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U.S. military apologizes for offensive language after being called out on Hasan Minhaj's 'Patriot Act'

Hasan Minhaj visits the Build Series on May 25, 2017, in New York City. (Photo: Desiree Navarro/FilmMagic)
Hasan Minhaj visits the Build Series on May 25, 2017, in New York City. (Photo: Desiree Navarro/FilmMagic)

The military took note of comedian Hasan Minhaj’s new Netflix show, Patriot Act, when it debuted on Sunday.

Minhaj did a segment that cited offensive language — the term “Negro blood” — in an online manual for troops deploying to Saudi Arabia. It described the Saudi population as “mainly composed of descendants of indigenous tribes that have inhabited the peninsula since prehistoric times with some later mixture of Negro blood from slaves imported from Africa.”

Minhaj cracked, “Oh, America. Even in boring technical manuals, you still somehow manage to be racist.”

Four days after the episode went live on Netflix, the U.S. Central Command apologized.

“We regret that inappropriate material was posted to our website without a more fulsome review and apologize to anyone who took offense,” Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for Centcom, said, according to a report in Stars and Stripes. “We removed the document as soon as we were notified of the content, and it was returned to the originating office for revision.”

Urban said officials are looking over the rest of the 69-page booklet, which was published in June.

“We have conducted an internal review of our posting processes, and are conducting a survey of previously posted material to ensure there are no further instances of inappropriate material on our website,” he said.

Another official told the New York Times that older versions of the booklet had probably been uploaded. However, the newspaper noted that the document was at least partially updated, because it included information on Wi-Fi and streaming speeds.

On Twitter, Minhaj acknowledged the response with the watching eyes emoji.

Let’s see what he does in Week 2.

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