(June 12, 2017 at 7:07 am)Mr.Obvious Wrote: Giving my two cents on this matter; Nigger seems a horrible, loaded term. Calling someone Nigger is just awful.
That being said... When talking about the word itself, I don't feel inclined to say: "The N-word is a bad word." I'll say: "Nigger is a bad word."
And that is because I believe the context of words is what gives it their meaning. Nor I, nor other people, should call anyone nigger. But I don't feel like saying nigger as I am doing now is bad because it's not 'aimed' at anyone. I'm not labeling anyone. I'm not insulting anyone. I'm talking about the verb itself.
Maher's joke, I guess, walks a line with that. In he doesn't talk about it without meaning, he uses the meaning, but he directs it at his own expense. You could call that cheap. You could not think it funny. (I for one didn't think it was particularly funny, but hey.) But you can't say he directed it at anyone else as an insult, nor that it wasn't a joke. If aimed at anyone, it was at himself. He is at the bud of his own joke. If he were to call, I don't know, Obama for instance, a house nigger, in one of his jokes; that'd be different.
I didn't think it was a great joke. But I don't think he needed to apologize. I don't think he did anything wrong.
I agree, I think the sane can tell the difference between when a word is being used out of hate, when it simply said without thinking, and when it is used between those in on it done to endear. Bill is hardly a bigot or racist, it was simply not thought out.
Yes he should. And he did.
Just a couple weeks ago, in my real personal life, I was at the local shopping center a few blocks from my house waiting for food outside a Chinese place. I started talking to an Asian guy who said his parents migrated to Hawaii and brought him there when he was a kid. Without thinking I said "You are a dreamer", that was a stupid remark on my part, because he very well could have had legal status. NO it was not racist on my part, but it was a case of me not thinking first. I saw him again two days ago at the same place, I apologized. "Dreamer" in any case is a term mostly used by Hispanics brought here undocumented. So it was still not a well thought out comment on my part.
