The first is, very few of us can claim to be without biases. Most of us have biases, if we’re really being honest. I think the boundary between having biases and being a bigot is whether or not a person allows those biases to affect how they think of and interact with other people. So while I might have biased thoughts toward a particular group of people, I first of all try to acknowledge that these biases exist. And then I try to ask why I have them, and what I can do to treat people more fairly. A bigot doesn’t do these things. A true racist or someone with extreme prejudice is perfectly satisfied with his biases and tries to defend them and rationalize them. I don’t see that in Bill Maher. Maher was confronted because Black people (and others) who understandably don’t want Maher or anyone to ever be comfortable using that word and that type of language, even as a joke. It’s a zero-tolerance policy, and it’s understandable given the history of this society.
That being said, I think we should also allow some space for a person to have an honest appraisal of a culture. Usually, when we’re talking about “racism” we’re in fact talking beyond race. What we’re really talking about – at least in a lot of cases, though not all – is culture. I’ve seen the posts about Bill Maher’s Islamophobia, but I don’t think that Bill is inherently anti-Muslim. He’s not the type of person who argues that Muslims don’t have rights. He is critiquing aspects of Islam as it is practiced in many parts of the world, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that in my view. The fact is that radical ideology is far to prevalent throughout the Muslim world. To be sure, radical Christian ideology is also far too prevalent, but Maher actually criticizes that pretty harshly as well, so I see him being pretty fair in that regard. His movie Religulous dedicated a lot of time mocking Christian fundamentalism as I recall.
It’s a very fine line that Bill Maher walks, and he has made a career out of it. I think there is a place for someone to be “politically incorrect”, if we are talking about someone who occasionally addresses taboo subjects. Not for sport or giggles, but to open up a thread of discussion and have honest discourse about sensitive topics.
The challenge facing Maher is that, as he said, the mind of a comic can go into weird places. Historically, comedy has been an avenue to use humor to raise the profile of very sobering topics. The danger for Maher is that his humor can be taken the wrong way, and he can be accused of making light of the very uncomfortable subjects he’s actually trying to get ordinary people to discuss more openly.
I obviously can’t speak for Ice Cube and the other guests who confronted Maher but I think they appeared on his show and confronted him not because they felt like they were confronting a hardcore bigot. I think they get that Maher is one of the good guys. But their point is, if the good guys are allowed to get away with using this sort of language, if we permit allies in the fight against racism to feel comfortable using the language of racists, then we what does that say? The fear is that it might normalize the use of racist discourse, which is not what we need.
Having said that, I also think it’s prudent for all people, including a rapper like Ice Cube who claims it’s “their word now”, to consider whether it’s wise to use it themselves. Again, if the argument is that normalizing the use of the word has a corrosive effect, then maybe nobody should be using it unless there’s a specific contextually defensible reason for doing so.
“We” is anyone who has any substantive familiarity with Bill Maher and his background and history. Such as his long-time viewers, and friends like Michael Eric Dyson who was on the show last Friday to “school” him about why his use of the word was wrong. Dyson is a Georgetown University sociology professor, a New York Times contributing opinion writer, a contributing editor of The New Republic, and a published author, most pertinently of the recent book “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America” about the subtle and often unconscious aspects of white privilege.
And Dyson’s point was about why Maher’s remark was harmful even when the intention was harmless, and that it underlined his point about white privilege precisely because Maher is someone known to stand up for the rights of black people and is so clearly the antithesis of a racist; the point that Dyson made repeatedly is that if someone as staunchly anti-racist as Maher can slip into this kind of transgression, what hope is there for the rest of us – and thus most of society has a long way to go to obliterate unconscious racism.
That’s correct, it appears that you don’t know anything about Bill Maher.
So you’ve given this a good deal of thought, and you’ve concluded that there is no difference between Islam and any other religion, particularly in how said religion is used in support of violent political activism – you can just find no difference whatsoever, is that correct? So “Islamist extremism” is just a figment of someone’s imagination?
Good point. People unfamiliar with Bill Maher have probably never seen “Religulous”, or even heard of it. Or probably never heard his many comments slamming Christian fundamentalists and others of that ilk.
When watching the original broadcast my reaction was ‘he’s referencing the scene from Gone With the Wind’—the one that shows Scarlett, after managing to get back to her ravaged-by-war family home, trying to scrounge some sustenance for the exhausted and hungry group. I’m not seeing the movie quote online, but it’s something like:
Pork (elderly slave): The Yankees took everything.
Scarlett O’Hara: There must be something left in the fields that we can cook to feed these hungry people. You will have to go out and find something.
Pork: But Miss Scarlett, we’re *house *servants!
I’m pretty sure that the 1939 movie used “house servants” instead of “house n____” —the construction that appeared in the novel. Again, it’s Scarlett and Pork discussing what could be found to eat:
I had no doubt that Maher’s mind went to that movie scene when Sasse invited Maher to Nebraska and said “We’d love to have you work in the fields with us.” Referencing the pop culture is a reliable standby for Maher; I doubt he thought it through at all but just figured people would laugh at the incongruity.
So I find it hard to believe, as some are claiming, that Maher was being deliberately provocative, either out of hatefulness or as a means to get himself into the news.
The bottom line, of course, is that no one who isn’t black should say that word. Doesn’t matter if the prohibition is reasonable or logical. Just don’t say the word if you’re not black: that’s it, folks.
I disagree with that premise. It leads to absurdity and is somewhat bigoted.
Ice Cube is a hypocrit. I’ve listened to a bunch of his music and his usage of slurs that come from him being in the higher side of a power differential are very common. He used many homophobic, misogynistic, and racist slurs in his music. For example, The song No Vaseline may hit all of those. He got rich and famous because of his gangster rap and give it s good listen. I have. Maybe he needs to apologize to the official spokespeople of all those groups.
Maybe he’s a hypocrite, but hypocrites can still be right about certain issues. I probably should have said Michael Eric Dyson instead of Ice Cube. I mentioned Dyson’s comments in post #263, which I think were eminently persuasive. Unlike whatever baggage Ice Cube carries, Dyson is an academic intellectual and a sociologist who has a deep understanding of these issues. I still think the whole thing was grossly overblown and I suspect so does Dyson, whose only point was that it was a mistake and Maher shouldn’t have said it, and that should pretty much be the end of it. Those who think Bill Maher is racist just don’t know Maher and they are ignorant and wrong, and those still calling for his head like some rappers and BLM organizers are vengeful morons who are the genuine racists and doing more to inflame racial strife than to calm it.
You are correct. But I’ve also linked to a few black rappers that don’t have a problem with it. Regardless, I don’t think any of that is truly relevant. Either the word is acceptable or not. And judging by music and comedy it seems to be pretty acceptable.
I’ve seen the movie multiple times and read the book, so when I was watching the show I thought the exact same thing that Bill said. I’m more baffled at the wording of the Senator in how he invited Bill to come and work in the fields. It seemed like a planned setup for the joke.