Barbie Bassett hasn’t been on air for NBC affiliate WLBT since March 8, when she and other on-air staffers discussed adding Snoop Dogg to its wine line.
Bassett said, “Fo shizzle, my nizzle” when the idea of a snoop collab with a news editor came up. (“Nizzle” is slang for the N-word.)
Two high-profile media personalities have now come to Bassett’s defense.
“She can’t say, ‘Fo shizzle, my (expletive)?’ ‘ Charlamagne Tha God said Monday on his nationally syndicated radio program The Breakfast Club. “Oh, I guess because (it) is a derivative of (N-word).”
Charlamagne added: “She might not even know what (N-word) means. Come on, we gotta hold up, man. That is no reason to fire this woman.”
The 20-year-old WLBT presenter has not been officially fired, but her bio has been removed from the channel’s website.
Whoopi Goldberg spoke out on the subject yesterday The view.
“There has to be a book of things no one could ever say, never, never, never. Include everything,” she said. “The things that change, ‘You can say this, but you can’t say this, 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 are things we do and say.”
Referring to Bassett’s local news platform, she added: “Just because we’re on TV doesn’t mean we know everything. We don’t know everything not to do. And if someone says something, if you don’t give them a chance to explain why they said it, at least give them the grace to say, “You know what? I was just informed that I shouldn’t do this” as opposed to “You’re out”. Because saying, “You’re out” means you don’t want to hear what people have to say…that could have helped someone else avoid that mistake.”
Bassett previously caused controversy with a comment in which he referred to the “grandmother” of a black reporter on the air. She later apologized.
When contacted by the New York Post, the network’s regional vice president, Ted Fortenberry, said, “As I’m sure you can understand, WLBT is in no position to comment on personnel matters.”