I went to high school with Megyn Kelly in Upstate NY. I did not know her as we were not that close in age. Anyway, in a school of about a 1,000 kids, there were maybe 10 black kids total.
She is 100% correct in her statement that when she was growing up it was considered acceptable to dress in black face. Because people were cluelessly racist there.
That doesn’t make it right but it’s understandable. But it’s telling to me that after living and working in New York City for decades, she still thought this and voiced it.
She’s your typical Fox trash—brimming with resentment and enticed by the easy riches of right wing punditry—it pays a lot better than straight news or left wing punditry. And this way she can play victim for the shit munchers!
I dint think there’s anything wrong with dressing up as someone from a different race—especially for actors, the whole point of them is to portray something other than what you are!—so long as the portrayal is not an insulting one (I’d even say it’s problematic to portray your OWN race in an insulting manner). But Kelly is just playing dumb (or maybe not playing) about blackface which has a well known history of racial mockery, which is why society generally makes an exception for it.
Stephen, I have a confession to make. Back in 1977, when I was 24, we attended a raucous neighborhood Halloween party. My husband won the ‘best costume’ prize by dressing up as Aunt Jemima. A big guy, he wore a huge apron over a borrowed size-XXL housecoat, some pink house slippers, a scarf around his head, and creamy dark-brown eye shadow slathered all over his face and hands. We all laughed, mainly because he looked so ridiculous. We weren’t racists! We loved Aunt Jemima! We even had actual Black friends (although none of them were at this party)!
It never occurred to us how grotesque and offensive that costume might have been to others. It was a few years later that, coming across a picture from that night in our photo album, I suddenly felt embarrassed to even have the snapshot in my possession, and I removed that piece of incriminating evidence of our ignorance and threw it away.
That’s what Political Correctness will do to you: Make you aware that behaviors you’ve always thought were A-okay within your own bubble may not be okay at all to people outside of it. To this day, remembering that Halloween costume embarrasses me, but the experience still serves as a reminder that often, even we “woke” folks aren’t as woke as we think we are.
(Sorry this is so long — I actually edited half of it out.)
Thanks so much for the thoughtful response! Yes, I think there is nothing inherently evil or worth permanent condemnation for having done this in the past. Things change, fortunately.
[Back when I was a kid, that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.]
In the 80's and 90's when I was a kid, a lot of shitty things were "okay" in the sense that we didn't get into trouble for being shitty, insecure teenage boys.
We stopped being shitty, insecure little boys, Megyn. We grew up.
You ought to try it. It's easier. You stop caring about what other people do if it doesn't hurt you or innocent people. You care about other people's feelings and don't want to make the world worse for folks. You stop caring what the insecure bullies think. They're miserable and small people and life is too short to be miserable and small.
It’s astounding to me how so many public figures have such a complete inability to deliver a genuine apology. But it’s usually because they truly are not sorry. They’re just sorry they got called out. This I attribute to being so insulated from real life, living in a bubble of cushy comfort.
She’s always been a horrible person and her jealousy is evident through the screen.
I'm curious whether (and which) "conservative" commentators who have been exiled from network TV will see a drop in relevance vs a consolidation of their reach and influence as cord-cutting and generational changeover proceeds. As others have pointed out, Joe Rogan's audience now dramatically exceeds Kimmel, Colbert, and whoever else *combined*. I'm wondering whether Bannon, Tucker, Kelly, et al have truly receded from relevance versus continued to build and command platforms that are less publicly visible.
Kelly's endless grievance is her MAGA ID card, one she shares with her leader and a majority of other followers. these people are never, ever responsible for their own falls—no, they are always innocent, always the victims of shadowy deep state or antifa or Soros or whatever. Kelly and her folks will forever, no matter the reality, believe themselves uniquely targeted and rejected for their disgusting utterance.
That’s the real measure of MAGA—a sense that the world is unfair to you because of insidious forces and not because some problems are more complicated than you’d like them to be.
It must be nice to get paid $69 million to go away like Frau Blackface. Now she's got a nice cushy home in the rightwing media human centipede. She didn't even have to go back to doing law (yes, I learned recently she was a *lawyer!*)
She can't fuck off into the sunset because she showed her true colors on national TV, and is incapable of asking for forgiveness like a normal person would. Instead, she chose to double-down on the bigotry by hosting her own podcast that nobody watches, because she's also persona non-grata in MAGA circles.
I can’t even imagine getting paid that much money as a severance package and then becoming bitter and sinking deeper into the right wing victimhood mediasphere. If my employer paid me $69 million dollars to go away, I’d spend the rest of my life counting my blessings and finding ways to use that money for good causes. Something poisoned her soul.
Miserable hag Megyn Kelly has spent the last few years futilely trying to get MAGA to love her, but she'll always be known by the cult as the traitor who showed "bias" against Daddy during a presidential debate.
She has desperation coming out of her...whatever. It's rather sad.
People take White Santa seriously. I got in trouble in elementary school for drawing a black Santa. My teacher legit tried to get me expelled.
I went to high school with Megyn Kelly in Upstate NY. I did not know her as we were not that close in age. Anyway, in a school of about a 1,000 kids, there were maybe 10 black kids total.
She is 100% correct in her statement that when she was growing up it was considered acceptable to dress in black face. Because people were cluelessly racist there.
That doesn’t make it right but it’s understandable. But it’s telling to me that after living and working in New York City for decades, she still thought this and voiced it.
I felt the bit was more disrespectful to Jane Curtain.
She’s your typical Fox trash—brimming with resentment and enticed by the easy riches of right wing punditry—it pays a lot better than straight news or left wing punditry. And this way she can play victim for the shit munchers!
I dint think there’s anything wrong with dressing up as someone from a different race—especially for actors, the whole point of them is to portray something other than what you are!—so long as the portrayal is not an insulting one (I’d even say it’s problematic to portray your OWN race in an insulting manner). But Kelly is just playing dumb (or maybe not playing) about blackface which has a well known history of racial mockery, which is why society generally makes an exception for it.
Billy Crystal also did an impeccable Sammy Davis Jr.
and Ricardo Mantalban.
How could I have forgotten "Fernando"!
“You look maahhvelous!”
Stephen, I have a confession to make. Back in 1977, when I was 24, we attended a raucous neighborhood Halloween party. My husband won the ‘best costume’ prize by dressing up as Aunt Jemima. A big guy, he wore a huge apron over a borrowed size-XXL housecoat, some pink house slippers, a scarf around his head, and creamy dark-brown eye shadow slathered all over his face and hands. We all laughed, mainly because he looked so ridiculous. We weren’t racists! We loved Aunt Jemima! We even had actual Black friends (although none of them were at this party)!
It never occurred to us how grotesque and offensive that costume might have been to others. It was a few years later that, coming across a picture from that night in our photo album, I suddenly felt embarrassed to even have the snapshot in my possession, and I removed that piece of incriminating evidence of our ignorance and threw it away.
That’s what Political Correctness will do to you: Make you aware that behaviors you’ve always thought were A-okay within your own bubble may not be okay at all to people outside of it. To this day, remembering that Halloween costume embarrasses me, but the experience still serves as a reminder that often, even we “woke” folks aren’t as woke as we think we are.
(Sorry this is so long — I actually edited half of it out.)
Thanks so much for the thoughtful response! Yes, I think there is nothing inherently evil or worth permanent condemnation for having done this in the past. Things change, fortunately.
[Back when I was a kid, that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.]
In the 80's and 90's when I was a kid, a lot of shitty things were "okay" in the sense that we didn't get into trouble for being shitty, insecure teenage boys.
We stopped being shitty, insecure little boys, Megyn. We grew up.
You ought to try it. It's easier. You stop caring about what other people do if it doesn't hurt you or innocent people. You care about other people's feelings and don't want to make the world worse for folks. You stop caring what the insecure bullies think. They're miserable and small people and life is too short to be miserable and small.
It’s astounding to me how so many public figures have such a complete inability to deliver a genuine apology. But it’s usually because they truly are not sorry. They’re just sorry they got called out. This I attribute to being so insulated from real life, living in a bubble of cushy comfort.
She’s always been a horrible person and her jealousy is evident through the screen.
Thanks for this, incisive as always.
I'm curious whether (and which) "conservative" commentators who have been exiled from network TV will see a drop in relevance vs a consolidation of their reach and influence as cord-cutting and generational changeover proceeds. As others have pointed out, Joe Rogan's audience now dramatically exceeds Kimmel, Colbert, and whoever else *combined*. I'm wondering whether Bannon, Tucker, Kelly, et al have truly receded from relevance versus continued to build and command platforms that are less publicly visible.
Kelly's endless grievance is her MAGA ID card, one she shares with her leader and a majority of other followers. these people are never, ever responsible for their own falls—no, they are always innocent, always the victims of shadowy deep state or antifa or Soros or whatever. Kelly and her folks will forever, no matter the reality, believe themselves uniquely targeted and rejected for their disgusting utterance.
That’s the real measure of MAGA—a sense that the world is unfair to you because of insidious forces and not because some problems are more complicated than you’d like them to be.
It must be nice to get paid $69 million to go away like Frau Blackface. Now she's got a nice cushy home in the rightwing media human centipede. She didn't even have to go back to doing law (yes, I learned recently she was a *lawyer!*)
She can't fuck off into the sunset because she showed her true colors on national TV, and is incapable of asking for forgiveness like a normal person would. Instead, she chose to double-down on the bigotry by hosting her own podcast that nobody watches, because she's also persona non-grata in MAGA circles.
I can’t even imagine getting paid that much money as a severance package and then becoming bitter and sinking deeper into the right wing victimhood mediasphere. If my employer paid me $69 million dollars to go away, I’d spend the rest of my life counting my blessings and finding ways to use that money for good causes. Something poisoned her soul.
Racists generally lack imagination so this kind of outcome was inevitable for her. The racist punditry also can fill a deep-seated need I imagine.
Like Lindsey Halligan?
I am curious if either of them have won a case. But Frau Blackface is at least staying out of the courtroom.
Miserable hag Megyn Kelly has spent the last few years futilely trying to get MAGA to love her, but she'll always be known by the cult as the traitor who showed "bias" against Daddy during a presidential debate.
She has desperation coming out of her...whatever. It's rather sad.
Who?
Bless her heart!