Bill Maher 6/9/17

[Brian37]

I don't think we should be invalidating the feelings of any black person that were hurt by saying disqualifying things like "it's just a word". It was completely up to old Bill to want to apologize or not, he has that right and others have the right to not give their audience to his shows.

In my personal opinion, he deserves the backlash. As a side note, I don't think it's possible for Bill (anyone really) to piece together house and nigger so effortlessly in a conversation unless they frequently use it or are surrounded by people that use it. At the end of the day Bill does what he does for his own profit and not for some superior moralistic reasons.

I'm going to take the side of people should grow the fuck up. We need to start invalidating derogatory terms and start treating them like words that have no meaning. 
No one takes offense to these words anymore Gadzooks, Bejabbers, Dad-Sizzle, Tunderation, Consarn it!, G. Rover Cripes!, By the double  barreled Jumping Jimiinetty.
See these swear words are hilarious does anyone find them offensive no because they are just words hilarious words. And consarn it im gonna have a muckspouting good time 
using them.

It is a utopia to think words don't matter, but they do.

Pejoratives are a way of a majority demonizing a minority. 

"Nigger"
"Rusky" 
"Spick"
"Wetback"
"Cracker"
"Commie"
"Faggot"
"Redneck"
"Jap"

And even "atheist"

I am quite sure there are many atheists here who have run into the far right bigots who have used the word "atheist" as a pejorative and equated us to monsters like Hitler and Stalin and Po Pot. 

Now you tell me, if you don't believe in a god, do you think you can tell the difference between when a fellow atheist is joking about that word and when an asshole bigot uses it? 

Sure sometimes people who are not bigots use any word are merely making a point that the bigots are bigots, but if pejoratives didn't affect any society people would not use them. So words do matter and context does matter. The left didn't jump on Bill because they thought he was a bigot, they jumped on him because of a long history that even today blacks are still dealing with.

"Let it roll off of your back" is what someone who is used to being in the majority says. There is a long term history going on and it is not always a good tactic to say "It's just words".

---

I can remember back when I was married to my x wife who is Japanese, showing up to the factory she worked as as a chemist to pick her up after her shift. The security guard was a "redneck", southern draw, didn't know his politics, but every time I saw him he seemed to get along with everyone.

So that one day I pulled up to the employee entrance he was standing outside, I asked him, "Can you page my wife and let her know I am here". He was familiar with her and responded "Oh, you mean the Jap"..... I was a bit stunned by that, but considering his history of interaction with others I chalked it up to a very bad joke. I told my wife driving her home and even she knew he didn't mean it but agreed, wasn't the wisest attempt at humor.

But here is the joke I could do with her that would be inappropriate for him. We would get into play arguments, not real fights, but silly "oh yea well", and when I realized she got 1 up on me I once said "Well, just remember, we(meaning America) kicked your ass in WW2" 

There are simply some things you can say among friends and family that you would not say to the general public. That is where Bill's FELLOW LIBERALS were coming from. 

Even with my friend from Oklahoma, when I call him a Redneck, he gets it, but I would not go to red states and say that to strangers I have never met.