-White … We wish to revive the White birthrate above replacement level fertility and beyond to grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races.”

The show has a reputation for being racist, sexist, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic.

In his interview, Buchanan repeatedly warned of the dangers of America’s increasing diversity. Buchanan also went on to say that white males are the “victims of affirmative action, not the beneficiaries.”1 In calling for his firing, ColorOfChange.org cited a long history of bigoted rhetoric from Buchanan.

Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org, said “This weekend Pat Buchanan showed us where he really belongs — on white supremacist radio, not on national television. MSNBC’s motto is ‘lean forward,’ but Pat Buchanan’s bigoted ideology would be backwards for the 1930s. Thousands of ColorOfChange members — Black Americans and our allies of every race — are calling on MSNBC to fire him immediately.”

Robinson continued, “Buchanan has the right to express his views, but he’s not entitled to a platform that lets him broadcast bigotry and hate to millions. If MSNBC wants to be seen as a trusted, mainstream source of news and commentary, it needs to fire Buchanan now.”

Here are a few examples of what Buchanan has said in the past:

  • “This has been a country built basically by white folks.”1
  • “Sonia Sotomayor does believe in race-based justice basically at the expense of white males and to advance people of color. The truth is that’s what Barack Obama believes as well.”2
  • America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known … no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.” 3
  • “[Former KKK Grand Wizard] David Duke is busy stealing from me. I have a mind to go down there and sue that dude for intellectual property theft.”4
  • Buchanan has defended Hitler,5 and said that “in a way, both sides were right” during the civil war.6
  • Buchanan often implies that white people are more intelligent than people of color, and this weekend (in a different radio interview), he refused to disavow the idea that white people have superior genes.7

References

1. “Rachel Maddow Duels With Pat Buchanan On Affirmative Action,” Huffington Post, 07-16-09 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/16/rachel-maddow-duels-with_n_237036.html

2. “Bob Shrum explodes over Pat Buchanan’s racism as Limbaugh uses MLK against Sotomayor,” 05-30-09 http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/bob-shrum-explodes-over-pat-buchanans-r?highlight=%22Pat+Buchanan%22

3. “A Brief for Whitey,” Pat Buchanan in Human Events, 03-21-08 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25634

4. “Pat Buchanan in His Own Words,” Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, 02-26-96 http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2553

5. “MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan defends Hitler. Again.” Media Matters, 09-02-09 http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909020026

6. “Buchanan: ‘[I]n a way, both sides were right’ during the Civil War,” Media Matters, 04-08-10 http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201004080046

7. “Pat Buchanan Won’t Disavow Idea That Minorities Have Inferior Genes,” Media Matters, 10-21-11 http://mediamatters.org/blog/201110210018

More on Pat Buchanan’s history of bigotry:

“The Bigotry Of Pat Buchanan,” Media Matters, 07-29-2011 http://mediamatters.org/research/201107290005

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With more than 750,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest African-American online political organization.

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