So this week in the US, Megyn Kelly talked about blackface and Halloween on her television talk show, “Megyn Kelly Today” on NBC. That was on Tuesday (October 23rd 2018). On Friday NBC cancelled her show, but will likely have to pay off her contract of 69 million dollars.
It was a fail on so many levels:
- In 2017 NBC hires Megyn Kelly, an unrepentant White racist from an infamously racist cable news channel, Fox News. NBC sinks $69 million into her.
- To make way for “Megyn Kelly Today”, they fire two Black people, Tamron Hall and Al Roker, who had good ratings and were paid nothing close to Megyn Kelly.
- Kelly gets worse ratings but NBC keeps her on anyway.
- Megyn Kelly did a discussion on blackface – with an all-White panel.
- Megyn Kelly apparently did no research on blackface. At all. It seems she did not even talk to a Black person or do a Google search.
Megyn Kelly, far right, discusses blackface with an all-White panel in 2018.
What do you even call this? White Privilege? No Black People In the Room? Neither seems to do it justice.
Underlying each step is racist White arrogance, one that says Black people do not matter, that White people are so much better. So much better that they get to keep their shows despite terrible ratings. So much better that they do not have to even do a Google search when talking on national television about anti-Black racism.
And then, when the disaster that was waiting to happen happens, they and their defenders plead cluelessness. Even though NBC and Megyn Kelly are paid millions to inform the rest of us of what is going on!
Exhale.
Reckneckism with a pretty face: On Fox News she said far worse things – and went right on smiling. NBC, to its slight credit, made her apologize and then cancelled her show. It was the right thing to do, something Fox News apparently never thought to do.
What she said on NBC about blackface:
“But what is racist? … Because you do get in trouble if you are a White person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a Black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was okay, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”
and then proceeded to defend a case of blackface that appeared last year on “Real Housewives of New York”.
(Kelly was born in 1970 and grew up in lily-White towns in upstate New York.)
On Fox News:
- Said Black people suffer from a “thug mentality” where it is “cool” not to be there for your family.
- Had Mark Fuhrman on regularly to talk about police brutality. Fuhrman was the infamously racist police officer in the O.J. Simpson case.
- Called the First Lady “Obama’s baby mama”.
- Said Sandra Bland would still be alive if she had obeyed the police.
- Said the Black teenage girl pinned to the ground by police at a pool part in McKinney, Texas was “no saint”.
- Said: “Santa just is White … Jesus is a White man too.”
– Abagond, 2018.
Sources: mainly Google Images, USA Today, BBC.
See also:
- Megyn Kelly: Santa is white
- blackface
- Halloween
- Fox News
- Sandra Bland
- McKinney pool party
- Roseanne Barr
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Abagond 
I can’t believe she had Fuhrman on the show multiple times! That’s terrible even by Fox standards.
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I stuggle to believe it is ignorance or “lack of exposure”, seems intentional . Doing my side eye
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Serves NBC right they have to eat that sixty-nine million dollar loss they have to pay Megyn Kelly. They knew who and what she was coming from Fox News. Serves NBC right for pushing Tamron Hall and Al Roker out of their spots that got high ratings and they were good at their jobs and they probably didn’t get nearly half the money they are going to have to pay the racist no talent hack Megyn Kelly. NBC’s actions speak volumes in respect to how they value Black Americans and chose a racist instead. I wonder if Tamron and Al and fist bumping each other over this karma.
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Megyn Kelly is a 47years old and she should know better. Megyn Kelly comes from racist Fox News where her mindset is the norm. She doesn’t get a pass from me. She is who she’s always been.
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I doubt if NBC loss any money on this person. They have lawyers. Megyn is just a controversial individual ahead of her time.
Today we need people that are “milk toast’ in nature so they do not make any statement that hurts any ones feelings.
We are at a “stand still” in communications between people.
Can we move forward or will be caught in a 50/50 separation. As bad as we think Donald Trump is, at least he is forcing this conversation out into the open where it can either be examined or blow up!
Free speech does not mean free speech, it means learn every word that offends any of the people that are different and do not utter any one of them.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander!
I will be gone, I hope you enjoy your politically correct lives!
On this site I have seen many anti-someone or something statements. Soon it will not be allowed because someone will be offended.
Think!
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@Allen Shaw
Sounds like something a bigoted jerk would say but okay.
The point of freedom of speech is you CAN say whatever you want without censorship; what you can’t do is not experience consequences from your right to freedom of speech.
So if you get fired, beaten up, cussed out, and/or ostracized from your peers because of your speech particularly if it is cruel and uncalled for in nature, then that’s your own fault.
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NBC got what they deserved here. This was 100% predictable. They gambled by trying to recruit her from Fox because she seemed to be outspoken on Women’s issues and I’m sure they felt that would fit their 9am demographic while winning over viewers on the right. That whole White women that elected Trump demographic. They may have completely ignored her racism or felt they could keep a lid on it, but I’m betting they felt it was a feature and not a bug.
I applauded Tamron Hall for standing up for herself and leaving in spite of the substantial offer NBC made to keep her. I was a regular viewer of the Today Show for decades and Tamron’s last day was mine as well. It has not been on in my home since. She is a brilliant newswoman and I have no doubt that she will rise to the top at ABC where she’s developing a new daytime show. As much as I’d love to see her commentary on this issue, it’s just like her to take the high road. I don’t think I’d be so classy if I were in the same boat.
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@Allen Shaw
“Megyn is just a controversial individual ahead of her time.”
I hope you’re wrong. I fear you are correct. We definitely do seem to be headed to a time where willful ignorance wins the day and the purveyors of truth are seen as impediments to success.
“I hope you enjoy your politically correct lives!”
Megyn referred to not being PC as well. I wonder why racists think it is “regular correct” to demean, disrespect, disenfranchise and oppress human beings based on skin color and that one must be “politically correct” if they don’t. Do you really believe that not being racist is political? That people who consider Black people as equal human beings worthy of respect and dignity are somehow only faking it as a way of making nice and winning political favor?
Yes, genuine politicians certainly need to be aware of every word so as not to offend anyone, whether that’s race, union membership, police, working class, elites, young people, old people, etc… Politicians walk a fine line to win as many votes as possible. For them, being “politically correct” might mean avoiding speaking truths like, “we need to overhaul policing in our community” or “building a new library will mean increased taxes” because those things might cost them votes. However, refusing to acknowledge the horribly racist origins of blackface while discussing blackface… using politically correct in that context is simply an attempt to diminish the real harm caused by people with Megyn Kelly’s attitudes.
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Good post and good points
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@Allen Shaw:” I will be gone hope you enjoy your politically correct lives” Do you promise?
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@Mary Burrell
ROFL
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Yes, Mary I promise!
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Megyn Kelly’s hell is being born Megyn Kelly, an utterly witless wonder.
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Allen Shaw, you said “Free speech does not mean free speech, it means learn every word that offends any of the people that are different and do not utter any one of them.”
Let me say that from what I’ve learned the last couple of years, free speech to some people means freedom of responsibility and freedom of consequences. When argue about having free speech, to me it sounds like what spoiled, bratty teenagers say when confronted about their bad behavior.
“I do what I want!”
Free speech does give you the right to say whatever you want, but it doesn’t mean that whatever you want to say must be said, nor does it mean that everyone must respect and accept your words, especially if it offends. But I find it telling how those who scream for free speech have a problem with others who use that same freedom that makes them uncomfortable. You know, the PC people who had enough of the BS and openly speak on why they’re upset.
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