Larry Wilmore: ‘Muslim’ Is the New ‘Black,’ ‘Gay’
As some words are losing their “bad” meanings, others are rising to take their place, according to comedian Larry Wilmore.
During Comedy Central’s May 11 The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, the host proclaimed that the once-bad connotations associated with the words “black” and “gay” now apply to the word “Muslim.”
To begin the conversation, Wilmore called attention to a Georgia teacher who told her students that, in Wilmore’s words, “parents are evil if they voted for Obama.”
“Can we at least call this teacher racist?” he prompted his guests.
He meant “bigoted,” but standards of language accuracy rarely apply to a liberal making a point. The teacher's comments were ridiculous and inappropriate, but Wilmore couldn't resist inflating them into some new Ugly American trend.
“It used to be ‘black.’ ‘Gay’ was it for a long time – remember Kobe Bryant got in trouble for saying that to the referee and all that,” he transitioned. “But now ‘Muslim’ is that word that if you say ‘Oh, he’s a Muslim,’ we’re all just supposed to accept the fact that that’s a bad thing.”
Certainly, it’s not factually correct or fair to call Obama a Muslim But it wasn’t factually correct or fair to refer to his predecessor as “BusHitler.” And it isn’t correct that, because some call Obama a Muslim, the word has become a general term of derision, any more than "Chimpy McBusHitler" became a common insult.
Still, having built his straw man, Wilmore bravely showed his defiance: “It’s like no, you go f*** yourself. I’m not accepting that’s a bad thing. What if Obama was a Muslim? I don’t care.”
Wilmore, Stephen Colbert’s replacement, is proving to be an off-the-rack liberal entertainer, joking about a “crossfit” Jesus to insisting “thug” is the new “n-word.”
— Katie Yoder is Staff Writer, Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media at the Media Research Center. Follow Katie Yoder on Twitter.
