Megyn Kelly's blackface defense was inadvertently revealing, the reaction of somebody who doesn't think about people different from them

The New York Times

Kelly must've believed her blackface defense on Tuesday was an entirely innocuous opinion, forgetting its racist history, says James Poniewozik. "To Kelly, this history was just a bummer, ruining an innocent good time," he says. Poniewozik adds: "It is a pattern, and not an unfamiliar one. It’s the kind of remark that comes from people who don’t see themselves as racist. They just see themselves as, you know, normal. Regular. The default. They grew up in a world where these normal, regular, default things were — well, they were just the way things were. ('Santa just is white,' Kelly said in 2013, as if saying the sun rose in the east.) And they don’t get why people are so upset and sensitive now about what they see as harmless. It is, at heart, the reaction of people who didn’t have to think much about sharing the world with people different from them. They were never asked to learn much about those other people, or consider how their actions and speech and 'harmless' entertainment might exclude or hurt them. Now people like Kelly are being asked to learn. And they’re puzzled, or irritated, or downright angry about it. Sometimes this feeling manifests itself in an offhand remark about Halloween. Sometimes it’s 'Why should I have to say, "Happy holidays?"' Sometimes it’s tiki torches and 'You will not replace us.' The degree is different. But it all comes back to: My thing used to be the main thing, the automatic thing, and now it’s not, and I don’t like it."

ALSO:

• Megyn Kelly never belonged on Today: "The Today show is not just what’s on the background when you drink your morning coffee," says Jen Chaney. "It is the TV equivalent of morning coffee. It provides a bit of a jolt — the Today team does cover the news of the day, and the days we’re currently living are a nonstop hellscape of stories about alleged sexual assaulters and pipe bombs being sent to Barack Obama — but it’s also meant to be a warm, comforting part of Americans’ daily routines. That’s not who Megyn Kelly is or what she represents, at least as a television personality. If you asked me to free-associate adjectives that describe her, we’d be both here until Election Day before I ever got to 'warm' or 'comforting.'"
• Kelly's blackface controversy was her being completely in character
• Kelly's colleagues had grown envious of her large salary, exasperated by her on-air gaffes and disdainful of her low ratings
• Her blackface comments were an accurate representation of her views on race and racism
• NBC News boss Andy Lack should've been more skeptical: Kelly's racially offensive Fox News controversies wouldn't have been tolerated at NBC News
• Why a return to Fox News isn't viable after leaving amid a series of controversies that left a bad taste among some of her colleagues
• Megyn Kelly Today usually has a largely white audience -- was a diverse audience recruited for her apology?
• Watch a compilation of Kelly's racially charged Fox News history
• Geraldo Rivera says Kelly deserves "some mercy" following her "apparently heartfelt apology" -- "Hope she comes back to Fox"
• Here's a timeline of Kelly's tumultuous 21 months at NBC
• UPDATE: NBC's Today reported Friday morning on Kelly's "imminent departure"