Megyn Kelly’s Top Five Most Racist Moments

by Taia Handlin

Megyn Kelly is the cover story of February’s Vanity Fair, emblazoned with the depiction: “Fox New’s Brightest, Toughest Star.” She’s a champion of the underdog, a “breakout” star whose gender is “irrelevant” as she “transcends” politics to pulverize “windbags of both parties.” Who is this champion of journalistic impartiality, boldly leading the charge toward tearing down political barriers and putting corrupt politicians to task for their ineptitude? Megyn Kelly, for all her “I’m an independent” nonsense, is still the new face of the ultra-conservative Fox News Channel. And with that mantle comes all the bigotry of Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity, with Kelly adding her own racist deliciousness on top. So, in honor of Kelly’s cover profile, here are her top five most racist moments.

1. That time she assured all the little children that Santa is white

Back in 2013, Slate published this article calling for Penguin Claus over white Santa Claus, to prevent non-white children from feeling like they got the “joke” Santa. Megyn Kelly had a field day; she invited three guests on, and before getting to the discussion she assured the youthful viewers of Fox News (who number in the millions, I’m sure) that Santa is indeed white and that the entire conversation she was about to have was just for funsies. She went even further and assured viewers that Jesus was white, too. Thanks, Megyn.

2. When she blamed Sandra Bland’s death on her own noncompliance to a traffic violation arrest

In July of 2015, Kelly interviewed Officer David Clarke on Sandra Bland’s wrongful arrest and death while in jail. Kelly and Clarke were competing for who could be more insensitive and totalitarian: Clarke supported the officer’s use of the Taser, because even if you’re getting arrested for a random and innocuous traffic violation, you’ve lost all rights to bodily autonomy. Kelly, meanwhile, blamed Bland’s random and bewildering arrest on her own inability to go to jail without understanding why: “Even if you know the cop is in the wrong, comply and complain later.” A ringing endorsement of the Land of the Free, Kelly.

 

3. She objected to “forcibly” diversifying neighborhoods

In June, the Obama Administration pushed for federal housing grant money to be contingent upon the recipient communities proving they are making an effort to diversify. It was a move meant to help reduce class stratification between neighborhoods, but to Kelly and her ilk, it was a move meant to force rich white people to give up their houses to non-white homeless gay people: “They don’t want, quote, ‘unequal neighborhoods.’ Unequal neighborhoods. They think too many communities are too white, too privileged, with too many big Mcmansions. And they want to diversify the communities whether the communities want it or not.” Because in Kelly’s world, it’s still 1960 and integration is overrated.

4. When she called Michelle Obama a whiner for speaking about racism

Remember Michelle Obama’s moving commencement address at Chicago’s King College Prep High School? She spoke about racism, structural inequalities, and overcoming the many, many systemic pressures against minorities. It was beautiful and had she been at my commencement, I would have bawled my eyes out for days. For Kelly, this was another instance of whiny, wannabe-victimhood, as she said it was a symptom of our “culture of victimization.” “Cupcake Nation, that’s what we’re turning into,” she said.

 

5. When she said that racist emails are totally normal

When the Department of Justice investigation found numerous, incredibly racist emails at the Ferguson police department, Kelly assured us that the DoJ is being unreasonable, because racism at government institutions is totally allowed:

 

This post was originally published January 6, 2016

Image via Vanity Fair, video via YouTube

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