Bill Maher’s op-ed piece in the New York times is causing controversy. If you didn’t know a actor Robert De Niro has come under fire for a joke that was intended to be light-hearted and fun about race, and the White House, was quickly dissected and attacked by right wing. Eager to sooth the outrage the First Lady’s press secretary released a statement calling DeNiro’s comments inappropriate. And even the Hollywood legend issued a statement of apology.
But with all the back tracking, and side-stepping, Maher calls us all out over all the sensitivity.
Per The NYT:
When did we get it in our heads that we have the right to never hear anything we don’t like? In the last year, we’ve been shocked and appalled by the unbelievable insensitivity of Nike shoes, the Fighting Sioux, Hank Williams Jr., Cee Lo Green, Ashton Kutcher, Tracy Morgan, Don Imus, Kirk Cameron, Gilbert Gottfried, the Super Bowl halftime show and the ESPN guys who used the wrong cliché for Jeremy Lin after everyone else used all the others. Who can keep up?
This week, President Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, described Mitt Romney’s constant advertising barrage in Illinois as a “Mittzkrieg,” and instantly the Republican Jewish Coalition was outraged and called out Mr. Axelrod’s “Holocaust and Nazi imagery” as “disturbing.” Because the message of “Mittzkrieg” was clear: Kill all the Jews. Then the coalition demanded not only that Mr. Axelrod apologize immediately but also that Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz “publicly rebuke” him. For a pun! For punning against humanity!
The right side of America is mad at President Obama because he hugged the late Derrick Bell, a law professor who believed we live in a racist country, 22 years ago; the left side of America is mad at Rush Limbaugh for seemingly proving him right.
If it weren’t for throwing conniption fits, we wouldn’t get any exercise at all.
I have a better idea. Let’s have an amnesty — from the left and the right — on every made-up, fake, totally insincere, playacted hurt, insult, slight and affront. Let’s make this Sunday the National Day of No Outrage. One day a year when you will not find some tiny thing someone did or said and pretend you can barely continue functioning until they apologize.
The answer to whenever another human being annoys you is not “make them go away forever.” We need to learn to coexist, and it’s actually pretty easy to do. For example, I find Rush Limbaugh obnoxious, but I’ve been able to coexist comfortably with him for 20 years by using this simple method: I never listen to his program. The only time I hear him is when I’m at a stoplight next to a pickup truck.
When the lady at Costco gives you a free sample of its new ham pudding and you don’t like it, you spit it into a napkin and keep shopping. You don’t declare a holy war on ham.
As a blogger and outspoken social critic I totally agree with the comedian. People have become so overly sensitive that you find yourself back tracking or apologizing for any and everything when at the end of the day you should have the right to say what you want. And, if you don’t like what is being said you have the right to log onto another blog, or turn the channel.
Will people still gripe about offensive matters (or matters they deems offensive) absolutely. But at least someone had to balls to say that our nation is rapidly becoming a bunch of babies.
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