This won’t likely put a balm on the nerves of conservatives who are incensed by what happened on Melissa Harris-Perry‘s program Sunday concerning Mitt Romney‘s black adopted grandchild, but it is a formal gesture.
“An apology from Melissa Harris-Perry,” the statement on MSNBC.com reads. The odd thing is, it’s not a network-wide statement from MSNBC but rather, it looks like a story, complete with a byline from Melissa Harris-Perry.
The statement goes on to encapsulate the host’s tweets apologizing to the Romney family. A panel Sunday laughed as comedian guests mocked the black baby for being the only one in a sea of white — they joked — just like the GOP.
“On Sunday’s program, we showed a photo of Governor Romney holding his adopted grandson, who is African-American,” Harris writes. “The intent of featuring the photo was to celebrate it — I often speak to the issue of the increasingly diverse American family. Whatever the intent, the segment proceeded in an unexpected way that was offensive. Without reservation or qualification, I apologize to the Romney family and to all families built on loving transracial adoptions.”
In fact, Harris-Perry’s attempt to “celebrate” the photo involved asking for funny captions from her panel, which included obscure comedian Dean Obeidallah and Pia Glenn, an actress with only nine credits listed at IMDb — two of those for playing Condoleezza Rice in unfunny burlesques of the first black woman to serve as Secretary of State. Harris-Perry herself joked that Romney’s grandchild would grow up to marry North West, the spawn of scandal-prone celebrities Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
Obeidallah has since published a rambling apology. Glenn engaged in some Twitter warfare before saying she was sorry to “Adoptive parents giving a child of ANY ethnicity a loving home.”