Ignorance

After a decade at Fox News, Megyn Kelly was lured by a contract estimated to be worth $20 million per year and the show was debuted in September of 2017. Many articles were talking about the Megyn Kelly issue that was on national television at the end of October. I picked the article from Cosmopolitan titled “[UPDATED] Megyn Kelly’s Show ‘Today’ Has Been Canceled After Blackface Comments.” Kelly was the former host of NBC Today show, she recently got fired by defending blackface Halloween costumes. It had caused massive backlash that led to her to apologize for her comments the next day. It all started as a discussion about a proposed ban of offensive Halloween costumes. To that discussion topic she said, “isn’t the whole purpose of Halloween to dress up and pretend your something other than yourself.”These commentaries were made on national television which embarrassed herself and probably others. During the round table discussion with other people Megyn had a lack of self-awareness because she mentions the blackface Halloween and how she doesn’t see anything wrong about she is saying. She should be more aware on what she says while being video tapped because there is supposed to be an increase of self-control, and their actions more clearly reflect their attitudes.It might not have such an effect on her since she has been on television for so long that she censors things less and she is more comfortable around the cameras. What is racist?” she said. “You do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface for Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid, that was okay just as long as you were dressing as a character.” She acted like everything that she was talking about was completely normal and it was just like any other regular topic. She also kept defending and making excuses on her end for a discussion that turned into more than it was actually supposed to be.

We humans want to evaluate our opinions and abilities by comparing our views with others and this is social comparison. Megyn has a poor sense of social comparison because she sounded like she wasn’t thinking about her replies to others it just came out without hesitation. “I’ve never been a ‘pc’ kind of person but I understand that we do need to be more sensitive in this day and age,” she said in an email to her colleagues. By how she wrote the email, it sounds a bit sarcastic and still stands by her beliefs. After the fact that everything went down she realized she needed to apologize on television which is always a point from the viewers perspective if you are meant to believe it or not. Although we think that she has a poor sense of social comparison, her inner circle might have the same beliefs or on the same page as her. So, I think she believed that everyone else that she was talking to had her same viewpoint. If she talked to her colleagues beforehand about the topic she would’ve knew that what she was saying was wrong and would not have made the mistake on saying it.

With everything you have to be aware of what you are saying around people because at the end of the day it can disrespect someone. From what Megyn Kelly did, it cost her job and future in which this is a lesson to learn if others are in this situation because you have to make sure everyone is on the same page as you before you say anything. Everyone has diverse viewpoints. 

Citations:

Baty, E. (2018, October 26). [UPDATED] Megyn Kelly’s Show ‘Today’ Has Been Canceled After Blackface Comments. Retrieved from https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a24112684/megyn-kelly-blackface/

 

 

2 thoughts on “Ignorance”

  1. It seems like in the media, this is becoming more of a huge problem. Unfortunately, it is not being seen how offensive “black-face” and some Halloween costumes are. I do feel like this problem that we face has a lot to do with social comparison and also culture. The older generations are not used to having this awareness of other cultures. Like Megan said, she is used to dressing up on Halloween because she can become whoever she wants. She did not realize that times change and now awareness of others is part of our culture. Also, since Megan Kelley is a white upper-class female, she has probably never dealt with anything that has been offensive to her.

  2. As well as a lack of self-awareness, I believe that Megyn also has a lack of empathy. Anyone who has studied history knows the violent history of blackface and the Jim Crow archetypes that arose from making African-Americans a show. Megyn thinks that by saying that as white people should be punished for blackface, black people should be punished for wearing whiteface. She is lacking empathy when saying this because she does not realize how when a white person wears blackface, they are doing what their ancestors did and reverting back to the Jim Crow-era. Whiteface does not root from the killing and discrimination of white people, whereas blackface does come from the killing and discrimination of black people. For these reasons, I believe that Megyn is lacking empathy in her comments by acting like blackface isn’t a big deal. She is not putting herself into black peoples’ shoes and understanding why it is wrong to wear blackface for a costume.

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