JAN. 4 2017 7:55 PM

Don’t Forget That Megyn Kelly Is a Racial Demagogue

The recent flattering coverage of her move to NBC leaves out
the ugliest episodes of her work at Fox.

By Jamelle Bouie

Megyn Kelly had a good 2016. Between her news-making stint as a Fox News debate moderator, a flattering profile in Vanity Fair, and a lucrative book deal, she cemented her reputation as a talented and no-nonsense journalist—one of the most highly paid in the industry. And now she’s making the jump to NBC News, where she will anchor a Sunday evening news show, host a daytime show, and cover major political events. “Megyn is an exceptional journalist and news anchor, who has had an extraordinary career,” said NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack in a statement. “She’s demonstrated tremendous skill and poise, and we’re lucky to have her.”

Another thing Kelly has demonstrated is racist demagoguery, which defined much of her tenure at Fox News.

In 2010, for example, Kelly devoted hours of coverage to the New Black Panther Party, a small group on the fringe of American politics, because two members of the NBPP were charged with voter intimidation after standing outside of a heavily black polling place in Philadelphia in the 2008 election. Those charges were later dropped, but the incident became the basis for a wide-ranging conspiracy disseminated by conservative writers, websites, and—most prominently—Megyn Kelly. Along with Republican activist J. Christian Adams, then a frequent guest of Kelly’s, the Fox News host spun a disturbing tale of voter intimidation and anti-white racism sanctioned by an Eric Holder–helmed Justice Department that she claimed wouldn’t investigate black Americans accused of criminal activity. “Well, think about that. Think about that. … Now you’re going to have instances like this where Black Panthers and others can go to the polling stations and do this if they so choose. And they just basically are gonna get a pass because while it’s not an official thing, it’s been made very clear to all the rank-and-file voting rights attorneys in the DOJ those cases are not to be pursued,” Kelly said during one broadcast before suggesting that Holder was, in fact, involved in a plan to protect the NBPP.

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The NBPP “controversy” represents a particular fixation of Kelly’s, but it was not her only racist display. In 2013, in reaction to my colleague Aisha Harris’ Slate piece, “Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore,” the Fox anchor infamously claimed that both Santa Claus and Jesus of Nazareth were white men. “Jesus was a white man, too ... he’s a historical figure and that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa.” (The truth is that “white” as a political or racial category didn’t exist in either 1st century Palestine or 3rd and 4th century Turkey—and that Santa’s not real.) In 2015, Kelly insisted that the racist emails exchanged by officials in Ferguson, Missouri—which included a joke about a man seeking “welfare” for his dogs because they are “mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are”—were normal. Kelly has repeatedly invited former Los Angeles Police Department officer Mark Fuhrman on her show to discuss cases of police abuse—where both dismiss the role of racism in police shootings of black Americans. She has bemoaned an “anti-cop, thug mentality” in black communities and blasted the Obama administration for encouraging integrated neighborhoods “whether the communities want it or not.”

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