Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/94842
Sarasota News Leader November 23, 2012 Unfortunately, Deggans told the audience, his efforts to reach out to O'Reilly to start a con- versation about racial tensions in the media were unsuccessful once the two finally sat down together. According to Deggans, the questions he posed to O'Reilly about why he was called a "race-baiter" and his follow-up question about O'Reilly's thoughts on the possibilities of dialogue between black peo- ple and white people concerning race were largely evaded or dismissed. In the introduction to Race-Baiter, Deggans quotes O'Reilly as telling him, "'I think it's a press problem, not a people problem.'" Despite these convolutions in communica- tion, Deggans explained to the audience, the idea behind the term itself is clear. "The ba- Page 53 sic point of [O'Reilly's] commentary was that white people couldn't talk to black people about race anymore because it's too danger- ous. It's too easy to be called a racist and just not worth it," Deggans added. Although he may not agree with O'Reilly's decision to be- stow the label upon him, Deggans explained that he chose to embrace it because it present- ed him with a poignant opportunity to openly discuss, dissect and analyze issues of subtle racism and stereotyping in America's modern, hyper-competitive news media landscape. He read a passage from Race-Baiter to un- derscore his point: "Sometimes such a slur, coming from the right people, feels less like a criticism than a badge of honor, communi- cating mostly one thing: You're on the right track." Bill O'Reilly called the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Eric Deggans and the media watchdog organization Me- dia Matters for America 'race-baiters' in the Talking Points segment of the April 7, 2008 episode of his show, The O'Reilly Factor.