‘Fox News’ Host Laura Ingraham Receives Blowback For ‘Cringeworthy’ Segment Mocking Congresswoman’s Accent
Fox News host Laura Ingraham does not shy away from giving her two cents on things, and on more than one occasion, her comments have drawn flak because of their underpinned connotations. She once mocked a 17-year-old victim of school shooting, referred to Donald Trump’s much-panned child separation policy as a “summer camp”, and as the Inquisitr reported, she once slammed African-American NBA stars including LeBron James as “unintelligible and ungrammatical” in comments which were widely construed as being racist.
But her detractors have not been able to stop Ingraham from spewing out comments which are problematic, and this week, the Fox News host seemed to have made more racially-sensitive remarks when she called Minnesota first-time Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar “Rizzo from Grease” — a reference to the fictional character of Betty Rizzo from the 1978 movie Grease, who was known for her morally loose choices.
Ilhan is one of the freshmen women Democratic voters have elected to Congress, also making her one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, along with Rashida Talib. Ilhan came to the United States as a 12-year-old refugee from Somalia and she could not speak good English when she arrived.
Ingraham’s comments come in light of Ilhan Omar’s criticism of the ongoing government shutdown, where she called on Donald Trump to end the negotiating tactic which is costing 800,000 federal workers across the country their pay. Speaking on her nationally-syndicated radio show, the Laura Ingraham Show, Ingraham mocked Ilhan’s accent, saying “it doesn’t sound like Minnesota.”
Listen to her comments here.
This is not the first time that Ilhan’s ethinicity has been made fun of by conservative TV pundits. As for Laura Ingraham, she seems to have a particular distaste for newly elected Democratic congresswomen. She also accused New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of deflecting criticism and shutting out meaningful debate by claiming that others were out to attack her personally.
“So, when you can’t debate a point, you throw back, ‘White privilege – you can’t understand.’ And then there’s nowhere for that person to go. You shut down debate,” Ingraham said. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is trying that little trick on Tucker Carlson and me.”
Ocasio-Cortez had hit back at Tucker Carlson after his website published fake nude pictures of the Congresswoman. Ingraham said Ocasio-Cortez’s comment sounded like it was coming from someone who belonged to a “protected class.”
It remains to be seen if Ingraham’s comments illicit more blowback, but ThinkProgress characterized them as typical of the Fox News host, saying they were “cringeworthy” and abhorrent.
? Who knew sounding like Rizzo from GREESE was a crime.
FYI, here in MN our “accents” aren’t what makes us Minnesotans, it’s our warm and welcoming hearts that do.
Which @IngrahamAngle would know nothing about! https://t.co/UmIw8nlgym
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 20, 2019
