The MSNBC show “Morning Joe” invited several black panelists onto the program on Thursday to discuss a racist chant at the University of Oklahoma, a day after white panelists on the show tried to blame the chant on rap music.
The show caused an uproar Wednesday when conservative editor Bill Kristol, who is white, said fraternity members at the university who were filmed singing the racist chant were imitating bad language they learned from rap music.
The segment sparked a social media backlash on Wednesday, even spawning the hashtag #RapAlbumsThatCausedSlavery.
On Thursday morning, the show brought on MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton, journalist Trymaine Lee, and news anchor Roland Martin to discuss the Oklahoma chant.
Martin suggested that Wednesday’s segment missed the mark by focusing too narrowly on racial slurs.
“You can focus on the N-word, or you can deal with the fact that the chant dealt with domestic terrorism against black people, and that was lynching,” he said.
“What happens, then, when this man [seen chanting on the video] leaves OU and is now in the workforce?” Martin said. “He’s not using the N-word in public at work, but what he’s doing is possibly denying opportunities for somebody to be advanced. And so this thing goes far beyond just being a drunk college student. This now goes into income inequality. It now goes into hiring practices.”
Watch below via MSNBC:
h/t Mediaite
Too bad Willie Geist (the MSNBC counterpart to Fox’s Brian Kilmeade) looks like a frat boy on campus getting his first diversity training lesson.
Of course. Isent Joe an email this morning telling that it was blatantly apparent that he brought in the African-American guys to try to cover his ass to make up for his and Mika’s insanity yesterday. He couldn’t have cared less about what they had to say, he only invited them for what he perceived as positive optics. Once a slime, always a slime, Joe.
OMG, conversation! Exactly what cable needs, more off point blab by (gasp!) two races of men, oh, and Mika.
But for the rest of us two points, I bet, not discussed:
a) How old and geographically diverse is the chant?
b) How is the chant taught/passed on?
Dang!
They went from Hee Haw to Soul Train in 24 hours.
So did Mika speak today, or go back to her deaf mute routine?