Bill Maher 6/9/17

[Zen Badger]

And here's another thought to ponder, if he had used the word slave instead of nigger( and the meaning would've basically been the same) would we be having this discussion?

I don't think we would. It was the word, not the context in which it was used, that was across the line.

It is a double standard, and white people are just going to have to accept it. I'm sorry, but most systematically oppressed peoples usually coopt words used against them, and once those words are exposed for what they are, the majority loses them---forever. You can't say it. If you do, you do it knowing that the word, especially in America, has a specific meaning, and that meaning is, as Ice Cube put it, like a knife in the chest to brown people. It is our word now, we have taken it, and you can't have it back.

As a black man in America, I don't like using it, I don't like hearing it in rap songs, but that is a different section of my culture that may or may not ever change.

I am a fan of Bill Maher, and I fully understand his point. He went for the joke; he---more than 99% of all other comedians, makes his living on the razor edge of 'appropriate.' He knows he crossed the line. He made an apology, then nutted up and invited critical voices on his show the next week, and let them speak. I commend him for that.

So double standards are okay as long as it's black people who are using them?