CNN analyst Areva Martin incorrectly assumed Fox News contributor and Sirius XM radio host David Webb is white and suggested he has benefited from "white privilege" during a debate on his radio show.
Martin and Webb were debating what qualifies people for certain jobs, and Webb said expertise and experience were more important than race, in his view, Mediate reports.
"Shouldn't their requirement, their primary requirement, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of network, be that they are capable of covering politics?" Webb said. "For instance, if you're going to cover political campaigns, sports may not be the most qualified background. And that brings to the point of if people want to get into these fields regardless of color, I've chosen to cross different parts of the media world, done the work so that I'm qualified to be in each one. I never considered my color the issue. I considered my qualifications the issue."
"Well David, you know that's a whole 'nother long conversation about white privilege and things that you have the privilege of doing that people of color don't have the privilege of," Martin responded.
"How do I have the privilege of white privilege?" Webb asked.
"David, by virtue of being a white male, you have white privilege, which is a whole long conversation I don't have time to get into," Martin answered.
"Areva, I hate to break it to you, but you should have been better prepped, I'm black," Webb said.
"Okay, then I stand corrected," Martin responded.
Webb then called out Martin for appealing to white privilege in response to his argument.
"See, you went to white privilege. This is the falsehood in this. You went immediately with an assumption. Your people obviously, or you, didn't look. You're talking to a black man," Webb said.