Bill Maher

Bill Maher got in  trouble this week for saying, in declining a Nebraskan’s invitation to  join his state’s farmers in their fields, that he was a house nigger.  It was a harmless joke, drawing on the difference on pre-Civil War southern plantations between domestic servants and field hands, a distinction which has been mentioned, sometimes humorously, in books and  films such as Gone with the Wind.  There was nothing in it bad or worth noting.  He was not disparaging black people in any way.  The gods did not make the volcano erupt because someone had uttered a taboo word.  There was no reason for Aunt Pittypats  of all ages and both sexes  to need the smelling salts.  Yet all hell broke loose.  Maher was accused of racism and insensitivity and who know what else and required to offer the standard perfunctory apology and eat the required volume of  dirt in public for offending those privileged both to decide what is offensive and to demand never to be offended.   It’s nuts, and he could have done all of us a favor by instead just telling them all  go to hell. Maybe the next person up will have the guts to do that.