Michael Eric Dyson apologizes for calling Trump voters 'maggots,' claims he was misunderstood

Liberal Vanderbilt University Professor Michael Eric Dyson offered a mea culpa for referring to Trump supporters as "maggots" this week while appearing on MSNBC, although he claimed he was misunderstood.

During MSNBC's coverage Friday of the sentencing of ex-Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, Dyson said "Black people have to bear the brunt of White rage" and "White hostility," but then pivoted to the backlash he received for the comments he made Wednesday.

"Let me apologize on this program," Dyson began. "I was trying to be cute and clever when I was talking about MAGA, therefore ‘MAG-gats,’ not ‘maggots.’ I didn't anticipate that brothers and sisters who were White would hear it as that, so I deeply and profoundly apologize for that, but I've been hit with an onslaught of death threats and being called the N-word out of White rage for a mistake I made, for which I am willing to apologize certainly, and what Black people are often up against is the fact that we have to be told that emotion will not judge – will not lead to our offering of justice to you … and yet so much emotion is directed at us, so much White rage is directed at us."

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON CALLS TRUMP SUPPORTERS ‘MAGGOTS,’ RAILS AGAINST ‘MEALY-MOUTHED SNOWFLAKE WHITE MEN’

On Wednesday, Dyson appeared on "Deadline: White House" to discuss Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley's defense of critical race theory, but took a swipe at supporters of former President Donald Trump. 

"Speaking about the maggots—I’m sorry, the MAGA," Dyson quipped, responding to a question about Republican opposition to critical race theory. 

"I resent as an intellectual and as a Black person in America that we have taken the brunt of anti-intellectualism," Dyson later said, addressing the broader debate surrounding the controversial curriculum. 

"We have borne the brunt of being disloyal to this nation. And we have stood by to see mediocre mealy-mouthed snowflake White men who are incapable of taking critique, who are willing to dole out infamous repudiations of the humanity of the other, and yet they call us snowflakes and they are the biggest flakes of snow to hit the Earth." 

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Dyson said such "snowflakes" are "incapable of criticism. They are incapable of tolerating difference. They’re scared of, ‘oh, my God, critical race theory is going to kill your mother.’ They are not critical, they have no race and they don’t understand theory."

Fox News' Yael Halon contributed to this report.