Warning: Language and audio may offend some readers
Yikes. What is it with the Cuomo family and their misunderstandings of racial slurs?
Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo accidentally said the n-word during a radio interview on Tuesday on a local NYC radio station while explaining racism against Italian Americans. Cuomo's brother and star CNN anchor recently came under hot water after he went ballistic on some kid for calling him Fredo. The TV host said that Fredo was the Italian equivalent of the n-word. But on Tuesday, Gov. Cuomo also stuck his foot in his mouth while defending his brother.
Apparently, he called the radio station to discuss Columbus Day and Indigenous People's Day. Here's what happened:
via New York Post:
He quickly turned the discussion to a New York Times op-ed that ran Saturday about the treatment of Italian-Americans in the past — and said the entire N-word while talking about slurs once used against the Italian community.
“They used an expression that Southern Italians were called, I believe they were saying Southern Italians, Sicilians — I’m half Sicilian — were called, quote-unquote and pardon my language, but I’m just quoting the Times: ‘n—r wops. N-word wops,’ as a derogatory comment,” Cuomo said, slowly and clearly saying the whole inflammatory epithet.
“When I said that ‘wop’ was a derogatory comment, that was when the Times Union told me, no, you should look in Wikipedia, ‘wop’ really meant a dandy,” he told host Alan Chartock, laughing.
Here's the actual audio:
Folks let Gov. Cuomo know on Twitter how out of line his comments were:
He said it in the context of trying to yell at the New York Times for being unfair to him, referencing a term they used.
— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) October 15, 2019
So the motivation behind the using of the word wasn’t even defensible. It was just self serving, which is par for the course with Andrew Cuomo. https://t.co/h04g0G2NfQ
I just don't get it.
— Joe Bruno (@Joebruno999) October 15, 2019
Why is it okay to use the derogatory word... https://t.co/ePc5mEEgKA
i'm more surprised it's taken cuomo this long to slip up and say the n-word in public
— Chaotic Goof (@mattRAZ) October 15, 2019
I'm trying to imagine how this would play out if a Republican governor did this. He probably would have been forced out of office by sundown, right?