Now-ex-NBC host Megyn Kelly groveled before the false gods of faux virtue after defending a white person’s right to dress up as late singer Diana Ross. It didn’t save her job, though.
You’ve probably heard the story, just not correctly. Kelly (shown) was accused of “racism” for defending “blackface” make-up — except it wasn’t blackface (it didn’t help that Kelly called it that herself).
At issue was Real Housewives of New York City star Luann de Lesseps, who “appeared at fellow Housewife Dorinda Medley‘s Halloween bash back in October dressed as Diana Ross — complete with a ’70s-inspired white halter-top jumpsuit and oversized black afro,” reports People. She’s also “accused” of seeking an authentic look by darkening her skin tone somewhat. De Lesseps denies this, groveling as well and explaining, “I [merely] had bronzer on that I wear normally” and that she didn’t mean to offend anybody.
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In typical left-wing style, however, the liberals not only aren’t worried about offending people they don’t like — they endeavor to destroy them.
Thus has Kelly lost her job at NBC, with a company executive saying, “She is not ever coming back.” Don’t shed tears for her, though. She’ll likely be paid out her entire $69 million contract, and word is that ex-employer Fox News may take her back aboard. There are no bread lines in Kelly’s future.
But shedding tears for America may be warranted, as the Kelly case reflects our time’s true characteristic biases.
First, left-wing co-host of The View Joy Behar boasted in 2016 of the time she dressed as a black woman for Halloween, darkened skin and all. She still has her job, by the way. That’s leftist privilege.
Then, if a black person dressed as a white character and wore whiteface, would there be an uproar and ruined career? Of course, Halloween is all about masquerading as something you’re not, and the devoted strive for authenticity.
Despite this, lecturing white people for dressing as non-whites has become quite the thing. Last year it was a social prohibition against allowing your (white) daughter to dress as Disney Polynesian princess Moana. More brazen still was black writer Michael Harriot, who chimed in with, “The Caucasian’s Guide to Halloween Costumes.”
Talk about offensive. Could you imagine the reaction if a white person wrote a didactic guide for blacks to, well, anything?
Some refreshing fairness and common sense came from black lawyer and journalist Ike Awgu, writing at the left-of-left Huffington Post no less. In his 2013 piece “Not Everyone Who Wears Blackface on Halloween Is Racist,” he states, alluding to minstrel shows, “Are we to forever be held hostage by what a bunch of white people in the United States decided to do for entertainment in the early 19th century?”
But held hostage today we are. Another good example is the Washington Redskins controversy and the many school sports teams forced to abandon American Indian symbols. But what’s the standard? Can white kids no longer play cowboys and Indians? And what of Democrat Senator Liz Warren, Bay State Cultural Appropriator Extraordinaire?
(Of course, leftists are perpetual complainers. If we’d never adopted Indian symbols, mascots, and place names, they’d exclaim “Look, ‘Native Americans’ were this continent’s original inhabitants and you act like they don’t even exist!”)
Speaking of which, the whole story of man is one of “cultural appropriation.” What do you think the “melting pot” is? We wouldn’t even have modern technology and civilization without borrowing the best from others and building upon it. It’s not only a good thing — it’s a necessary thing.
Then there’s vanity and cultural preferences. Countless white people work on their first skin-cancer bout on beaches and tanning beds, while some Far East Asians may use bleaching cream. Perhaps, though, perpetually tanned actor George Hamilton must now be scrubbed from history books.
Don’t laugh. A dreadlock-sporting white student was harassed in 2016 by a black woman who complained, “It’s my culture.” But what of blacks, such as race-hustler Al Sharpton, who appropriate white hair styles with “hair relaxer”?
This double standard is also painfully evident in entertainment. For example, white actor Ed Skrein was pressured into backing out of a 2017 Hellboy role, with accusations of “whitewashing,” because the character he’d have played was of Asian descent in a comic book.
But this isn’t new. Even more ridiculous was the 1990 incident in which Actors’ Equity denied permission “for the English actor Jonathan Pryce to appear on Broadway next spring in the role of the Eurasian pimp that he created in the hit London musical ‘Miss Saigon,’” as the New York Times reported.
So let’s get this straight. It’s somehow wrong for an all-white actor to play a half-white, half-Asian character, but it’s okay for an all-Asian actor to do so. Huh? I guess some halves are more equal than others.
Of course, it’s applauded when white characters are rebranded as non-white (or male ones as female). This has been proposed even with legendary fictional secret agent James Bond, whom some would recast as black or female. Then there are these examples:
• In the 2017 film Thor: Ragnarok, the Norse figure Valkyrie was played by Afro-Latina actress Tessa Thompson.
• The 2005 remake of The Honeymooners portrayed the originally white characters as black.
• Hellboy comic-book’s white Irish-descent character Alice Monaghan has been cast as a black woman in an upcoming film reboot.
• Superhero Spiderman was always the alter ego of white New Yorker Peter Parker — until he was transformed into black-Latino Miles Morales.
• In Fantastic Four (2015), white character Johnny Storm (Torch) was portrayed as black.
• Famed black actor Morgan Freeman has played Shakespeare’s white “Petruchio” in The Taming of the Shrew.
Additionally, we’ve now had a female Dr. Who, a black Heimdall and Wilson Fisk, and an Asian La Femme Nikita, to name just a few more examples.
Of course, it’s called “acting”: The whole idea is that you’re pretending to be someone you’re not. Why, Asians often play blacks in Asia. But if a white person dare play a non-white character, it’s “whitewashing.” If it’s the other way around, it’s progress.
And this intense bias, ever-present in American today, is well epitomized by Megyn Kelly. Her problem was not that she defended blackface, however, but that she has a white one.
Photo of Megyn Kelly: AP Images
