Bill Maher 6/9/17

[henryp]

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?

I can slap my wife on the ass.  That it's unacceptable for others to slap my wife on the ass is not a double standard.  Being a part of black america is a cultural relationship of sorts.  They can slap eachother on the ass.  You're not in the relationship, so you can't.   Just because one person can do something and another person can't doesn't automatically make it a double standard.  

The other thing with Maher, is that although he's a comedian making a funny joke, which I think in a bubble is fine, he's also in very close proximity to the political spectrum, and for every Bill Maher one liner, there are 100 people named Dale just tossing it around maliciously who can then say Bill Maher said it, so why can't I?  It sucks for Bill Maher, but it's probably in the overall best interest of society to not make it okay yet.  So while it might be dopey for me to say 'n word', it costs me nothing, and serves a purpose, which is keeping it not okay for people who shouldn't be using it.