photo credit: JStone // Shutterstock
Tuesday morning was a tough one for the panel discussing offensive Halloween costumes during an NBC morning show. During the discussion, Megyn Kelly could not understand what was so wrong with wearing blackface for Halloween.
“Back when I was a kid that was ok, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character,” she said.
As I watched this clip, the one thing that stood out to me was that this is an all white panel trying to discuss “inappropriate and offensive” costumes. There was not one bit of representation of anyone who could actually tell them WHY some costumes are considered offensive.
Thank God the other female panel members said, “In polite society, someone would not think that dressing like a Nazi is okay,” “there are limits to how far you go,” and “normal people kinda know where that line it.”
Megyn also brought up an example from The Real Housewives of New York when a cast member Luann de Lesseps dressed as Diana Ross for Halloween, and made her skin just a little darker. “She dressed as Diana Ross and she made her skin look darker than it really is. And people said that was racist, and I don’t know. I thought, like, who doesn’t love Diana Ross? She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day? I don’t know how that got racist on Halloween,” the Megyn says. She then ended the discussion say, “I can’t keep up with the number of people we’re offending just by being normal people.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kelly apologized for the comments privately to her colleagues in an email Tuesday.
On the topic of Halloween, Megyn Kelly doesn't understand the problem with *checks notes* blackface? pic.twitter.com/OJFd4AizEE
— Voices of Color by Insider (@insiderVOC) October 23, 2018
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Written by Clarke Jones