Megyn Kelly Wants Equality When It Comes to Blackface

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Megyn Kelly speaks onstage at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit 2018 at Ritz Carlton Hotel on October 2, 2018, in Laguna Niguel, California.
Megyn Kelly speaks onstage at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit 2018 at Ritz Carlton Hotel on October 2, 2018, in Laguna Niguel, California.
Photo: Phillip Faraone (Getty Images for Fortune)

Megyn Kelly is the human embodiment of not having a fucking clue.

She repeatedly demonstrates just how ignorant and out of touch she is every time she opens her mouth. It’s like her whiteness is so blinding, she is unable to see anything beyond her own myopic, white and privileged view of how the world should work.

You may remember back around Halloween 2018, when Megyn made the loud and wrong declaration that there is nothing wrong with blackface if you were just doing a costume for Halloween and not trying to, you know, be offensively racist.

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Never mind that there were four white people weighing in on how black people should feel about blackface (more on that later in another post), an inherently racist act with racist beginnings that was created with the intention of willfully propagating ugly stereotypes around the features of black folks. Megyn was loud and bold when she declared that she didn’t see anything wrong with it.

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“But what is racist?” she squawked. “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 OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

More from CNN on that incident:

Later in the discussion, Kelly brought up Luann de Lesseps, a star on “The Real Housewives of New York” who drew a backlash last year for dressing up as Ross.

“There was a controversy on The Real Housewives of New York with Luann, and she dressed as Diana Ross, and she made her skin look darker than it really is and people said that that was racist,” Kelly said. “And I don’t know, I felt like who doesn’t love Diana Ross? She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day. I don’t know how, like, that got racist on Halloween.”

(De Lesseps apologized for the costume, but denied altering her skin.)

After getting dragged for those comments, you would think Megyn would learn that shutting the fuck up is free and painless. Alas, they never learn, do they?

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So, of course, she hopped her professional goofy-ass on Twitter Wednesday to bemoan the fact that she was criticized for her blackface comments as opposed to Robert Downey, Jr., who played a character wearing blackface in the movie Tropic Thunder and recently told comedian Joe Rogan on his podcast that he believed his role in the film helped to open up a dialogue that is very necessary.

In the film, Downey, Jr. plays an Australian actor who darkens his skin so he can play a black character in a Vietnam war film. At the time the movie was made, there was an influx of Australian actors taking on decidedly American roles—something Tropic Thunder poked fun at.

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“I think that it’s never an excuse to do something that’s out of place and out of its time, but to me, it blasted the cap on [the issue],” Downey Jr. told Rogan, as reported by Page Six. “I think having a moral psychology is job one. Sometimes, you just gotta go, ‘Yeah I effed up.’ In my defense, ‘Tropic Thunder’ is about how wrong [blackface] is, so I take exception.”

More from Page Six:

While he believes the blackface in “Tropic Thunder” ultimately served a purpose, he was still hesitant to accept the role when it was initially offered by director Ben Stiller. His mother, Elsie Ford, was also concerned.

“My mother was horrified,” Downey Jr. revealed. “‘Bobby, I’m telling ya, I have a bad feeling about this.’ I was like, ‘Yeah me too, mom.’”

He continued, “When Ben called and said, ‘Hey I’m doing this thing’ – you know I think Sean Penn had passed on it or something. Possibly wisely. And I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that and I’ll do that after Iron Man.’ Then I started thinking, ‘This is a terrible idea, wait a minute.’

‘Tropic Thunder’ stars Robert Downey Jr., Ben Stiller and Jack Black. The star went on to joke about wanting the opportunity to “be black for a summer.”

“I thought, ‘Well hold on dude, get real here, where is your heart? My heart is … I get to be black for a summer in my mind, so there’s something in it for me.”

He went on, “The other thing is, I get to hold up to nature the insane self-involved hypocrisy of artists and what they think they’re allowed to do on occasion, just my opinion.”

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The nuance of all of that was lost on Kelly, however, who sent out a tweet bemoaning the fact that Downey, Jr. was praised for his blackface comments and she wasn’t.

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“R. Downey Jr: wears blackface for Universal w/o regret bc it ‘sparked a necessary convo.’” she wrote. “Univer.: yay Robert! Me: Never worn blackface but had one of those “necessary convos” re how standard seems to have changed over time.NBC-Univer: F.U.! Cancelled!”

Oh, Megyn.

You aren’t the victim here. You aren’t being discriminated against. You are simply an ignorant bird, and all the squawking you are doing is just drawing more attention to that fact.

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Please. Do us all a favor. Cluck back to your pigeon coop and nest on top of your $23 million and leave the rest of us—and our critical thinking skills—alone.

All you are doing is being annoying, messy, and willfully ignorant.

Shut up.