Editorial: Laura Ingraham Is What’s Wrong With America Today

Racism is alive and well in America today, and as it continues to cast a dark shadow and divide the country, people in positions of power should be doing their best to highlight and end it.

Laura Ingraham, an anchor for FOX News, has done exactly the opposite of this recently, and has only exemplified the divide in the country today.

Nipsey Hussle, a rapper and activist who was shot and killed outside of his store in Los Angeles last month, was the subject of the latest controversy surrounding Ingraham.

In his short 33 years on the planet, the rapper dedicated an incredible amount of time and money into rebuilding the community that raised him, bettering the streets of California by renovating schools and helping impoverished communities.

On the day of Nipsey Hussle’s funeral service, which was attended by thousands in support of the rapper, Ingraham dedicated a portion of her show to talk about the slain star. Ingraham, who clearly did not know much about the man before this segment, mocked and criticized the rapper, citing the song “F- Trump” often. The song is not actually Nipsey Hussle’s, however, but rather YG, another California based rapper.

In February of last year, Ingraham was under fire for comments made on her show criticizing NBA star LeBron James, who had been critical of Donald Trump in a post game interview. The FOX anchor was quick to discredit the opinion of James, advising that he instead “shut up and dribble.”

James, a 34-year-old multi-millionaire has never been one to be afraid of speaking his mind on tough subject matters. After the murder of Eric Garner in 2014, James was one of the many in the NBA seen sporting “I can’t breathe” t-shirts during pre-game warm-ups. The shirt’s quote come from the last words of Garner, who was killed from a police officer choking him out for selling single cigarettes on a street corner.

James has a lot to show for himself off the court as well, like founding the I Promise School in Akron, Ohio. The school aims to help children with tough living situations in the Akron area, and has already shown results as such, with both of the inaugural classes showing great strides in improvement.

So someone who has done more for his community than most could ever dream of, who has voiced opinions on social issues in the past and is a man everyone not living under a rock knows and loves doesn’t have the right to voice his opinion with the platform he is given?

While many choose to ignore it, Ingraham represents a scary number of Americans today. This was illustrated on Central Connecticut’s own campus recently, with racial slurs targeted towards African-Americans being spray painted onto the walls of buildings on campus. Just because you don’t see it every day, does not mean it is not there. With Ingraham having the platform she does, it is dangerous to think what kind of effect she may have on the viewers to her newscast.