Last week, Fox News' Megyn Kelly found herself in controversial hot water when she responded to an article in Slate by Aisha Harris titled, "Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore".
During a panel discussion, Kelly stated Santa Claus is white and that should not be changed because it makes Aisha Harris feel uncomfortable. Shortly after, the media erupted into a firestorm of mockery and outrage calling Megyn Kelly an ignorant racist with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show leading the charge.
In response to her critics, Kelly issued this statement on her program last Friday:
Humor is what we try to bring to this show, but that’s lost on the humorless. This would be funny if it were not so telling about our society, in particular, the knee-jerk instinct by so many to race-bait and to assume the worst in people, especially people employed by the very powerful Fox News Channel...
Contrary to what my critics have posited, neither my statement, nor Harris’, I’m sure, was motivated by any racial fear or loathing. In fact, it was something far less sinister: A lifetime of exposure to the very same commercials, mall casting calls, and movies Harris references in her piece.
We continually see St. Nick as a white man in modern-day America. Should that change? Well, that debate got lost because so many couldn’t get past the fact that I acknowledged, as Harris did, that the most commonly depicted image of Santa, does, in fact, have white skin.
The media also criticized Kelly for saying "Jesus was a white-man too". Her response:
I also did say Jesus was white. As I've learned in the past two days, that is far from settled.
On Monday, Jon Stewart did not let Megyn Kelly off the hook and continued to bully her instead. He began the segment characterizing Kelly's statement as "f*cked up", then immediately responded to her defensive statements from Friday night.
I guess we all owe you an apology. What appeared to me to be another example of a Fox News segment expressing anger and victimization over the loss of absolute power and reforming that as persecution of 'real' America by minorities, free loaders and socialists...Was actually a jest, a jape. I'm sure if we look at the original clip again in that context we'll find it as humorous as it was sincerely intended to be.
On cue, Jon Stewart rolls clips of Megyn Kelly's controversial Santa and Jesus statements, only they were selectively edited so that none of her statements could be viewed in their full context.
Once the clips finished, Jon Stewart stared stone-faced into the camera as he tried to conjure up a fake laugh.
When Martin Bashir suggested Sarah Palin's mouth be defecated and urinated in, Stweart remained completely silent. When Alec Baldwin engaged in homophobic tirades, Jon Stewart said nothing. But this marks his second attack on Megyn Kelly over a fairly benign and ultimately meaningless statement. Now that's funny.
