First, if you haven’t seen this killer interview by Killer Mike with Joy Reid (video below), it’s a must-see. Really powerful — imho even more so than the one Egberto Willies has had on the Rec List last night & today.
What I particularly loved about it was Mike’s response to Joy’s question about people tearing down John Lewis. Mike’s heartfelt response both fully honored Lewis and poignantly explained why he parts with Lewis in this primary. It was a thing of beauty.
When I saw Egberto’s Rec List diary, I assumed this was the interview he was featuring. When I found out it wasn’t, I sighed and decided I would have to post my own, competing “Look at this great interview with Killer Mike!” diary.
So imagine my surprise when I went to MSNBC.com and discovered they had erased from their video the part I thought was so great. They showed everything before that, and everything after it, but right in the middle of the video, they just snipped the best 30 seconds right out of it, with no explanation. Fortunately, most of the missing portion was captured in a short YouTube video by Fannews Clips, so at least for the moment we can still see it.
The title of this diary is a rhetorical question. You don’t really need to tell me in the comments why they did it; the action speaks for itself when you watch the two videos and think about the changes the network has been making for the past couple of years.
Here are both videos, along with a transcript of the censored portion, in case MSNBC forces YouTube to pull down the clip.
Note that at about 3:52, Mike says,
“I would just say, I like the radical John Lewis of 19---”
and then the next words on the video come out of Joy’s mouth:
“---intersection between issues of gender, issues of race. . . .”
*NOTE: I don’t think the MSNBC video will work in Firefox, so you may need to use a different browser.
x Embedded ContentAaaaaand here’s what they cut out — at least the part by Killer Mike. It looks like this clip doesn’t go quite far enough to get us exactly to Joy’s re-entry point on the MSNBC video, but I don’t remember her saying anything significant in between there, so I suspect the remaining gap is probably just another second or two.
x YouTube VideoTranscript:
I would just say, I like the radical John Lewis of 19 and 20 years old. I think that the radical John Lewis of 19 and 20 years old would have been organizing on the side of Sanders now. And even if he isn't right now, respectfully disagree if you're 19, 20, 30, 31 -- respectfully disagree with your leaders so that you'll still engage after this is over, cause we all still gotta be black, we all gotta take care of each other.
Apparently whoever’s in charge of what goes on MSNBC’s website found these words offensive for some reason. Go figure.