For Columbus Day, Teachers College associate professor Marc Lamont Hill wrote a blog post for the Huffington Post titled "The 15 Most Overrated White People." He created the list, he writes in the piece, because Columbus was "an immoral treasure hunter" who does not deserve the acclaim he has received over the centuries. On Twitter, he described the list as "tongue in cheek."
The list included figures such as Elvis Presley, William Shakespeare, and Babe Ruth, and featured explanations of why each was not deserving of his or her fame.
On the same day Hill's blog post was published, he hosted a discussion panel on Huffington Post Live. The segment featured four guests. One of them, Kmele Foster, suggested that it was inappropriate to make the issue a racial one. "Everyone present knows that...you'd run the risk of being branded a racist if you were just a bit fairer-skinned and the subject---and the person we were talking about---was a little darker."
In response, Hill told Foster that he was allowed to say "white" on his program, and added "I don't think of 'white' as fairer."
