Rachel Maddow, Like So Many Others, Can't Tell White Men Apart

By Bobby Finger  |  April 14, 2016 | 12:40pm
Latest


On Wednesday night’s show, Rachel Maddow made an understandable error. When discussing Senator Angus King, a Maine Independent, she showed a photograph of Peter King, a Republican congressman from New York. Later in the episode, she dedicated a brief segment apologizing for the mix-up, saying:

[Peter King] is not a senator, he’s not an Independent, he’s not from Maine, and he’s not a person who caucuses with the Democrats, and he’s just…white men! That’s the only way I can get there visually. That’s it.

She apologized to both white men for the error, though admitted to “finding it a little bit hilarious.”

Though I myself am a white man, I will not malign Maddow for her error, and understand her confusion. We are indeed a boring-looking bunch—all made of the same pale, frequently sunburned gunk. Clover Hope and Ellie Shechet regularly mistake me for Gawker’s Sam Biddle, Jia Tolentino calls me “HamNo” when we meet in the office’s dimmer hallways, and Emma Carmichael talked to me as though I were Nick Denton twice in the past week alone. Some days I actually think I’m that kid from Glee. So I get it, Rachel. And I forgive you.

 
Join the discussion...