Bill Maher does bigotry too

As a secular humanist leftist, I was first drawn to Real Time with Bill Maher, several years ago, because of Bill Maher’s critiques of the religious right...  In little time, however, I came to see that many of Maher’s critiques, lacking in substance, make up for their evidential deficiencies by appealing to thinly-disguised racist, sexist, and classist stereotypes. In place of attacking ideas, Maher tends to attack character.

I first hinted at Maher’s racism in his racialized conception of Islam. In many ways, Maher sees himself carrying the new “White Man’s Burden,” censuring the Arab and Muslim world for its “backward” ways, while failing to recognize the role the imperialist West has played in consistently destroying democracy and propping-up dictatorships in the region.

Up there with Fox News, as common butts of Maher’s “jokes,” aside from Muslims, aside from Arabs, aside from the religious, aside from—as we will see in the final part of this article—the economically disadvantaged, the mentally ill and more, are both people of color and women. There is no shortage of examples.

Let’s jump right in. In one of the more well-known instances, Maher warned his viewership before the 2012 presidential elections, if you’re thinking about voting for Romney, you better watch out. “Black people know who you are and will come after you.” What a knee-slapper, Bill. Good one!

In another, when Obama (predictably) refused to fight for any serious punishment for B.P.’s 2010 gulf oil spill, instead of criticizing him as, you know, a person, Maher criticized him as a black man. “I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president,” Maher lamented. “You know, this [oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the B.P. CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt where you can see the gun in his pants. That’s—‘We’ve got a motherf-cking problem here? Shoot somebody in the foot.’” HOW FUNNY. He’s not racist, Maher assures us. He loves Obama! He voted for Obama! He donated one million dollars to Obama’s campaign!

To Maher, black men are simply stereotypes to be used as joke material. Back in February, in regard to Herman Cain working for Fox News, Maher tweeted “Man, #HermanCain is making a comeback – says he likes working with Fox team, particularly some of them fine-ass white women they got there.”

Boyce Watkins recalls “Maher once made a joke to Dr. Cornel West about Dr. West ‘making booty calls,’” writing “I cringed while watching West, a devout Christian and Professor of Theology, uncomfortably wiggle his way out of the joke without becoming offended. Only a misguided individual would assume that Dr. West understands or engages in regular ‘booty calls’ just because he happens to be a black man. Maher would never have targeted such a joke at Joe Biden.”

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