Conservative Pundit Ben Shapiro Apologizes For Racist Columbus Day Video
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro issued an apology after his website published a video mocking Native Americans on Columbus Day.
Shapiro said the video was created and posted without his knowledge while he was on vacation.
“I was uncomfortable with the video, but in the interests of giving my employees the benefit of the doubt — and in the interests of defending satire more broadly — I decided to leave the video up,” he wrote on Tuesday. “That was a mistake, and I apologize fully for it.”
The video, which featured Native Americans staring in awe as Christopher Columbus eats with a knife and fork, has been removed from the social media of the Daily Wire, Shapiro’s conservative news and commentary website.
The liberal website Salon called the video “boundlessly racist.” Shapiro had originally defended it, writing, “Conservatives are allowed to make satire too.”
But he had a change of heart around 24 hours later. “In my opinion, it was bad satire,” he wrote. “It did not fulfill my editorial guidelines. It skipped over the grave injustices visited upon Native Americans, and it engaged in broad-based stereotyping.”
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO