Jewish Conservative Ben Shapiro Defends ‘Boundlessly Racist’ Columbus Day Video
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Sam Kestenbaum October 10, 2017
Jewish conservative Ben Shapiro is standing behind the publication of a Columbus Day video on his website the Daily Wire that depicted Native Americans as simple-minded cannibals — despite criticism that the clip was racist.
—@benshapiro tells me he’s on vacation/didn’t green light @realDailyWire’s Columbus Day vid, but says it’s satire & should be judged as such pic.twitter.com/LloK7nyenH
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 9, 2017
The website Salon decried the short animation as “boundlessly racist.”
The video “spins off of the increasingly popular idea” in conservative circles, Salon wrote, that Christopher Columbus should be defended from “those who actually acknowledge his written history.” In the video, Native Americans gawk in awe at the sight of Columbus eating with a knife and a fork.
In honor of Indigenous People’s Day, formerly known as #ColumbusDay: pic.twitter.com/Z9ver8f4nN
— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) October 9, 2017
Shapiro said that he had been on vacation and didn’t approve of the video but said that it was “obvious to me that it’s satire and must be evaluated by those standards.”
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
