Megyn Kelly went to our high school and, no, blackface wasn't "OK" here when she was a kid

Those comments definitely do not speak to who we are in Bethlehem or at Bethlehem Central High School, from which she graduated in 1988. Blackface is not acceptable anywhere in America, and it is not acceptable in our town. We weren’t alive when Megyn was in high school but, in the recollection of many of our parents who grew up around here, it was not acceptable even in the 1980s town that she knew.

That’s not to say that our community never struggles with racial equity, or never has struggled with racism. Our demographics create real blind spots, and the town of Bethlehem is 92 percent white, 2.5 percent African American, 3.2 percent Asian American and 2.7 percent Latino, according to the 2010 census.

And blackface, of course, was part of a broad and sordid tradition of masking racism in the “humor” of minstrelsy; people who lived in our area were not immune. Our local newspaper’s records show that minstrel shows were performed as fundraisers in our elementary school gym as late as 1960 (albeit a decade before Megyn was born).