Fox hosts Stuart Varney and Jason Whitlock debate whether people hate the Patriots because they're white
Stuart Varney’s My Take left some people scratching their heads, after the Fox Business host had a guest on who argued that the New England Patriots are particularly hated because many of their marquee players are white. The Fox Nation host invited Fox Sports 1’s Jason Whitlock to the show to discuss his theory about how the Patriots are victims of reverse racism.
“Is it black folks who don’t like the Patriots because their stars are white and they’ve got two-parent families? What’s this racism bit?” Varney asked, referring to Whitlock’s previous claims.
“Varney, I think it’s more than black folks,” Whitlock replied. “We’re in this era of woke, and woke media and superliberal media who love to prove how racially sensitive they are. And I think the New England Patriots are like the Duke basketball team under Mike Krzyzewski that had been so dominant for so long, and the Duke basketball team featured a lot of white stars in a sport dominated by African-Americans.”
Whitlock said the reason “the hypersensitive” and “woke crowd” has “hate toward the Patriots” is because their star players are white.
“Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Chris Hogan, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft: Those are the guys you think of when you think of the New England Patriots, and that’s unusual in the NFL,” Whitlock claimed.
“I think we’re on the same page, Jason, I think we agree here,” Varney replied, but added he thinks Whitlock’s “charge of racism is just wrong in this instance.”
“I don’t like just tossing around racism,” Whitlock said.
“Good,” Varney noted.
Whitlock added, “I do think there is an irrational hate and part of it is driven because of the racial component of the New England Patriots and just the way the team is perceived.”
There are plenty of reasons people hate the Patriots (see: Deflategate, Spygate and the fact they win a lot), but racism is certainly a new one. New England will face off against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday in the Super Bowl — a team that also has a white starting quarterback, a white head coach and white principal team owner.
The Rams aren’t exactly a beloved team in this year’s Super Bowl either, but that definitely has nothing to do with race.
[Editor’s note: This post was originally published Feb. 1, 2019 at 4:54 p.m. ET.]
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