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I've heard plenty of white comedians do material that involved black people without torching their careers. It's a matter of how they deliver it and the spirit of the material itself. They can't explicitly say the N-bomb, unless it's Louis C.K.
George Carlin breaks the whole nonsense of "racist" words down.
Absolutely. George Carlin was the best. And he is 100% correct about words. There are no bad words. There are bad thoughts, bad intentions and words. I do not accept the notion that N-bomb or N-word or any other hyphenated world is anything better than a pass. You can't use them without thinking of the root word and the receiver will always do the translation right back...it saved nothing but has society act childish. If someone is slinging slurs at someone else, I find it is better to know who that person is rather than hiding behind some sugar coated version of their real feelings. I think if people would skip the hyphenated words and use the real words, they'd use them a LOT less often because the same squeamishness you feel with the real word, you should feel with the pass. I do believe that we'd be better off if that word were left in the past but I don't believe in changing history. It should sit there like a steaming pile of crap that it is. And that goes for the other slurs too. Anytime one is thinking of another human as being sub-human, there is flawed thinking afoot.
That's kind of the same thing Louis C.K. said in his bit on the same topic. The thing is very few people are using racial and ethnic slurs in any sort of neutral, clinical context. It's almost always in some demeaning manner. Even in the case of black people using the N-bomb to refer to other black people it can be pretty negative too. It's not always a term of affection or brotherhood.
One thing I don't like about Carlin's bit is he runs through a long list of racial and ethnic slurs as if they're all equal in potentially offensive value. They're not. All those different slurs vary across a scale of offensive intensity. Contrary to what Carlin says, some of those ethnic slurs can still be said on TV and in movies today. No one's getting fired for calling an Irish guy a "mick" or an English guy "limey." Those slurs are on the low end of the scale. When I was in elementary school one of my Latino classmates called me "honkey" in some context I don't remember. The Jeffersons TV series was popular then and George Jefferson loved using that term. I told my classmate, "who are you calling honkey? You're a honkey too." He didn't like that. I told him to look it up. Latinos are part of the Caucasian race.
I'm sure there's lots of people who would like times to be like they were 60+ years ago when they could freely label black people using the N-word rather than "black" or "African American" and not worry about any consequences. They want to complain about their freedom of speech being infringed. That freedom of speech thing was mainly about the government context of citizens being able to speak truth to power. Freedom of speech doesn't mean someone has immunity from the reactions of others when he says something offensive. In the Jim Crow era a white guy could get away with calling a black man any number of slurs and the black guy just had to keep his mouth shut or risk violent consequences. It isn't that way anymore.
Bobby, he doesn't say that they equally offensive to the listener. His point, and one that I agree with, they are just words and they do not have meaning/value until one looks at them in context. Context requires a degree of knowledge of the user (there are people that never swear so when one pops out, heads are likely to turn much faster than one that uses one as every other word), the conversation (or direction of one to another) to know if a word is being used to dehumanize another...it all adds up. Who you are, who is saying the word to you and your personal history will all go into how offended one may be and how offensive a word or conversation will be, at that particular moment.
As for what was permissible to be said on TV...that has zero bearing on offensiveness. In the 70s, while George Carlin listed the 7-dirty words you couldn't say on TV...slurs were not on that list. Ever watch Brian's Song? How about Roots? Those were BROADCAST TV movies. They had the slurs going and they were in context. Kids watched those movies (often multiple times).
As far as the caucasian "race," that is a moving target. Many people that would be identified as white or caucasian now did not start out that way. If one group of people want to view another group (group in more of the tribal sense) as somehow inferior or even just "not-us." Any excuse and reason will do. It need not be skin color. Anti-semitism seems to be chugging right along today and there are plenty of the jewish faith that do not have would be considered jewish physical stereotypes. I always chuckled that in Hogan's Heroes" that the Germans were played by jewish people. And that show came out a scant 20 years after WW2.
With respect to "Free Speech." It only works if it is near 100%. The exceptions I put on it are to knowingly lie. In fact, that is about the only exception the Constitution puts on it. It isn't even sufficient to merely lie. It is to knowingly lie (hence perjury is a no-no, false advertising, slander, libel...etc.) And yes, the constitutional right to free speech is to protect you from your government. That is a legal protection. Oddly, those that think "Hate Speech" are illegal...nope...it has made it to the Supreme Court...hate speech is quite protected. However, society should live up to the constitutional freedoms as well. Once you go down the road of saying yeah, you can exercise your rights but we'll cancel (to use a term of the day) you if you do, you've effectively ended the right. There is nothing but slippery slope left. If you can't say "this word" then, sooner or later, you can't say "That word" and what was okay to say yesterday is not okay to say tomorrow. Heck even when it comes to describing a medical condition, say "Mentally Retarded" which was fine and had no particular stigma...when it got contracted to just "Retarded" (a word used in various industries, like the automotive when setting the distributor) becomes an "offensive" word rather than a mere description to describe a condition. It doesn't stop at limiting speech, it also begets compelled speech. If it is compelled, it isn't genuine. If it is limited, it is also not genuine. It all comes back to that words, on their own, do not have power. It is how they are used. Who the parties may be in the conversation and their context as to what their power may be. Furthermore, the recipient has to also own up to the fact that they have some control in how the respond to the word(s) and evaluate them based on who/what said them. As the old saying goes, I may not agree with what you are saying but I will defend to my dying day your right to say it.
Oddly, those that think "Hate Speech" are illegal...nope...it has made it to the Supreme Court...hate speech is quite protected.
It's one thing if some bigot wants to publish a racist manifesto on his blog or website. The first amendment would protect his ability to post the material at least to some degree. Web hosting companies, social media companies, etc have their own rights too. They can choose to remove something from their own "walled gardens" if the material violates their terms of service.
If a bigot wants to stroll up to some black guy and call him a "porch monkey," that speech isn't so protected. There is such a thing as verbal harassment and plenty of laws have been passed to outlaw it, even here in "red state" Oklahoma. Some guy can't walk up to a married couple, call the wife a "cunt" and expect the 1st amendment to totally excuse his actions. The husband might be inclined to beat the living hell out of the guy. But he can also file criminal harassment charges or even sue the guy.
Also, the Supreme Court has no power at all over the court of public opinion. Freedom of speech doesn't translate to absolute immunity from the reactions of others to that speech. If some guy wants to put something out there that is offensive or hurtful other people have their own freedom to draw their own conclusions about those comments. People can say stupid things that wind up harming or ending friendships and relationships, torching business deals or getting them fired from a job. The 1st Amendment isn't going to save them from those consequences. Stand-up comedians push their luck on stage, but many remember the social etiquette proverb "read the room" before trying out the material.
Stand-up comedians push their luck on stage, but many remember the social etiquette proverb "read the room" before trying out the material.
We were on a cruise a couple of years ago and they had a comedian named Manny Oliviera. Of course he did "family friendly" and "adult" shows, and his "adult" shows were some of the most offensive, yet also the most freaking hilarious, comedy I've ever seen. The guy is absolutely fearless. He's sort of a Don Rickles type who specializes in crowd work, and will make fun of anybody, any race, nationality, religion, you name it. We went to about 4 or 5 of his shows and about lost our minds laughing every time.
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