The commentator, known as "Dr Doom" for his bearish calls on stocks and the economy, was dismissed from the boards of Canadian fund manager Sprott and mining company NovaGold Resources after his remarks. Business television networks such as CNBC and Fox Business said they would remove Faber from booking lists for their shows.

In the October edition of his newsletter, "The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report," in a section discussing capitalism versus socialism, Faber criticised the move to tear down monuments commemorating the US Civil War military leaders of the Confederacy, and said:

"Thank God white people populated America, not the blacks. Otherwise, the US would look like Zimbabwe, which it might look like one day anyway, but at least America enjoyed 200 years in the economic and political sun under a white majority."

"I am not a racist," Faber continued, "but the reality - no matter how politically incorrect - needs to be spelled out as well."

The comments in his newsletter were circulated on Twitter after subscribers scanned and posted it.

They also caught the attention of observers in Australia, with Market Economics managing director Stephen Koukoulas tweeting:

CNBC and Fox Business Network, the business news television channels where Faber has been an occasional guest commentator for years, said on Tuesday that Faber was now off their booking lists for their shows.

A CNBC spokesperson said, "We do not intend to book him in the future" and a Fox spokesperson said, "Faber has not appeared on the network often, and will not be on in the future."

In response to CNBC's decision, Faber told Reuters in an email: "What else would you expect?"

"If stating some historical facts makes me a racist, then I suppose that I am a racist," Faber said by email.

"Maybe I am wrong and the US would be far more prosperous if the blacks had populated it but then please explain to me why you would think so."

Excerpt from Faber's newsletter. Source: Bloomberg

Sprott, a Toronto-based alternative asset manager where Faber had served as a director since 2010, demanded his resignation and he complied, effective immediately.

"The recent comments by Dr Faber are deeply disappointing and are completely contradictory with the views of Sprott and its employees," Sprott Chief Executive Peter Grosskopf said in a statement. "We pride ourselves on being a diverse organisation and comments of this sort will not be tolerated."

Late on Tuesday, Canadian miner NovaGold Resources announced the departure of Faber from its board of directors, effective immediately.

Faber is also a director of Ivanhoe Mines and spokesman Bob Williamson told Reuters that the company was aware of Faber's race comments but had no comment.

Faber, who has said that he predicted the 1987 stock market crash, made his comments after a lengthy critique of socialist policies which were prefaced by a reference to this summer's violent demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one woman was killed.

Faber described monuments commemorating the US Civil War military leaders of the Confederacy, which were at issue in the protests, as "statues of honourable people whose only crime was to defend what all societies had done for more than 5,000 years: keep a part of the population enslaved."

Reuters with BusinessDay