MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski engaged in damage control Wednesday afternoon after her fellow panelists on “Morning Joe” ignited an Internet firestorm by blaming rap music for a racist chant by white fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma.
In an appearance on the MSNBC show “The Cycle,” Brzezinski said the real villains of the story were the frat members who were caught on video chanting the racist slurs. She called the video “disgusting and disturbing.”
“The students in the video are responsible for their behavior. And as we said on our show this morning, they did it, and it’s beyond appalling,” she said.
She added there was “an important conversation to have” about the use of racial slurs in hip-hop music, but stressed that she was not drawing a “moral equivalency.”
Brzezinski, who is white, criticized the rapper Waka Flocka Flame, who is black, on “Morning Joe” earlier in the day for canceling a concert at the university when his own music was “garbage, full of N-words, full of F-bombs.”
The rapper “shouldn’t be disgusted” with the students, she said. “He should be disgusted with himself.”
The segment was quickly mocked on Twitter, inspiring the satirical hashtag #RapAlbumsThatCausedSlavery.
Watch below via MSNBC:
h/t Mediaite
Man…is it any wonder the world’s supply of STFU is running low?
And now she’s on shovel brigade, too. Hope it’s worth it.
Has she walked back the dead intern in Joe’s congressional office yet?
This apple head has fallen far from Zbigniew Brzezinski… but I must confess, I thought this would be the one they didn’t apologize for.
Oh my god. This is a total bolt from the blue. I feel so used and betrayed. How can we ever trust a word that comes out of Bill Kristol’s mouth ever again? He should be forced to admit that he was spectacularly, catastrophically wrong about this and apologize to the entire nation as a precondition to ever appearing on screen or print again.