Shine an eye

Heard on Morning Joe. A Democrat voter in a focus group was talking about the double standard in coverage of the BLM protests and the January 6 insurrection:

“I feel like they always shine an eye on the things that are so negative when it comes to people of color”.

This is a congruent conflation of “shine a light on (something)” and “cast an eye on (something)”, both meaning to carefully review something and issue an opinion or analysis of it. The malaphor has some assonance here – “Shine” and “eye”, which may have led to the mashup. Also a black eye is a “shiner”, so this may have added confusion in the speaker’s mind. A big thanks to Vicki Ameel-Kovacs for hearing this one and sending it in.