February 8, 2022 - 7:15am
I remember the first time I was called the N-word. I was eight years old and my white neighbour called me it out of frustration during a basketball game. I was barely old enough to grasp the impact of that word but knew it came from a place of anger.
I don’t remember any other time that word was directed at me in anger — luckily, racial animosity in my life has been very rare.
But I am becoming used to a different kind of insult. This one is more likely to come from “anti-racist” elites than from the angry white men I’m supposed to be scared of.
Have you noticed how, in most recent outrages about race, black Americans are not the ones leading or even energising the conversation? The current outrage over Joe Rogan’s past use of the N-word is no different.
On February 5th, the podcaster was forced to issue an apology because of a viral video montage showing clips of him saying the N-word. He stated that these clips were taken out of context but also that he regrets using the word. “I never used it to be racist because I’m not a racist” he said. Personally, I believe him.
But it feels like I’m supposed to be angry. The N-word is supposed to throw a black person like myself back to a time period when I wasn’t alive and force me to relive humiliation that wasn’t mine. I’m supposed to hear Rogan saying that word, regardless of context, and cast him in the role of the abusive master or racist good ‘ol boy.
Frankly it’s insulting. These kinds of campaigns imply that we, black Americans, are incapable of objectivity and ignorant of context; it implicitly accuses us of hyper-emotionality and a lack of rationality.
The outrage over Rogan isn’t coming from black people. It’s coming from members of the political and media establishment who have been trying to de-platform him for over a month. When warnings about “misinformation” didn’t do the trick, they pivoted to racism. But this isn’t about racism or even morality; it’s about control of information.
If elites really believed that using the N-word should be a career-ending offence for white people, plenty of other celebrities would need to be cancelled. Take the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who jokingly used the slur with his white lawyer — a story the media mostly ignored.
Howard Stern, the former shock jock and present-day bastion of moral virtue, gets a free pass for years of what would be considered racially insensitive material. I remember when he sang DMX’s “My Niggas” live on air. Different times. How about Jimmy Kimmel painting himself brown on “The Man Show” to look like Karl Malone? Will he be cancelled? No, and he shouldn’t be. Context matters.
But when all other attempts to silence Rogan have failed, black people find themselves once again used to gain leverage. We seem to be America’s anchor for change whether we like it or not.
I don’t think Joe Rogan is David Duke just because he said the N-word — I’m insulted by a progressive establishment that thinks I’m too dumb to know the difference.
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SubscribeWell said Adam, we all need people like you to help cool the ardour of misinformed white people who use you by taking offence on behalf you. I still don’t understand in what way that signals virtue in the real world, as you just proved with your thoughtful piece.
AMEN
What is never mentioned in this article is how the N-word, among other things, has perhaps permanently divided society. We literally have vocabulary words that are permissible or not based on skin colour. Dave Chapelle used the N-word w/o any guilt or apologies–it’s just a word and he likes using it–yet white people’s public and private utterances are scoured for years or decades and then they are cancelled if the N-word is revealed. The N-word is a staple in almost every rap song. A minor public official once used the word “niggardly” in a public meeting and was almost cancelled.
Is it insane to have a permitted and prohibited list of words based on skin colour?
See my response below, apparently flagged for using the word “niggardly.”
Boy does that prove my point!
Thanks for the article.
When you watch Joe Rogan interview Dave Chappelle, Snoop & Kevin Hart, all you see is friendship, deep interest and respect. This anti-Rogan effort was mainstream media’s last throw of the dice.
D’Souza’s documentary on (Hillary Clinton:) The Secret History of the Democratic Party was a real eye-opener for how various groups are manipulated (“spoken for by others”), and how divide and conquer is used, for maximum political gain. I see this through the Establishment, Mainstream Media, Silicon Valley etc. Disgusting.
I’m glad to hear alternative voices in this battle, too much damage has been done this past decade.
oh THIS is interesting (regarding the attack on Joe Rogan) – https://twitter.com/MAJTOURE/status/1490548454132789251?s=20&t=d-aEZAKg7-vhV6eAbGwb-A
i think the originator of that is Wokal Distance, i’d highly recommend him in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAiCHwR3XRU
The progressive establishment is so far around the political spectrum it has become authoritarian. It has got there by pushing the limits of what is considered unacceptable behaviour beyond any general conventional interpretation.
Joe Rogan’s true offence (in the eyes of the authoritarians) is that he doesn’t bend the knee to their ‘direction’, nothing to do with ‘misinformation’ or use of the ‘n-word’. We should treasure him.
The establishment hate Rogan because he’s so popular, and of course, he’s liked by so many… you know….deplorable types. Can’t have that.
So, the story we are being sold by the MSM today is that Prime Minister Blackface is protecting Canada from violent fascist working class trucker insurrection and that i should fear the racist Joe Rogan. is anyone buying this any more?
Let’s not forget President Vaccine Misinformation saving us from Putin…
Hopefully, less and less! Canada’ s smile is an indestructible weapon!
All BLM supporters, especially white BLM supporters, should be compelled to read this article.
Compelled by . . . .?
Inner compulsion, obviously.
Really good article. I suspect you are articulating what many think is going on. Having worked in corporate environments where Diversity and Inclusion initiatives come thick and fast, the people they are supposedly trying to ‘help’ couldn’t give a damn, they just want to earn a living and get on with their lives.
Probably we will now see by-weekly revelations of Rogan eating puppies, killing kittens, going fox hunting, etc until the end result is achieved.
You jest but Rogan does hunt – I would not be surprised to see an image montage of deer he killed, to get the urban vegans to hate him.
Surely you mean an interview with a deer he killed and the orphaned fawns
NYT is now penning an article based on a credible anonymous source : apparently Joe Rogan has a secret underground bunker built under a pizza takeaway in Austin, that’s where he practices paedophilic satanic rituals. Elon Musk and every Canadian Trucker are also members, ( its a really big bunker). True Story.
The “woke” establishment is busy infantalising racial minorities, especially black people; they have to be told when they are being insulted, they can’t be expected to do maths etc. Paternalism and condescension is the outward appearance, but the true name of the game is power accumulation, accumulated by using people that they actually do think are too ignorant to realise it.
The exception being how they treat Asians.
I am white but when I was very little I we lived in one of America’s few truly racially mixed cities – Cambridge Massachusetts. We were like a Hollywood set: 1/3 white, 1/3 latino, 1/3 black.
I never remember hearing the n-word the whole time I was there.
Then when I was 7 we moved to an all-white town, Arlington Ma, and I listened as the kids started to tell “N….-jokes”, essentially cruel racial slurs about people they had never actually met.
Anyone who thinks Joe Rogan is like that is bonkers.
We’ve reached the bizarre stage when the uttering of the word carries some apparently mystical power. As if by hearing the word people will be somehow injured, regardless of the context surrounding it. Making it doubly weird is the frequency with which the word is used in various aspects of popular culture, particularly in hip-hop music which is probably the most popular genre of modern music.
Joe Rogan used the word when discussing its history and the power it holds. He was clear that he found it repugnant, but that doesn’t seem to matter to some people. If it wasn’t a transparent attempt to discredit him I’d say it was some kind of bizarre superstition.
I am mixed race (black dad, white mum) and the worst discrimination, segregation, and disenfranchisement I have ever felt in my life by a long margin has been around my decision not to participate in the experimental vaccine trials.
Rogan has done more to benefit me than any of the public health officials or politicians in Australia
Nice. Rational, thoughtful and from a place of personal balance. Thank you Adam.
Agreed – thanks Adam
Black people have been “used” like pawns like this for many decades. It used to be by race baiters from both sides, now it primarily comes from elite whites. I am mentoring a single black mom on this as well, showing her how the narrative has been created to keep her down, not lift her up!
Well said!
oh THIS is interesting (regarding the attack on Joe Rogan) – https://twitter.com/MAJTOURE/status/1490548454132789251?s=20&t=d-aEZAKg7-vhV6eAbGwb-A
Look Adam you need to keep quiet and behave, like the ideal black man, while the white middle class elite tells you what’s good for you!
Well said and Thankyou for injecting sanity into this latest round of hysteria!
The first time I heard the expression ‘cracker’ was when the Prep-for-Prep kid in my daughter’s private NYC school frequently used it against white students. When informed, the school’s white administrators would never sit on this chick for her name-calling as they were too afraid to. Seems like there is moral failure all around. White guilt is pervasive. You can never be too old to learn new words.