Tim Allen ‘N-Word’ Rant Condemned By Michael Eric Dyson On ‘Melissa Harris-Perry’

Eric Deggins, the Times reporter who interviewed Allen, explained:

For him, the criticism that keeps any nonblack comic from using the word is a step backward from the days when [Richard] Pryor and [Lenny] Bruce were breaking comedy boundaries by purposefully using street language in ways middle-of-the-road comics wouldn’t dare.

“If I have no intent, if I show no intent, if I clearly am not a racist,” Allen argued, “then how can ‘n*****’ be bad coming out of my mouth?”

Allen also insisted that the an unfair double standard was at play.

I do a movie with Martin Lawrence and pretty soon they’re referring to me, ‘hey, my n*****’s up.’ So I’m the n***** if I’m around you guys but 7 feet away, if I said n*****, it’s not right. It’s very confusing to the European mind how that works, especially if I’ve either grown up or evolved or whatever, it literally was growing up in Colorado, with Hispanics and Anglos, that’s all I remember.

According to Deggins, the comedian did not censor his use of the word, but rather said it freely several times in “talking about how using racial [s]lurs feels from a white guy’s perspective.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *