Kanye West’s White House visit on Thursday left a lot of people scratching their heads, cracking jokes, and maybe a little worried about him. Fox News, though, loved it, with Tucker Carlson talking about Kanye’s “real insights into the way the world actually is rather than the way they tell us it is” and Diamond and Silk appearing on Fox & Friends to praise Kanye’s visit and attack its critics. When President Barack Obama was in the White House, it may not surprise you to learn that Fox News was not as enthusiastic about presidential appearances with rappers.
When Common appeared at the White House, conservatives dug through his past words looking for something to get offended about, and then … got offended.
Fox ran headlines online that called Common “vile” and “cop-killer rapper.” Sarah Palin weighed in on Twitter, and Sean Hannity devoted a large portion of his show to it.
“It baffles me that this is the person the White House chooses to set as an example for our kids,” Hannity said. “This is not a guy we want our kids to listen to.”
When Jay-Z did a fundraiser for Obama in 2012, Hannity described him as a “rapper who has admitted to selling crack and shooting his own brother.” And, as for Kanye himself during the Obama era:
Jill Dobson, then a Fox News correspondent, grouped Kanye West with other “gangsta” rappers like Lil Wayne and Jay-Z, calling him sarcastically “the ultimate gentleman, as Taylor Swift knows” to refute a statement Common made about how Obama was helping elevate rap music.
When Republicans manage to find themselves a black token to show that they’re totally not racist because hey, a black person, they want the world to know and celebrate. When black people are elevated above tokenism, we see just how mad Fox News gets.