
When the BET Awards aired on Sunday, one of the more notable fashion choices was worn by Jamie Foxx. The Academy Award-winning actor wore a simple T-shirt with an image of Trayvon Martin in a hoodie emblazoned across it. Nothing flashy, but certainly powerful — and, apparently to the people at Fox News, controversial.
Spotted by New York magazine's Daily Intelligencer, Bill O'Reilly and his fellow Fox News anchors wondered aloud whether or not Foxx was a racist and would it have been acceptable for a white celebrity to wear a T-shirt supporting George Zimmerman.
"If a white actor had worn a George Zimmerman T-shirt, would that have been acceptable?" Let's ask Alan Colmes!
"We have a white power structure," Colmes, who is still on television, timidly tried to explain. Fox News analyst Monica Crowley offered that if a white celebrity wore an "I believe George" shirt, "his or her career would be destroyed on the spot."
"But Jamie Foxx is not a racist?" O'Reilly asked, still ignoring the fact that one of these people is dead at the hand of the other. "We can assume, Colmes, that if a white actor did that, he would get a Paula Deen."
We can help answer a couple of O'Reilly's questions ourselves. No, it would not have been socially acceptable for a celebrity to wear a George Zimmerman T-shirt, but we're pretty sure there are some everyday people who are dumb enough to wear them. As for O'Reilly's second question about whether or not Foxx is a racist for wearing a T-shirt to honor the memory of a 17-year-old boy who was murdered, here's our answer: No. A million times, no. Just no. Not at all.
Read more and watch the video at Daily Intelligencer.
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Jozen Cummings is the author and creator of the popular relationship blog Until I Get Married, which is currently in development for a television series with Warner Bros. He also hosts a weekly podcast with WNYC about Empire called Empire Afterparty, is a contributor at VerySmartBrothas.com and works at Twitter as an editorial curator. Follow him on Twitter.
