 Welcome to the broadcast. I'm David Feldman, DavidFeldmanShow.com. On today's program here on KPFK, the radio station that defended George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words all the way up to the Supreme Court, we discuss Bill Maher's use of the N-word. Stay with me. Bill Maher had to apologize this week for using the N-word on his HBO show. I don't get to say whether or not somebody can or can't say the N-word. The N-word belongs to African Americans. The white man took jazz. We took rock from the black man. Let the African Americans keep the N-word for themselves. To me, the N-word is like Holocaust jokes. The only people who get to make Holocaust jokes are Jews. We own Holocaust jokes along with all the banks. That's another joke only Jews can make. I worked for Bill Maher for many years. I know he's the farthest thing from a racist. In fact, what little I know of the man, he thinks he's black. I think he's been around black people so much and has gotten so comfortable around black people. I think he thought he earned the right to say the N-word. For years, one of my sons thought he was black. All his friends were black. He dressed black. He talked black. For all intents and purposes, my son was black, especially because he actually was black. I mean, I really think he was somebody else's kid. No, he was not black. But my son thought he was black. And then one day his best friend, who really is black, one day his best friend was sitting in his car. The cops in L.A. wanted to know why my son's black friend was sitting in his car. He said, I'm just sitting here thinking. The L.A. cops responded as they would to any African-American sitting in their car who's just thinking. They told him to get out of the car, stop thinking. And without a warrant, they frisked him. They searched his car. They found medical marijuana in the glove compartment. He showed them the card. It was perfectly legal, but they arrested him anyway. And my son's black friend spent a week in lockup in Los Angeles because he couldn't afford bail. And after a week, the judge released him. Nobody apologized. The cops did their job because in Los Angeles, it is the cop's responsibility to grab all young black men and put them in the system, handcuff them, fingerprint them, have them smile for a mug shot, create a file so that they can have a black man in their system. That's when my son realized that he's not black. Another black friend of one of my sons was staying in our house. And the cops in L.A. tried to arrest my son's black friend who was living in our house. They tried to arrest him for opening the front door of the house. He was coming home and they tried to arrest him. They wanted to know what he was doing. He said, I'm trying to come home. And the cops in front of our house where my son's friend lived, the cops insisted that he show them ID. He showed it. He had a show ID to come home. Eventually, my son came down the stairs and asked the police why they were hassling his friend. And the police could not have been more polite to my white son. They explained he was walking suspiciously. That's why they stopped him. And once again, as the police smiled at my white son as they continued to ask questions to his black friend who lived with us, my white son was reminded that he is not black. A similar thing happened to Professor Henry Louis Gates. He was the Harvard professor trying to come home late one night to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He'd been filming something for the PBS. This was about eight years ago. And a white Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer saw Professor Henry Louis Gates, saw him opening the front door to his own home. And the officer arrested him. A black professor in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Henry Louis Gates was arrested by a white police officer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a liberal bastion. It's where Harvard is. The white police officer arrested Professor Henry Louis Gates for the mere crime of coming home. Barack Obama was new in the White House. And so he held a beer summit between Henry Louis Gates and the officer who arrested him. That was eight years ago. President Obama thought all we needed to do in America was share a beer and we could all get along. But then the iPhone began to have video cameras and white people discovered, and maybe even Barack Obama discovered, that the police do more than just arrest black men. If you're black, you're lucky if the police just arrest you. There's a good chance they might kill you. The iPhone has taught white people what black people have known for centuries. So what about Bill Maher using the N-word? It's just a word, right? I don't say it. People say to me, you know, saying the N-word is worse than saying the actual word it represents. And I disagree. I refuse to say the N-word. Unless, of course, I stub my toe. Unless, of course, I stub my toe, then I have no choice. I think it's really funny that a guy who's just politically correct all his life, but whenever he stubs his toe, he screams the N-word. I think that's the funniest thing in the world. Okay. I don't say the N-word. Bill Maher said it. He said it accidentally. He didn't call someone the N-word. He was referring to himself as a white man. I don't think Bill Maher did anything wrong. But I'm not the judge. That's kind of up to African-Americans to decide whether or not he said something wrong. That's the way it works in this country. There are so many linguistic landmines out there. Make your life easy. Don't say the N-word. Don't say the C-word. Don't even say the F-word. I watch my language because I watch what I say. Words have meaning. You can't have alternative facts without alternative words. When respect for words disintegrates, then respect for facts follows. So when people tell you not to use the N-word, don't say it. Don't say the F-word. Don't say the C-word. Try not to curse. Not cursing shows restraint. It shows that you're measuring what you say. When you don't curse, it reveals character. It means you hold up under pressure. When you measure what you're saying, you're taking into account how the listener might feel. It's called being polite. Being called sensitive. It's caring about others. We have the N-word out there because it's the warning light. It's there to give us a slight indication as to whether or not the person who's saying it, or not saying it, may or may not be a racist. That's partly what the N-word is. It's a warning light. It's good to have words like the C-word, the N-word. Words you shouldn't say because it helps others determine whether or not the person who is speaking those words could possibly be a danger to the community. These words are there for guidance. A lot of people use these words, and they're not racists or rapists or homophobes. But these words must remain taboo in order to help us suss out any danger. We need these words to be a taboo so they can serve as the warning light that says, hey, the person speaking may not be all there. People need to talk less, and they need to pay attention to what they're saying because words matter. People think if they're talking, they're saying something. Just because you're typing, it doesn't mean you're writing. Just because you're working, it doesn't mean you're getting anything done. And just because you're talking doesn't mean you're saying anything. There are a lot of movies in which gangsters and lowlives seem to throw the N-word around. Granted, the characters who throw the N-word around are always bad people, and the writers and the directors and the producers use the N-word to denote evil. But it's still the N-word. And it seems to me there are other words out there that Hollywood writers can come up with besides the N-word to denote an evil character. I don't hear the C-word that much in movies. I hear the N-word a lot more. In movies, I don't hear the bad word for Jews, the bad words for Italians or Mexicans or gay people. I hear the N-word a lot. The N-word just doesn't seem to die. And in the movies in Hollywood, it's harmless because it's politically correct because the character is a bad guy and bad people say the N-word. Well, you know, they also say a lot of other bad things. It's interesting, though, that I keep hearing the N-word. Why? Probably for the same reason black people still have trouble voting in this country. Black people have it differently in America than other people do. So Bill made the mistake of thinking he earned the right to say the N-word. What is that about earning the right to say the N-word? That if you work really hard at being a liberal, if you hang out with black people, they come to your house, you've earned the right to say the N-word as though that's the incentive to hanging out with black people? Well, if I vote for Obama and I call Martin Luther King Dr. King and I let my daughter date an African American, obviously I'm entitled to say the N-word because Lord knows I need to. How about you never say it? Again, I'm not calling for censorship. I'm calling for restraint, common sense, perhaps a little class. Certain things are just plain disgusting and I don't want to see them or hear them. My mother, for example, she's disgusting. No, no, my mother, for example, hates the, my mother hates the word fart. I actually feel guilty saying the word fart. Growing up, I was not allowed to say the word fart. Apparently, it evokes something in my mother. It brings, it stirs something up in my mother. Now she'll walk out of the room the minute the grandchildren, the boys say the word fart. Grandma truly hates the word fart. She's not acting out, it's just a word that upsets her. Now, you can say she has no right to be upset by the word fart. You can accuse her of being old fashioned. You can accuse her of being arbitrary or silly, but the fact is, she's not being a drama queen. I can assure you to the core of her being, she hates the word fart. So if you have any respect for grandma, if you want her to stay in the room, you'll refrain from saying the word fart. That's empathy, that's sensitivity, that's class. You might think she should be okay with the word fart, but she's not, so don't say it. The same goes for the N word. The same goes for what we call the seven dirty words, because words arbitrarily upset people. And I don't happen to believe there's no such thing as just words. Anyone who has ever been told, I no longer love you, knows that there is no such thing as just words. Words have meanings and we should watch what we say to one another. That being said, did Bill Maher hurt anyone by saying the N word? If you want my honest white opinion, I don't care. I don't think Bill is the black man's problem. As a matter of fact, I think he's one of their biggest allies, and I would hate to lose one of the bravest, most progressive voices out there, just because he made a joke that used the N word. The problem that Bill has is people are gunning for him on both sides of the political spectrum and in between. For more than 25 years, Bill has been a provocateur saying things that are pretty remarkable. And it's pretty remarkable how few times he's actually had to apologize for what he said. Bill Cosby, on the other hand, he never offended anyone. You could take your mother, your sister, your daughter to see Bill Cosby. You just couldn't take them backstage to meet him. Breitbart News just fired one of their reporters for her comments after the London terrorist attack this weekend. Her name is Katie McHugh. This is what Katie McHugh tweeted. There would be no deadly terror attacks in the UK if Muslims didn't live there. Another Breitbart writer named Ryan Savidra defended Katie McHugh. He tweeted, people think I'm kidding when I say this, but the crusades need to come back and Katie was fired. She is a right-wing extremist who found a home at Breitbart. She's young and frightened, out of work. And then she tweeted, donate here. There was a link. Donate here so I can pay my medical bills. Wow. Katie McHugh from Breitbart is suddenly afraid of losing her medical insurance. Someone from Breitbart News is afraid of not being able to pay her medical bills. Katie, I don't think the Muslims are your biggest problem. I think you're more likely to die at the hands of a health insurance bureaucrat than a Muslim. Katie got fired from Breitbart for saying things about Islam that were too much for Breitbart to handle. And yet Bill Maher has said things about Islam that are not too volatile for HBO to handle. See, the problem isn't that Bill said the n-word. It's what he says about Islam. He doesn't say it as viciously as Katie McHugh or Ryan Saavedra from Breitbart. Bill's words about Islam are measured and they are veiled. But if you ask practically anybody who is Muslim, they will tell you that Bill's comments don't pass the smell test. That's the problem with Bill. It's not his use of the n-word. It's what he actually says and what he actually means and what he actually believes about Islam. And what he actually says and what he actually means and what he actually believes about Islam is almost what got Katie McHugh fired from Breitbart. Breitbart isn't okay with it, but HBO is. It matters more who says something than what that person actually says. The reaction to Bill's use of the n-word was about something else. The alt-right took to their Twitter followers to call Bill a racist. Now usually, I would say if anyone could spot a racist, it would be the alt-right. But the problem with the alt-right calling Bill a racist is they don't mean it. They hate Bill Maher because they know he's not a racist and nothing would please them more than watching him hoisted on the very same PC Patard they themselves find themselves dangling from. So Bill isn't a racist when it comes to African Americans. And on the other side of the alt-right are the African Americans who also know that Bill isn't racist. And if they don't know that, they should. Bill Maher is not a racist. But just like the alt-right, they're mad about something else. So both the alt-right and on the other end of the spectrum, African Americans, specifically the leader of Black Lives Matters, they all agree on something. Bill's use of the n-word should put him in hot water. And some from both sides have suggested that he should be fired, which is never going to happen. HBO is never firing Bill Maher. By the time he's back on the air next Friday, this will already be forgotten. HBO could fire Bill tomorrow if they feel his use of the n-word doesn't reflect their brand. The same way CNN wrongly fired Kathy Griffin for holding the severed head of Trump. HBO, like I said, could fire Bill, but that's not going to happen. If African Americans threatened to cancel their subscriptions to HBO, then maybe HBO would consider firing Bill. The same way Fox finally fired Bill O'Reilly, because the sponsors abandoned Bill O'Reilly. So it's not an issue of free speech, it's an issue of the free market. It's an issue of outrage and how much of that outrage can translate into lost revenue for the corporation Bill or Kathy Griffin or Bill O'Reilly works for. The alt-right wanting Bill Maher fired is a badge of honor. As for the African Americans wanting him fired, like I said, not a badge of honor pissing off African Americans, but they're pissed off and it's partly about something else. Again, I think African Americans, the Black Lives Matter people are genuinely angry that Bill used the n-word, but I also think they're more angry about the lack of diversity in the corporate suites or on the writing staffs in Hollywood, and I think Bill's use of the n-word stirs that up. I also think Bill would have a much easier time using the n-word if he didn't spend the last couple of years attacking Islam. He continues to call it a religion of violence, a religion that is more violent than, say, the Judeo-Christian faith. If I had a conversation with Bill Maher about Islam, he would win the argument that Islam is a violent religion. The same way I would lose the argument with Steve Bannon about the Jews. I'm sure anti-Semites like Steve Bannon or Chuck Woolery, yes, Chuck Woolery, the host of the Love Connection, Chuck Woolery, is guilty of making some anti-Semitic comments last week, so if anybody in Hollywood is listening, please hire Chuck Woolery so Andy Kinler and I can demand that he gets fired. But I'm sure that if Steve Bannon and Chuck Woolery sat me down, they could whip out statistics, anti-Semitic statistics that show Jews have a disproportionate number of jobs in banking, show business, medicine. I'm not going to win that argument because it's not an argument I find worth studying for. So the big question is why do you bother with these stats? Why do you bother to research this information? What is the point other than hurting and frightening minorities? I know that if I had Charles Murray on the show, he's the author of the bell curve, he would win the argument that blacks and Latinos are genetically inferior because he has spent his life pouring over his pseudo-science to prove that blacks and Latinos have nobody but themselves to blame for inequality. To me, that's a waste of time. His science is bogus, even if it weren't bogus, so what? What are you trying to achieve by proving this? It makes me wonder why Bill Maher has devoted so much of his energy to cherry-picking verses from the Quran in order to prove that Islam is more violent than, say, Christianity or Judaism. What does it matter? It's more revealing that with all that is going on in the world, all the problems that need to be addressed, Charles Murray wants to prove that blacks and Latinos are genetically inferior. If I had the time, I know I could muster up the pseudo-science to prove white supremacists are genetically inferior to Latinos and blacks. If I had the time and I wanted to cherry-pick Bill Maher's statements the same way he cherry-picks the Quran, I could prove that Bill Maher preaches just as much violence and intolerance as Muqtadr Sader or any other imam who has hijacked the Quran to incite violence. I would be lying about Bill the same way it's a lie to call Islam a violent religion, but more importantly, it's a waste of time. So the question remains, why? Why are you doing this with so little time, with life being so short? Why would you dedicate even a second to this? The answer can be found in the medical community. The medical diagnosis that has often been given for anti-Semitism is mental illness. Anti-Semitism is called a mental illness because mental illness is defined by psychiatrists and most psychiatrists are Jewish. But it really is a mental illness. It's paranoia coupled with a psychosis that makes you see things that aren't there, makes you see controlling forces that are not really controlling you because they don't exist. The same applies to Islamophobia. That's a mental illness. And yes, the people who attack Manchester or the London Bridge, they too are mentally ill. But yesterday in Orlando, John Robert Newman Jr. seems to have used a semi-automatic handgun to kill five of his fellow workers and then himself. He too is mentally ill. Should all gun owners be condemned? Should all people who believe in the Second Amendment be called radical, extremists, hell bent on killing people in America? Yes, I think they should be. Anti-Semitism, racism, Islamophobia, Islamophobia, just like a radical fundamentalist belief in the Second Amendment, all of those are manifestations of a mental illness. All of these rabid beliefs, this orthodoxy, yes, in the Second Amendment, in the Quran, in the Bible, stems from fear, hatred, paranoia, and a psychosis that someone is trying to get them. The love of the gun, the love of the Bible, the love of the Quran, the obsession with those things, it's a false belief in something more powerful than oneself. I think Bill should be forgiven for using the n-word. What I do think he should be taken to task for is his unholy alliance, not just with the mentally ill, but with the ill-informed. It pains me to say this because I love Bill, but I think when it comes to Islamophobia, I think Bill Maher is mentally ill. I don't think he's ill-informed. I think he's mentally ill. This need to attack Muslims, the religion, is about something much deeper. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because his mother's Jewish, his father was Catholic. Maybe it's mental illness coupled with business acumen. Maybe it's actually calculating. Maybe it's because right after 9-11, he got into trouble attacking the military after 9-11, and he got fired from ABC. Maybe now he's sucking up to his oppressors. Maybe this is very calculated. His attacks on Islam, maybe it's very calculating. We all know that the far, far-right extremists in this country not only believe that the military can't be criticized the way Bill did on politically incorrect and that got him fired, the far, far right also believes that our adventurism overseas fighting terrorism is a war between Christianity and Islam. You will find that the deeper you dig into the far-right wing, these two things go hand in hand. The military is beyond reproach, and the war against terrorism is between good and evil, or more precisely Christianity versus Islam. Bill Maher is afraid of the far-right. I think maybe his way of inoculating himself from the unbridled wrath of the far, far right is by not criticizing the military, which he learned the hard way not to do, and more importantly, spending a little time on his show attacking Islam. Like I said, sucking up to the military while attacking Islam is red meat, or actually catnip for the dangerous, violent Breitbart right. It's catnip, it calms them down. So Bill's Islamophobia, it's partly mental illness, but I also think it's a calculated way to shave off those right-wing extremists who might come for him. It's hard for the far-right wing to loathe Bill Maher, to call for his head if he hates Islam. I wouldn't put it past Bill Maher to attack Islam as a ploy, as a way to gain license from the far-right wing to attack everything else the right wing detests. As long as Bill supports the military and hates Islam, the right wing is going to be conflicted calling for his head. And Bill knows that either way, attacking Islam is mentally ill and cowardly. Yes, Bill should be forgiven for saying the n-word. What I don't understand is why he gets a pass for attacking Islam. Bill was right for apologizing for saying the n-word. What I don't understand is why he has not apologized to the Muslim community. Sarah McHugh was fired from Breitbart for saying the things Donald Trump not only believes, but is acting upon. Steve Bannon, the former boss of Breitbart, is winning inside the White House right now. We've just pulled out of a Paris climate accords, the EPA is run by oil lobbyists, the Department of Interior is run by ExxonMobil, and the Department of Education is being run by a creationist who doesn't believe in public schools. They are winning. They're cutting food stamps, cutting spending on the backs of poor people, lowering taxes for the richest 1%, inflaming the Arab world, and waging war on the news media. Bill Maher and Kathy Griffin are not the problem. Things are going to be getting a lot worse before they get better, and we need to focus on the real enemy. It's not Bill Maher, it's not Kathy Griffin, it's Donald Trump, the Koch brothers, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Breitbart, and the right-wing extremists who only believe in Jesus Christ and guns. Those are your enemies and divorce attorneys.