Rush Limbaugh: Kanye Would 'Get Awards' for Singing Racist OU Chant
Conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh has spoken out on the recent controversy regarding a racist chant sang by members of a former fraternity at the University of Oklahoma.
The controversial video was released last weekend and shows members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon singing a racist chant that includes racial slurs. The university reacted quickly to the video, banning the fraternity from its campus and expelling two fraternity members identified as the leaders of the chant.
Limbaugh discussed the controversy on a recent airing of "The Rush Limbaugh Show," referencing comments made by MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski in which she said that rap artists also use derogatory slurs, just as the University of Oklahoma students did in the video.
The conservative talk show host said that while he wasn't sure if he agreed with Brzezinki's comments, he thinks that "If this had been a song by Kim Kardashian's husband and they had sung this song at the Grammys [...] it'd be a hit."
"But I'm telling you this stuff gets awards and the people who sing it are portrayed as American royalty in terms of celebrity. You can't deny that."
Meanwhile, Brzezinski defended comments she made on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," in which she argued that rappers also use racial slurs in their songs. The talk show host was referencing rapper Waka Flocka Flame's decision to cancel his concert at the University of Oklahoma after the fraternity video surfaced.
Several viewers took to social media to accuse Brzezinski and her fellow hosts of suggesting that rap songs hold a moral equivalency to the derogatory words sung by the members of SAE at the University of Oklahoma.
"The students in the video are responsible for their behavior. And as we said in our show this morning, it's beyond appalling," she said on MSNBC's "The Cycle" later in the afternoon.
"On another point, there may be a good conversation to have out there about rap music, hip-hop and lyrics and use of the n-word, and whether or not is should be allowed to be used on where and what form and what platform. But there's no moral equivalency between any lyrics and what happened on that bus. We said that this morning on our show."