‘You Don’t Get to Tell Other People What Racism Is’: Conservative Pundit Sparks Fireworks on MSNBC

• ‘This Is Not Racism’ Insists Conservative Matt Schlapp

• Plays the Victim Card

• Calls Mount on Twitter for MSNBC to Ban Schlapp

Conservative pundit Matt Schlapp is a frequent commentator on MSNBC. While the network rarely mentions it, Schlapp is also head of the organization that hosts the annual CPAC convention, where far right wing conservatives and Republicans come together and freely trash liberals and Democrats. 

Schlapp’s commentary on White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s Tuesday attack on reporter April Ryan drew the ire of Dr. Jason Johnson, a professor of political science and the politics editor for The Root. 

Spicer treated Ryan, a well-respected journalist, like a child, at one point scolding her for shaking her head, despite outright lying to her during the Tuesday press briefing while accusing her of not reporting the facts. His treatment of Ryan was so offensive Hillary Clinton in a Tuesday evening speech came to her defense.

MSNBC’s Chris Jansing played a clip of Spicer talking with another far right wing conservative, Hugh Hewitt, who frequently appears on MSNBC also. “To suggest somehow that because of her race or her gender that she’d be treated differently is, I think, frankly, demeaning to her,” Spicer said of Ryan.

Johnson responded, saying, “I don’t believe him. I think it was offensive. I think it was inappropriate. I think it was racist. I think it was sexist.”

He also recounted examples of the Trump administration, including Spicer on another occassion, treating people of color disrespectfully.

Schlapp, not surprisingly, didn’t appreciate Ryan’s questioning of Spicer, even though that literally is her job. He labeled it “too feisty.” 

He also insisted Spicer’s treatment of Ryan is “not racism.”

Johnson replied, “You don’t get to tell other people what racism is!”

“You don’t either!” was Schlapp’s response.

“You don’t experience it!” Johnson reminded him.

A veritable verbal “fight” broke out, with Jansing forced to repeatedly urge them to calm down.

“This is the exact kind of aggression and lack of respect that we’re talking about,” Johnson observed.

Schlapp then pulled the victim card.

“I think our country’s in a bad place because people like me are constantly shouted down for being racist, misogynist, hate his person, hate that person.”

Minutes later, Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart, also an MSNBC contributor, posted this to Twitter:

On Twitter, there are many calls for Schlapp t be banned from returning to MSNBC, and rightly so.