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
