I’m Back (maybe)

Megan Kelly is in the news again. This time she stepped in it by saying it wasn’t racist for white people to darken their skin with makeup, as long as they’re portraying an actual person of character during a round-table discussion of Halloween costumes.

It probably took the internet less than a millisecond to explode into outrage. Kelly first apologized in an eternal email to co-workers writing “I realize now that such behavior is indeed wrong, and I am sorry. The history of blackface in our culture is abhorrent; the wounds too deep”. Kelly then also offered an on-air apology.

Now I am not a fan of Kelly and never found her to be that interesting, or that good of an interviewer, but admit to being a little surprised at the reaction of NBC executives. Does anyone remember the forgettable “White Chicks”? Two African American actors (Shawn and Marlon Wayans) go undercover in an abduction case, disguised as the two spoiled white daughters of a tycoon, Brittany and Tiffany Wilson. Other than being awarded a Razzie as the Worst Picture in 2005, White Chicks did not create the outrage Kelly received for simply thinking it was OK for different races to mimic each other.

Is there a double standard? Some will argue its offensive because blacks suffered terrible injustices at the hands of white people and who’s to say that’s not true, or that it’s not fair to feel that way.

Did she say it with hate in her heart, or simply ignorant of the deep hurt that thinking that way can cause someone to be offended. I wonder how many other white Americans understood how African Americans really felt about this. I also wonder if the reaction would have been the same if it someone other than Kelly had said it.

Perhaps in the end this was not about blackface, but more about NBC executives trying to save face and find a way to get out of what appears to be a bad programming decision/contract with a host whose popularity is lukewarm at best.