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Backlash when Megyn Kelly defends ‘white’ and ‘blackface’ for Halloween: ‘Who comes up with these rules’?

October 23, 2018 | | Print Article

Megyn Kelly has sparked a furious backlash after questioning – and defending –  dressing in blackface for a costume.

While discussing Halloween costumes with a panel on Tuesday’s “Today” show, Kelly noted that it was “okay when I was a kid” and did not understand how dressing in blackface could now be considered racist.

“What is racist?” Kelly said. “You do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person that puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid, that was okay, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

The panel quickly chimed in.

“You can dress like an idiot, act like an idiot and actually dress and be racist, somebody should say something to somebody — but you should be able to dress like a moron,” NBC News reporter Jacob Soboroff said.

“If you think it’s offensive, it probably is,” Rivers said. “Whatever happened to manners and polite society?” TV host Melissa Rivers asked, to which Kelly noted Halloween was not normally known for civility.

“You’ve got guys with fake axes coming out of their head,” Kelly said. “It’s going to be jarring.”

But Kelly pressed the point when she brought up “Real Housewives of New York” star Luann de Lesseps who decided to darken her features when she dressed as Diana Ross.

“I don’t see how that is racist on Halloween,” Kelly said.

“I haven’t seen it, but it sounds pretty racist to me,” Soboroff replied.

“I can’t keep up with the number of people were offending just by being normal people these days,” Kelly added.

Her controversial comments instantly ignited a firestorm on social media.

The costume segment had kicked off with Kelly addressing a story of a UK university that had issued what was considered appropriate as well as unacceptable costumes.

“This year, the costume police are cracking down like never before. Take a look at what some how say is now an offensive costume,” she said. “You may no longer dress as a cowboy. That’s now offensive.”

She went on to name other banned costumes including dressing as a Mexican, a Native American, a nun and even Anne Frank, which prompted Rivers to ask if that was even a costume.

“Isn’t the whole purpose of Halloween to dress up and pretend you are someone else?” Kelly asked. “I just feel like it’s so absurd, I mean who comes up with these rules.”

“And you know what they’re saying you can dress as… Letters of the alphabet,” she said. “I said Doug and I are going to go together. I can go as F and he can go as U.”

That earned her rousing applause but her blackface remarks, however, overshadowed the rest of the debate, unleashing a flood of responses on Twitter attacking Kelly and recalling her 2013 comments about Santa Claus being white.

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Frieda Powers
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