The funeral of Aretha Franklin was a defining moment for the black civil rights-linked establishment, yet who should turn up in its front row but Nation of Islam chief and notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan? This is the so-called "leader" who calls Hitler "a good man." The press, particularly MSNBC, is trying to cover it up.

That certainly leaves a double-sour note on what could have been at least a respectable occasion. Seriously, how'd that freak get in there, and why the heck was he seated in the front row, alongside the other so-called leaders of the black "community," such as the just barely past the respectable line Jesse Jackson; Al Sharpton; and America's supposed "first black president"; Bill Clinton?

It is what it is, and what it shows is that Franklin, at best, didn't pay attention to what kind of black people she was supporting in her long and storied musical career. After all, back in the 1960s and early 1970s, she gave a lot of money to support the criminal defense of Angela Davis, who apparently let a gun slip into a prison to help her then-boyfriend, George Jackson, something for which she was eventually and controversially acquitted. According to Franklin's Wikipedia page, she explained her support this way:

When Angela Davis was jailed in 1970, Franklin told Jet, "Angela Davis must go free, ... Black people will be free. I've been locked up (for disturbing the peace in Detroit) and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can't get no peace. Jail is hell to be in. I'm going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because I believe in communism, but because she's a Black woman and she wants freedom for Black people."

This might explain why she was presumably OK with Farrakhan besmirching her funeral with his presence, too. Apparently, the association between Farrakhan and Franklin went way back:

For those asking why Minister Louis Farrakhan is at the funeral #ArethaFranklinHomegoing #arethahomegoing pic.twitter.com/0dTQjFTIMQ — Karen Maria Alston (@advertisingdiva) August 31, 2018

And that ought to be part of the story, to be discussed at length as to Franklin's role and legacy, too.

But actual and accurate history isn't what the mainstream press is about. The press actually tried to cover it up.

Here is one accusatory tweet, pointing out that Farrakhan was cropped from news photos by MSNBC, ABC, and Variety:

.@MSNBC, @Variety, @ABC all crop out anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan from front row shot at #ArethaFranklin funeral. This is what dishonest media coverage looks like. Fellow journalists, this is why ppl don’t trust us. Give them the full picture. Don’t paternalistically censor. pic.twitter.com/WcxdhKsVUV — Joshua Yasmeh (@JoshYaz) August 31, 2018

The ABC accusation is arguable, because Farrakhan did show up on ABC screen grabs from its broadcasts posted around Twitter, but he was cropped out in ABC's own Twitter pix. Variety seems to have gone along, too. And it's inarguable that MSNBC tried to crop the famous anti-Semite out, the better to represent the black establishment as somehow respectable, with a guy like Farrakhan up front.

Here is what Twitchy found:

POOF HE'S GONE! MSNBC and ABC crop out Louis Farrakhan from Aretha Franklin funeral photo https://t.co/95hzUMGroO — Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 31, 2018

...and here is what MSNBC ran:

Rev. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and fmr. President Bill Clinton attend Aretha Franklin's funeral celebration. https://t.co/MTlJAs1ET2 pic.twitter.com/hI7Z4GtvnV — MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 31, 2018

So here we have it: the black establishment exposed for its embrace of a naked anti-Semite, and these guys don't think it's a story. In fact, their cropping of the image may well have been a bid to protect Bill Clinton, husband of their beloved Hillary Clinton, from criticism. Yet the fact stands that this is a disreputable bunch, and they've done a bad job standing up for the interests of the black community if the educational levels, the poverty levels, and the cities run by Democrats for decades are any indicator of how black people have fared. Farrakhan among them is not surprising.

It was a story, and it goes to show the extent to which the press wants that covered up. Any questions as to why the press is so distrusted by the public?