CBS 46 screenshot

Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Common sense dictates that a certain type of angry white voter would be in their feelings if Mary Norwood lost the Atlanta mayoral election and blew their chance at planting a flag in Chocolate Peach City. However, you figure they would have at least waited until the Associated Press called the race before going full #MAGA. Perhaps I gave certain elements of Georgia too much credit.




During Tuesday night’s election coverage, Atlanta’s CBS anchors Ben Swann, Alicia Roberts and Sharon Reed, like good journalists, discussed the racial dynamics at play in the close election between a black woman, Councilwoman Keisha Lance Bottoms, and a white woman, Councilwoman Mary Norwood.

I guess that real talk was a little too much for CBS viewer Kathy Rae, who decided she’d had just about enough of Reed specifically (wonder why?) and her particular brand of journalistic discussion. Maybe it was because Norwood was already losing, maybe it was because Kathy Rae was a sad and bitter woman, maybe it was because she never got into The Root’s Clapback Mailbag and wanted to try her hand locally first.


Regardless of her reasoning, Rae sent the following email to the show live:

You need to be fired for the race baiting comment you made tonight. It’s okay for blacks to discuss certain subjects but not whites…Really, you are what I call a N***r not a black person. you are a racist N***r. you are what’s wrong with the world.

However, don’t let the smooth anchor voice fool you—Reed has dealt with her share of nonsense over the years, not to mention covering the Ferguson, Mo., riots, so she was not about to let Kathy Rae spew un-spell-checked racial invective all over the nice message boards of CBS 46 Atlanta. Reed kept her cool and read Kathy Rae like an old phone book. On air. Watch the video below:




This video is great for several reasons.

First, anytime black anchors get to go in on the kind of incessant racism they face in the comments section of local outlets, I’m all here for it.


Second, Reed did her monologue staring down into the camera while her co-anchors kind of hovered around in the background; it was a news-anchor clapback filmed like a Hype Williams video.

Finally, the entire video saves tons of people from writing unnecessary think pieces. Don’t waste your time trying to say that the Atlanta mayoral election wasn’t about race. It definitely was for most white Democratic voters, not to mention white conservatives and Republicans, too.


In fact, let’s just agree that if anyone is so angry about a mayoral election that they have to email racial epithets to the first black person they see on television, race—not traffic, not schools, nor the rising price of parking tickets in downtown—was the biggest motivation behind their vote.