Why Tucker Carlson is boosting NFL reporter Michele Tafoya's views on race

[Nevilledog]

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Greg Sargent
@ThePlumLineGS
Tucker Carlson is trying to make a new right wing hero out of Michele Tafoya, who's retiring from sports reporting to spend more time attacking critical race theory.

Check out their sleazy rhetorical scam. It shows how the anti-CRT game really works:

washingtonpost.com
Opinion | Why Tucker Carlson is boosting NFL reporter Michele Tafoya’s views on race
How the right's rhetorical scam on race is designed to shut down debate.
9:20 AM · Feb 17, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/17/tucker-carlson-michele-tafoya-critical-race-theory/

No paywall
https://archive.fo/4PC02

“It breaks my heart that my kids are being taught that skin color matters,” now-retired NBC sports reporter Michele Tafoya told Tucker Carlson in the latest installment of his Fox News program.
If you’re not exactly sure what that phrase is supposed to mean, well, that’s the whole point.
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Carlson devoted a segment to Tafoya on Wednesday night, now that Tafoya has left sports reporting to join a Republican gubernatorial campaign. Tafoya plans to devote more time to criticizing critical race theory and airing other views about race, and Carlson is trying to turn her into a new right-wing hero.

This episode provides an object lesson in how people such as Carlson claim the mantle of race neutrality as a powerful rhetorical device, a device that has served as the foundation for much of the rhetorical chicanery we’ve heard on race of late.

In this case, the game centers on Tafoya’s lament that her “kids are being taught that skin color matters.” In their exchange, Carlson adored this formulation, and there’s a reason why: It’s a cheap trick, one that allows the speaker to minimize the importance of racial disparities while piously adopting the moral high ground of post-racial color-blindness.

*snip*

[rockfordfile]

1. It seems that Michele Tafoya is a racist

[PCIntern]

2. I can only hope and pray

that one of her children falls in love with a person of color and joins them in Holy Matrimony. I’m certain no one in her family will mention the fact….

[Ilsa]

4. ITA. It would be eye-opening for these a-holes. nt

[Ilsa]

3. Every February, the RW rhetoric ramps up,

and it feels like it's worse than ever this year. Fucker Carlson is a real POS.

[Casady1]

5. Tafoya backed the owners

in the Kapernick fiasco. Her take was " if he was good enough he would get a contract". Clueless . Plus she was s shitty reporter.

[Diamond_Dog]

6. I can't believe

she hasn’t learned anything at all being a reporter for NFL broadcasts for so long. She should talk to Matthew Stafford

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2020/09/18/matthew-stafford-players-tribune-detroit-lions/5826893002/

[onecaliberal]

7. If you don't see color, you don't see people.

[Johonny]

8. she knows it matters

She just doesn't want to teach kids that. However, kids aren't stupid and most figure it out rather early.

[Caliman73]

9. It breaks my heart that SKIN COLOR MATTERS

It breaks my heart that I have to teach my kids that their skin tone and their last name affects how people see them. It breaks my heart that a name on a piece of paper (resume) that sounds "Black" or ethnic often doubles the chance that you will not be hired for a job.

A lot of things break my heart. One last thing that breaks my heart. that ignorant OR stupid people think that we can live in a "colorblind" society without ever acknowledging and doing what they need to do to dismantle the systems that value and disadvantage people based on race, skin color, gender, sexual orientation, etc...

[JanMichael]

10. Very sad to hear.

I knew somebody with the same name almost 35 years ago. That particular Michelle became a nurse and a decent liberal. She was the first generation Mexican-American.

My edit would be that I think that they would about the same age now with totally different results. It's just sad because every time I hear that name I think of a nice person.

[Solomon]

11. But, but, skin color DOES matter.

Stupid ass!