I read about this a few days ago and I really wasn’t sure I wanted to address it.

First of all, I am unconcerned about Elisabeth Hasselbeck being moved to tears by the bigotry and hypocrisy of her co stars.  She goes to work every day knowing that her fellow View ladies are ideologically opposed to her.  While I admire her refusal to quit, I have to hope she is strong enough to deal with what she deals with every week.  In fact, I have to say that she has sown incredible strength previously, so I know that she has it in her.

So my outrage is not that sweet Elisabeth cried.  It is that her co hosts are so pitifully racist.

The issue is of course the word Nigger.  After Jesse Jackson got caught muttering it over a hot mic, the topic has once again raged discussing who can say it, when they can say it, and who they can say it to.

The reality seems to be that if you are black, you can say it to a black person, as long as you mean it lovingly as a term of endearment.  At least that is how Goldberg and Shepperd of the view see it, in their racially nuanced position.

Hasselbeck sees it more fundamentally.  If it is wrong, and bad, then no one should feel comfortable saying it.  Period.  Walters seems to agree, though she is partially patronizing too, and she is shut down by Shepperd as well.

One would think that black co star Goldberg would applaud her, but no.  Poor white Elisabeth is deluded, apparently.

Here is the full transcript, with my comments in line.  I will follow this with two other reactions I thought worthy.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I don’t know whether you’ve been watching television last night or this morning, but new footage was leaked that apparently shows Jesse Jackson using the “n” word. Fox News says the tape was leaked. They didn’t have anything to do with it. So I ask you, is any of this a surprise?

SHERRI SHEPHERD: Well, you know, what, what I think the hypocrisy is coming out because Jesse is the main, he was the main proponent of, of saying, you know, he didn’t want the rappers using it and take it out. And I thought, and we were talking about it, I thought it had been a funeral or something where they– I don’t know if Jesse came to the funeral– where they buried the “n” word.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Did that come after Michael Richards, when after his rage, using the “n” word? He called for a boycott of all the “Seinfeld” DVD’s and episodes telling people to take of their DVR and-

SHEPHERD: Was that Al Sharpton?

HASSELBECK: Jesse was part of that as well.

JOY BEHAR: He wasn’t talking about using the word privately. He was talking about using it publicly.

One wonders what the difference is?  if a man is racist in the privacy of his own home, he is still racists when he leaves that house, and his racism will manifest itself in some way.  The true qualities of a man are who is he when no one is watching.

HASSELBECK: Did you ever see “Crash”? Did you guys see “Crash” the movie? See I don’t think there’s an ounce of difference, and sometimes I think it’s almost worse to talk- use it privately than publicly.

SHEPHERD: No, no, it’s not true, no.

HASSELBECK: Well, I’m saying, are they equally as bad if I say it to someone in, in the privacy of my household? That’s still bad. It’s not a word that should be used. I think it’s, it’s-

SHEPHERD: Don’t tell me I can’t use that word. Because I use it.

Hypocrite number one.

BARBARA WALTERS: Okay, there’s something I want to add.

HASSELBECK: But how is it- you’re telling me I can’t use it, but you can use it.

SHEPHERD: It’s not the same when I use it-

HASSELBECK: Why?

SHEPHERD: Because-

WALTERS: That’s what I want to ask you.

HASSELBECK: Is it when you’re funny or you’re not funny all the time-

SHEPHERD: There’s no difference from being funny.

WALTERS: Just a second.

HASSELBECK: I don’t understand.

WALTERS: Could I just ask a question?

HASSELBECK: I would never use it to begin with, but yes.

GOLDBERG: Then why are you arguing?

HASSELBECK: I’m saying why is it for anyone to say it?

WALTERS: Elisabeth could I just ask a question?

HASSELBECK: Sure.

WALTERS: Is it– and what you’re saying– is it okay for black comics primarily, like yourself when you do an act and so forth, is it okay then to use as it is still done and not okay for white people? Is that the case?

SHEPHERD: Yeah I, I have no problem with them using it. It’s something that means something way different to me than it does to you. I grew up with my family using it. It– for me, I can use it as a term of endearment.

I have to say right or wrong, she is correctly stating reality.  I have heard several blacks use it in a familiar fashion.  But…does that make it right?  Are they perpetuating the problem?

WALTERS: But if I used it…

SHEPHERD: I don’t want to hear it come out of your mouth.

To hypocrites like Shepperd I am tempted to work it into a post or two a week, in a non insulting fashion, by quoting black comedians, just so the damn word is in their face every damn week.

HASSELBECK: I just think, here’s the like, how do you, okay, so wait a minute, let’s think about this. This is how I think things can be simplified sometimes. How do you teach children, okay? We should be acting. We’re trying to teach our kids certain things in this world, no? So then are we, are we acting out on what we’re actually preaching them? Am I supposed to tell Grace, “Grace okay, here is [sic] some words you can use, here is [sic] some words you can not.” And then but you’re friend over there can use it because-

GOLDBERG: Can I simplify it for you? The little kid is not going to walk up to Grace and say “[bleeped out]” It’s not going to happen. [laughter]

As anyone who has seen her comedy act knows, Whoopi is NOT shy about using the word Nigger.

HASSELBECK: It’s an example. I’m just giving an example.

GOLDBERG: But, but I understand your example. I understand your example, but Elisabeth, as I said at the beginning when we first talked about this word, this is a word that has meaning when you give it meaning. I’ve never met [bleeped out], I have never gone to [bleeped out], I don’t know any [bleeped out]. There are [bleeped out]. You can try it, just like you can-

HASSELBECK: I am not trying to.

GOLDBERG: No, no, no, listen to me, listen to me. Just like you can talk about comical Italian people if you were a comic.

HASSELBECK: I’m half Italian.

GOLDBERG: And yeah, so you can say all kinds of stuff. You can say the stuff that your mom and dad would say in the privacy of their home and not outside. That’s just the way that it works.

SHEPHERD: What about teaching, what about teaching Grace with different things that- There are some things where people are sensitive to. There are some things that we can’t say because people are sensitive to it. Kids say “why does that person have a hump on their back?” You know, that might hurt their feelings. So why not explain it in that way?

HASSELBECK: Look, I’m not saying I won’t explain to my daughter how to talk about words. I grew up in a household where we didn’t say- I’m half Polish and half Italian. If somebody said to me “you’re a dumb Pollack,” it offended me. I never made fun of myself saying, you’re, you’re that word. I’m a this. I never would go into my own heritage and use a phrase that is used against me in the privacy of my own home because I think it perpetuates stereotypes and hate.

GOLDBERG: You have to understand [bleeped out] word that has followed us around, and basically what we did is we took it out the hands of people that were using it and put it into our hands and we use it the way we want to use it and that’s the way it is.

HASSELBECK: Then it sneaks into pop culture then. I’m just trying to get an answer.

WALTERS: You did. You’re not listening you’re just talking. She is saying-

HASSELBECK: - I am listening.

WALTERS: -it’s okay in her culture, but it is difficult as you as a white mother to explain that, that Jeffrey can use it, but Grace can’t.

HASSELBECK: It’s not difficult for me. It’s just an example in terms of general philosophy. I have no problem explaining things to Grace. My thing is that we don’t live in different worlds. We live in the same world.

GOLDBERG: We do live in different worlds. I’m sorry. I’m sorry it’s the way it is Elisabeth. This is the way it is. This is how I grew up. My mother could not go and vote in the United States of America, the place of her birth. We, go- wait, wait.

And right there we see the root of racism in America, and it isn’t prejudiced whites, it is blacks Rev Wright and Sharpton and Jackson who insist on keeping blacks in a ghetto of difference and exclusion.

WALTERS: And don’t we want that to change?

GOLDBERG: Yes, we would like to. But you don’t understand.

HASSELBECK: I’m not going to take that away from no.

GOLDBERG: No, no, I, I want you to. But what I need you to understand is the frustration that goes along when you say we live in the same world. It isn’t balanced. And we would like it to be. But you have to understand, you have to listen to the fact that we’re telling you, there are issues, there are huge problems that still affect us. And you’ve got to know this if you want to know us.

HASSELBECK: I’m not trying to take- I understand. I’m not trying to-

GOLDBERG: But it didn’t sound like it.

HASSELBECK: I am not trying to take that away from you. When we are living in this world and we are living in the world where there is in, in the pop culture, when that word is in use. When there are- [crying] this is upsetting to me because-

WALTERS: Okay, just take a breathe and let someone else talk.

HASSELBECK: I am, I am, but this is a conversation that is hard and we’re going to have it here and we have it here for a while because we love each other. When we live in a world where pop culture then uses that term, and we’re trying to get to a place where we feel like we’re in the same place and we feel like we’re in the same world, how are we supposed to then move forward if we keep using terms that bring back that pain?

GOLDBERG: I can tell you.

HASSELBECK: How?

GOLDBERG: Here’s how we do it. You listen and say “okay this is how we’re using this word and this is why we do it.” You have to say, “well, you know what? I understand that, but let’s find a new way to move forward.” You must acknowledge the understanding of what it is and why it is in order to go-

HASSELBECK: But when is it time to have the conversation?

GOLDBERG: But we are.

HASSELBECK: We are, yes.

WALTERS: Okay, but one second, let somebody else have a conversation for just one second. [laughter] We have a man- [laughter and applause] We have a man running for president who is 50 percent white and 50 percent black. And one of the things that he is trying to do is to bring people together and there still is racism. I have not heard anybody on this show say the word that you just said. They say the “n” word, we’re so afraid of it. If I said what you said, I would never hear the end of it. But when- wait I’ll grant it. But when you say it’s okay, we are trying to change. This is what Barack Obama and others are trying to do, to move forward. In the meantime, we have to understand that we haven’t gotten there yet. And maybe we should and maybe it’s not okay for you to use the word, but that is the reality, that’s the reality of the moment. And whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Amazingly, Behar who started it, and who then remains silent, ends it decisively.

BEHAR: Is this segment over? Because I can just end it right now.

SHEPHERD: You haven’t said anything.

WALTERS: No, you can say something.

BEHAR: No, I just wanted to say that I thought the “n” word that he used was “nuts.”

Over at Sister Toldjah she links to two other black Hollywood stars who agree:

Here are the opinions of a couple of black actors on the debate between Whoopi and Elisabeth. Only read it if you’re mild-mannered and not prone to throwing things across the room when you get really, really irritated.

I mean can you not see the irony that Elisabeth is essentially being treated as if she was racist and ignorant because she is not racist and ignorant.

It only serves to emphasize the point that they are setting a double standard that pretty much ensures they will hear the word more and more often.

As I said, I may post a quote by a black actor every week just to ensure they have to.

I mean, if I use it as a term of endearment, I should be free to use it right? 

Hmmm…I wonder if Whoopi let Ted Danson call her that as a term of endearment…I mean, she let, no encouraged him to wear black face once.  So she cannot be shy about breaking down the racial lines, right?

Hot Air notes:

I too was in tears after viewing it, so excruciatingly inarticulate is our cast. Newsbusters has a transcript, but trust me, it won’t help. Hasselbeck’s point is a simple one: We all share a common culture, so in the interests of commonality, how about everyone agrees to quit dropping the N-bomb, yes? Whereupon Whoopi, seizing the opportunity for a righteous show of Absolute Moral Authority, duly pitches a fit about how we’re different and that’s the way it is and Elisabeth simply doesn’t understand the “frustration” over the “huge problems that still affect us,” even though, please note, in calling for everyone to stop using the word she’s making the same argument as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Consider this a punctuation mark on a week that began with that Obama New Yorker cover, the intent of which was clear but declared to be beside the point because it was unhelpful to the left’s agenda. Whoopi and Sherri Shepherd have a plausible intentionalist defense of their position available to them here — when blacks use the N-word the intent will almost always be innocent whereas it’s much more ambiguous when coming from whites — but that ends up being exploded when Walters asks Shepherd what would happen if she said the word, presumably in a friendly/jokey manner to Sherri. Answer: “I don’t want to hear it come out of your mouth.” So much for intentions.

Anyway. Hasselbeck ends up in tears, Whoopi ends up basically arguing that the gulf between the races is too great for them ever to understand each other (or at least for whites to understand blacks), and they end up quickly moving on to talk about something else. Is this the sort of great national conversation Barry O had in mind?

Apparently.

Denis Leary gets the last word:

Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught.  I have a two-year-old son.  You know what he hates?  Naps!  End of list.  ~Dennis Leary

Nuff Said.

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