Brian Kilmeade Apologizes For Racist "Pure Species" Comment

Brian Kilmeade apologized Monday for controversial comments he made on the July 8 episode of "Fox and Friends."

The controversy arose when Kilmeade and his co-hosts were discussing a Swedish and Finnish study which found that married people were less susceptible to Alzheimer's disease than unmarried ones. Kilmeade downplayed the study's significance in America, saying "we [Americans] keep marrying other species and other ethnicities . . . Swedes have pure genes . . . in America we marry everybody..."

The comment prompted an outcry for an apology, including a petition from UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc., which said that Kilmeade's statement was based on "the basest of white supremacist ideologies".

Kilmeade apologized this morning, saying "I made comments that were offensive to many people. That was not my intention, and looking back at those comments I realize they were inappropriate. For that I sincerely apologize. America [is a] huge melting pot, and that is what makes us such a great country..."

WATCH THE ORIGINAL STATEMENT HERE

Get HuffPost Media On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[OtisGates]

But fox is FAIR and BALANCED .......what a joke

[IntelligentDesign]

Apology not accepted, Brian. You must first denounce yourself as a self-effacing creep with no redeeming value and pour hot coals on your head.

[duchamp2008]

What species is Brian Kilmeade?

[troika]

Unable to fathom, but I will take a guess Some alien species.

[lastmanstanding99]

Did anyone read what he said, it wasn't that bad. It may have been factually inncorrect, but it to call what he said, white supremacist ideologies. That is not right either. The guy is just a boob.Come on people, stop being so politically correct and toughen up. It's true we are diversified and we marry all kinds of races together, which I feel is just fine. You don't choose love, love seems to choose you. Just stop watching his show or email him saying his comments are untrue. We used to have freedom of speech, it's not like it was a hate speech.

[Adrian Bklyn]

Wrong... he equated racial differences as being attributed to species differences - something that genome mapping proves as patently false.

The problem is that White Supremacists have historically characterized "the other" as being of a different species, as being different animals so as to advance unequal treatment. Sadly, Brian Kilmeade has apparently consumed this line of reasoning and clearly does not know fact from fiction.

[SaulBloodworth]

Actually, not even the Naz is had a problem with Swedes marrying Finns or Norwegians Germans. That‘s left to Fox-

[subtleD]

I think he was making some kind of generalization about the validity of a scientific study of a more homogenous population (Sweden) to a more genetically diverse population (the US). This is actually an interesting idea (in a kinda gee whiz academic sense), but would be better explored or explained by someone studying human genomes or doing statistical correlations of similiar studies...

Frankly, this is what happens when a Fox news commentator moves beyond, "Fire Good, Government Bad" reasoning and discourse.

[sanekook]

He could have just been too dumb to realise what species means. I am not even kidding here.

[BDHUH]

ceppin' he used the word "species" which puts some in a non-human class. I don;t doubt he meant it. "Toughen" up your observation and analysis.

[NewYorker6699]

Boobs can be very dangerous, especially if they occupy positions of influence, such as a TV news anchor desk on a network that is notorious for race-baiting, jingoism, reporting blatant falsehoods, and appealing to the basest instincts of relatively ignorant people who use it as their sole source of news of the day, and entertain ethnic biases that dispose them to the belief that America is a white person's country in which all other ethnic group members are invaders, misfits and interlopers. This "boob" said exactly what he meant. Something this cavalierly stated is very telling of the real thinking behind the words. His apology, coming so much later than the statement, rings hollow, indicating more a reaction to the firestorm of negative commentary that resulted from it than any sincer change of attitude on his part.

[karrie123]

Actually, after he said it he thought "Did I say that out loud."

[MadDemocrat]

Brian Kilmeade is a great reporter and host. You wouldn't know that because you are closed minded and watch PMSNBC and are brain washed with that ilk from Olbermann and the like. Open your eyes to multiple sources of media and quit the useless bashing of a good man.

Joe Biden never slipped up either, right?

[colorperdaughter]

YOu crazy. He should be fired.

[Gingersp]

Name a racist remark that Joe Biden made. Your comparison is stupid.

[radiclib]

.
.
Oh, we do watch Fox.
We watch it closely.
And we listen closely.
That's what should worry you.
.
.

[mmmd]

Good point.

[jjgg5]

Shouldn't the "Fox Network" occasionally fire one of its racist commentators, if only to try to maintain that its audience isn't 100% white?

[lmvd3]

Their hoods are showing.

[aspen]

These FOX types just can't help letting their true selves slip out.

[gs1432]

Actually, what Brian said is the truth. Most Sweeds do marry their own kind. There is nothing wrong with that.

[lmvd3]

What do you mean by "their own kind"?!? There's something wrong with you.

[JazzyJim]

Were Adam and Eve related? And, given the RNC ideology, were the children of Adam and Eve, pure breed? Things that make you go, "Hmmmm". It's amazing that science, fact and education evade the far, far, right-wing nut jobs and their own ideas about intelligent design. They'd rather not have to think about it, I'm sure, but please!

[huffy2001]

I don't really understand the whole creationist thing...it just seems so silly to me I wonder why anyone would buy into it. however, my understanding is that all of us...black, white, red, brown, yellow, etc., are descended from Adam and Eve. That means we are all of the same species/et­hnicity/fa­mily, etc. So why should there be any kind of prejudice...we are all cousins going back only 300 generations, right?

I guess where I start to lose it is trying to figure out, if we are all descended from two individuals, how is it that in the 300 generations our planet has been around we got so many ethnic and physical differences without some kind of evolutionary cycle?

Remember, though, for the first thousand or so years we were running around, the human lifespan was about 1,000 years. So that reduces the 300 generations to about 250...right?

Also, is it realistic to think that all that diversity happened in only 250 generations?

I makes my brain hurt.

[heyletsevolve]

Don't try. I have met lab rats who understand reality better than the creationists.

I just wish to god the rapture would come already and suck these mo'fos up to heaven so we can all rest easily at night.

[bleedingheartliberal218]

Is it a requirement to work at Fox Noise that your parents had to be brother and sister? I know breeding "pure" (aka inbreeding) produces genetic defects in some cases, but not everyone believes in genetics.

[LiberalForever]

Wouldn't we just all love to have a pure "species" like him at the dinner table? Think about it.

[Catmandu85219]

Other species? Did he just call some of us dogs?
The comment is not only racist, it is biologically impossible!

[heyletsevolve]

Woof.

[byrdland49]

Insincere. I think he was mostly angry that he got caught letting his "internal voice" come out, against Faux News instructions. For once he let his guard down and didn't use the appropriate Faux-approved code words.

[DavidDial]

I wanted to believe it was sincere and I am saddened by the fact that I don't.

[dagdavid]

Apology not accepted, Na z i

[colorperdaughter]

SECONDED.

[GorBud]

Never accept an apology and your list of enemies will become endless. But then again that is how some people like it.

[Jeanise Ratcliff]

I just get wso sick and tired of these people saying what they feel then not having the heart to stand by it, they know how they talk when they are alone or just in the company of the few. One thing about rush levine savage and bortz they know they are supremist and they don't make excuses for it i really thought this guy was cool though you just can't tell these days. why does it have to always be about division why what heaven do all of us think we are going too, i really think some people think there will be a heaven for different races, God is not going to have that foolishness. just sad whose next.