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Another MSNBC Host Gets in Trouble for On-Air Comments

Jan 3, 2014  •  Post A Comment

In the wake of recent gaffes that cost Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir their MSNBC jobs, the cable channel is dealing with yet another controversy over comments by one of its hosts.

This time the focus is on weekend host Melissa Harris-Perry, who led a panel that made fun of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s black grandson, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The segment included Harris-Perry showing photos to a panel, including the photo of Romney’s Christmas card that featured him surrounded by his wife and grandchildren and holding Kieran Romney, the adopted black son of one of Romney’s sons, the story says.

Actress Pia Glenn sang, “One of these things is not like the other … and that little baby, front and center, would be the one,” making Harris-Perry laugh. A comedian on the panel, Dean Obeidallah, said the image “sums up the diversity of the Republican party.”

Harris-Perry suggested that Kieran would one day marry the child of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. “Can you imagine Mitt Romney and Kanye West as in-laws?” she asked.

The backlash started soon after the show, Harris-Perry’s last of 2013, ended, with conservative websites and pundits condemning Harris-Perry.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wrote: “You really need a conscience, yellow journalists. May your 2014 New Year’s Resolution be to find one. Thank you, Romney family, for giving a child a family full of love.”

The National Review called Harris-Perry’s comments “extraordinarily backward and hateful.”

Harris-Perry apologized through Twitter and in an article on MSNBC.com, the story notes.

”The intent of featuring the photo was to celebrate it — I often speak to the issue of the increasingly diverse American family,” Harris-Perry wrote. “Whatever the intent, the segment proceeded in an unexpected way that was offensive. Without reservation or qualification, I apologize to the Romney family and to all families built on loving transracial adoptions.”

MSNBC also came under fire from competitor CNN, which ran a segment claiming that “some are calling for Melissa Harris-Perry to be fired,” a claim that the THR report says “was light on evidence.”

melissa harris-perry.pngMelissa Harris-Perry

7 Comments

  1. Melissa Harris-Perry should be fired. What a moron she is. Seriously.

  2. Actually, I prefer that MSNBC not fire her. It’s good to have ready examples of where the supposedly high-minded good intentions of affirmative action and the utter emotional squalor of identity politics lead.
    She and Martin Bashir would be the perfect queen and king of the mean kid’s prom. Those titles would be a perfect expression of their stunted, high school-level intellects.

  3. Imagine if you will that a white conservative insulted a black family that adopted a white child.
    Jessie, Al, every MsNBC pseudo journalist cum liberal Obama water carrier would be screaming bloody murder.
    Hypocrites, every one of them.

  4. And people talk about FOX News lol! MSNBC and their ilk…proving everyday that racism/hatred/hypocrisy is alive and well in America!

  5. Hey, let me in on a little secret. Okay? Ready? It’s only ENTERTAINMENT folks!

  6. She said something about the Romney’s, she apologized, the Romney’s accepted it. What normal people learn in kindergarten is to move the fuck on.

  7. ENTERTAINMENT? Since when are racist comments considered entertaining? ENTERTAINMENT? I thought MSNBC was supposed to be a News Channel not a comedy channel, what a minute, that is the secret, MSNBC IS A COMEDY CHANNEL!

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