It is wrong to condemn a person's entire life and character over one mistake. [View all]

[LBM20]

Here is why the Bill Maher issue has touched a nerve. We obviously are still struggling with matters around race in this country, and people are very sensitive to racially charged language as they should be. At the same time, we are also a people who believe in putting things in context, using reason and fairness, looking at the whole picture, and forgiveness. We tend not to condemn a person's entire life and character over a verbal slip. Bill Maher is a strong progressive and satirical comedian who for many years has had very important discussions, has confronted right wingers very strongly, has brought light to many issues, who brings a variety of opinions to his show, and who ridicules Trump continually. What happened in this incident, if you watch the clip, was an off the cuff satirical joke that went over the top with the language. He has apologized publicly.

More context and a fair point here is that racially charged language appears and has appeared in song lyrics, poetry, dramatizations in many forms, etc. Tough as it is to see and hear, it is used in those specific media as it is about confronting the social issues around the language. Racially and ethnically charged language, moreso in the past, has also been used in satirical and other forms of comedy from the All in the Family TV Show to Richard Pryor's stand up comedy to Don Rickles routines and many others. These people were not racists but were rather the opposite, ridiculing and making fun of racial and ethnic stereotypes through comedy even to the point of invoking their own racial and ethnic backgrounds.

And verbal slips happen. For example, remember when President Obama was poking fun at himself by saying he couldn't even get into the Special Olympics? Oops! He very soon apologized for the slip and even called Arnold Schwarzenegger who was a longtime leader in the Special Olympics organization to apologize. Of course he didn't mean to make fun of disabled people. It was a joke gone bad. These slips happen. We have probably all done it in some way in our lives.

So in the larger picture this is a healthy conversation that requires mutual understanding. In my view Maher went over the top using the N-word in his off the cuff satirical joke and he should have apologized and he has. At the same time, he is certainly not a racist, we must keep things in context, and we should not condemn a person's entire life and character over this kind of slip. There is a lot to be said for forgiveness. That is a Christian value, a progressive value, an American value, and a human value.