The white Mississippi news anchor who reportedly was fired for quoting a Snoop Dogg song during a live broadcast is receiving support from Charlamagne Tha God and Whoopi Goldberg.
Former WLBT morning show host Barbie Bassett appears to have lost her job after she quoted lyrics containing a slang form of the N-word on March 8.
Bassett was discussing the recording artist’s new wine, Snoop Cali Blanc, during the broadcast with co-anchor Wilson Stribling and meteorologist Patrick Ellis when she said, “Fo shizzle, my nizzle.”
Bassett has yet to return to her on-air job at WLBT, and her name was removed from the station’s website. However, the Mississippi news anchor received some support from “The Breakfast Club” and “The View” hosts after a clip of her faux pas went viral.
“She can’t say, ‘Fo shizzle, my Nizzle?’ Oh, I guess because it’s a derivative of N-word,” said Charlamagne, adding, “She might not even know what nizzle means. Come on, we got to stop, man. That’s not a reason to fire that woman.”
Goldberg — who was suspended from “The View” for two weeks after she said the Holocaust was “not about race” — was also willing to give Bassett the benefit of the doubt.
“There has to be a book of stuff that nobody could ever say, ever, ever, ever. Include everything,” she said. “The things that change, ‘You can say this, but you can’t say that, but next week you might not be able to say this.’ It’s hard to keep up. It’s hard to keep up. And if you’re a person of a certain age, there’s stuff we do, and we say.”
The 67-year-old went on to say that people should be given the opportunity to explain themselves if they don’t understand something they said was offensive.
“Just because we’re on television doesn’t mean we know everything. We don’t know everything you’re not supposed to do,” Goldberg explained. “And if there is something someone says, if you’re not going to give them the opportunity to explain why they said it, at least give them the grace of saying, ‘You know what? I’ve just been informed that I should not have done that,’ as opposed to, ‘You’re out.’
She said, “Because saying ‘You’re out’ means that you don’t want to hear what people have to say — that could have helped somebody else not make that mistake.”
Bassett, a more than 20-year veteran of the news station, may not have known that she was using slang for the N-word when she quoted the lyrics.
However, many feel that due to her past comments, she should have been let go. She previously referred to the grandmother of her Black co-anchor as her “grandmammy,” before later apologizing.
