Juan Williams to Pat Buchanan: 'Are You a Racist?'

In an interview on Fox News Latino Feb. 24, journalist and pundit Juan Williams sat down with pundit and author Pat Buchanan and asked him if he was a racist.

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Buchanan responded to the question with a resounding no after Williams said that many Americans believe the conservative commentator is one.

"Do I hate black folks?" Buchanan asked Williams. "That's what racism means — that I hate black folks, I want them discriminated against. No! It's not that. I do disagree profoundly with the affirmative action agenda and a number of other issues, but I've argued as I said with African-American folks my whole life. Our schools that I went to, the Catholic schools, were the first ones desegregated in D.C."

Buchanan was fired from MSNBC earlier this month after the release of his book Suicide of a Superpower. A number of civil rights groups had called for his firing, in part in response to the controversial chapter titled "The End of White America."

In the interview, Buchanan said that the word "racist" is thrown around too lightly nowadays. "Juan, you and I, if we sat there and watched cable 24 hours, we can hear people called [a racist] every day. And it makes one of the points of [my book], that American society is disintegrating. It's breaking down and breaking apart because we've lost our common faith and common moral consensus — all of these things that once held us together."

Not surprisingly, Williams — who was fired by NPR in May 2011 after he voiced concerns about getting on a plane with a Muslim or someone dressed in Islamic garb — told Buchanan that he felt his pain. "I feel like we are brothers in understanding what these groups, on the left primarily, decided that you're not to be allowed to speak. They will banish you and make you an outcast, and Pat, I'm sorry that's happened to you."

What are your thoughts on Buchanan's assertion that he's not a racist — and the "victim-fest" that the interview turned into?

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