‘Is That a Code?’: Keith Olbermann Riles Up Twitter by Dubbing Trump ‘Whiny Little Kunta Kinte’

“Yes @realDonaldTrump has always been, will always be, and on the day of his bid for re-election, still is: a whiny little Kunta Kinte,” Olbermann tweeted in response to a video of Trump bashing Fox News while calling into the network’s “Fox & Friends” morning news show on Tuesday.

Kunta Kinte is the original name of the protagonist in “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” a 1976 novel by author Alex Haley. The book - later made into multiple TV miniseries and movies - is a work of historical fiction that followed the life of Haley’s enslaved ancestors.

Kinte was viewed as stubborn by his enslavers because he did not accept “Toby” as his new name, despite being whipped for his defiance. He attempted to escape slavery a total of four times, with the final effort ending in his enslavers cutting off part of his right foot.

Netizens familiar with the classic American series immediately called out Olbermann.

Olbermann, hours later, attempted to clarify his tweet, claiming to have been attempting to use a dated “70's-80's technique” to call someone a c**t without explicitly saying the sexist slur.

His admission, understandably, prompted even more confusion.

“Reading Rainbow” host LeVar Burton, who played the younger Kunta Kinte in the 1977 TV miniseries version of “Roots,” delivered Olbermann a quick linguistics lesson.

Burton also changed his Twitter profile picture to a photo of him portraying the character while on the set of “Roots.”

“And you can never keep your personal lexicography as much as you’d like, so I especially appreciate the suggestions in this thread that ‘See you next Tuesday’ is the modern acceptable euphemism,” Olbermann concluded in his so-called apology.