The rules for NBC employees just got a little more complicated. Last week, the network fired “Today” show host Megyn Kelly for claiming that when she was a child, dressing in blackface was was acceptable on Halloween provided you were dressing as a well-known personality:
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 OK just as long as you were dressing as a character.
As an example, she cited a reality show star who wanted to dress as Diana Ross. “She wants to look like Diana Ross for one day, and I don’t know how that got racist on Halloween.”
From NBC’s reaction, it was clear that that network’s policy forbids saying it is OK to dress as personality from a different race on Halloween. But yesterday, Al Roker, a former colleague of Kelly, didn’t merely talk about dressing up as a white character. He actually did it, donning a white wig and lab coat and proclaiming himself to be Doc Brown, from “Back to the Future.” Somehow, the executives at NBC had no problem with Roker’s costume.
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Roker was taken to task by some on social media, who found his actions — or more specifically those of NBC — to be hypocritical, to which he replied somewhat huffily (and using some of the most fractured syntax ever produced in English):
I’m going to say this one last time, but the folks who get it, understand and the ones who DON’T, won’t. I can be Doc Brown, and I wear the outfit and wig and not change my skin color if you’re white , you can be President Obama if you want. Just don’t color your skin!
— Al Roker (@alroker) October 31, 2018
That’s splitting hairs on steroids. It’s also vapid. How do you portray Barack Obama without mimicking at least his hairstyle and facial features. Is Roker suggesting that a costume like that would make it past the PC police?
Maybe NBC needs to rethink either its decision to can Kelly or its decision not to can Roker.
