On Wednesday, conservative political commentator Ann Coulter spoke in front of a crowd of more than 2,300 people at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Coulter, who is speaking at a Kent County Republican dinner on March 16, has come under fire for the racist comments that she has made over the past few weeks. These comments have prompted Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer to ask the Republican Party to cancel her appearance, to which Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Karl Hascall responded by defending Coulter’s use of the term “raghead” as an acceptable comedic term. According to an article in the Kalamazoo Gazette, Coulter largely avoided racist terminology instead deciding to cobble together a number of one-line “zingers” into a speech. However, during the question and answer period, Coulter told an African-American man that she understood what it was like to be black in the United States. The comment was made in response to a question posed by an African-American audience member about how minorities could be drawn to the Republican Party, to which Coulter responded that “It’s very tough to be a conservative black. I know what you go through.”

Nationally, Ann Coulter’s syndicated weekly column again featured racist depictions of Muslims, whom she called "savages" as she decried the Bush administration’s “obstinate refusal to profile Middle Easterners.” In columns earlier this month, Coulter described Islam as “a car-burning cult” and used the term “jihad monkey.”