Cleveland Fox 8 anchor Kristi Capel didn’t like the background music in Lady Gaga’s Sunday night Oscar’s performance, but she sure liked to use the word “jigaboo!’ It sounded so nice, she said it twice! Yes, she ‘totally went there’ and resurrected the old racist term. To be fair,she didn’t seem to have a clue what the word meant. She later admitted to thinking of it as a nonsense word . To be blunt – isn’t it her job to look things up – like words?
Some background on the verbal train wreck. Co-anchor Wayne Dawson reported on Lady Gaga’s Sound of Music tribute, which was deemed to have been “wonderful” by the show’s original songbird, Julie Andrews. Capel agreed, but complained to Dawson,saying, “It’s hard to really hear her voice with all the jigaboo music — whatever you want to call it — jigaboo!” she said, repeating the pejorative with enthusiasm. Dawson, who is black, appeared to be studying his co-host, offering “She has a nice voice.” Dawson is a pro. You will see his eyebrow arch as he maintains his end of the report. I would give more than a penny for his thoughts.
“She has a gorgeous voice,” the oblivious Capel agreed. “I never knew. Very nice.”
When the inevitable complaints arrived via Twitter, Capel responded by cutting and pasting the same reply to each. I’m not certain it helped her case. .
“I apologize if I offended you, I had no idea it was a word or what it meant. Thank you for watching,” Capel wrote.
Dictionary.com: “Jigaboo” is an “extremely disparaging and offensive” term for black people. According to Rafael Otto, culture blogger, the term was coined as description of dancing black slaves in the 1800s.