My parents raised me to
believe in whatever God I wanted. I just had to do my research. So, I was kinda raised atheist? Coming up in
1980s and 90s North Carolina meant that there was Jesus in my face every day--whether
I wanted it or not. This continued
throughout college which is why when
Bill Maher started doing his Religiocity thing, I became a fan. I used to watch Real Time regularly. And this
is why I’m really torn about this current kerfuffle with Bill Maher calling
himself a “house nigger.”
I watched the clip, a conversation between
Maher and some Nebraska politician. The
politician told Maher he should come work in the fields of Nebraska. He insinuated Maher couldn’t handle that kind
of good ‘ol American work. Maher fired
back with feigned indignation with something akin to, “Field work? I’m a house
nigger.”
So
now, everyone is calling Maher a racist.
Liberals and progressives are calling for the show’s cancellation,
including some celebrities like Chance the Rapper. Conservatives are appalled
at the racist scandalamity Maher has found himself in. There are black folk on Facebook saying that
the word should forever be stricken from our lexicon and collective memories.
Hell, even alt-right racists are calling Maher racist.
I
think I might disagree.
Maher
did what white folks have been doing to black folks since day one in this
country-- Taking something that isn’t
theirs and appropriating it for themselves. Maher used the N-word with
contextual prowess. But in doing so, he
disrespected black history, black experience, black suffering, black thought,
and most of all, black victory. A millionaire white progressive just compared
himself to a slave in America. He used that joke, which would have been
hilarious if Dave Chappelle had said in that interview chair, for himself. He
took black angst, and wrapped it up in snark, and used it promulgate whiteness,
and then served it to his fellow agent of whiteness in a debate about
nationalism.
Was
Maher racist? I don’t think so. With something as charged as a white guy
using the n-word, Maher considered the potential consequences. And he probably figured he could weather the
storm. But that’s the problem. Maher perpetuated systems of whiteness by
appropriating a theme related only to black comedy and whitewashed it. He got his Tom Sawyer-picket fence on. That’s
it. His audience is mostly white, some
even booed in the audience. Maher just
shrugged them off. He told what he
thought was a funny joke.
But
it stuck in me the wrong way. Maher
could have used his privilege for the actual cause of disrupting systems of
whiteness in this country. After
catching the backhanded work ethic insult from the politician, Maher could have
looked him in the eye and said, “Field work? Huh? I’m white. You better go do
what you normally do and exploit some Mexicans.” Same feigned indignation, but
an even more powerful impact. But Maher
didn’t want to piss off that demographic of white folk. So instead, he used the n-word for himself.
-Anjan Basu
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