Just got four e-mails almost simultaneously from readers of this site asking what I think about the Bill Maher controversy. As you probably know, he used the "n" word on his show Friday night…although as few of his critics have noted, he did not use it to call any black person that or to suggest anything bad about their race.
I have never felt that anyone should be fired for using any word…so no, I do not think Maher should be fired. If someone uses a racist slur — and I don't think in the context of its use, it qualifies as that — then the penalty should be that more people consider the person a racist. There are plenty of them around and they do things like instantly presume the cop is always in the right when one of them kills an unarmed black man. On a scale from 1 to 10 of Racism Indicators with 10 being the Klan lynching mentality, saying the person of color was just asking for it is about an 8.5.
Saying the "n" word not directed at one or more black people is between a 0 and a 5, depending on the context. If a History professor of any color were to speak that word as part of a discussion of segregation and church burnings and lynchings, would anyone accuse him of being a racist and demand he be terminated? Well, maybe if they already hated him and his lectures and thought that screaming about that would make him go away. A lot of those calling for Maher's head didn't like him before that because they don't like his politics and anytime you can silence someone like that, you try to seize the moment.
Will Maher get fired? I doubt it. Being on HBO, he has no advertisers who can withdraw their advertising and make his show unprofitable. If HBO lost a significant number of subscribers, maybe he'd be in trouble but I find it hard to believe a lot of people would cancel their HBO over this. It's one word and if they're outraged about it, it's probably one word on a show they didn't like to begin with.
It's been my observation that when on-air personalities get fired for saying or doing something awful, it's usually because the network or station was thinking of dumping them anyway but hadn't quite gotten there yet. Then the personality commits the faux pas and someone in the big office upstairs says, "Hey, if we're really close to getting rid of this clown, he's just handed us a great reason! We can look really responsible if we can him now!"
When Mr. Maher was jettisoned by ABC/Disney for his post-9/11 remarks, I think that was the case. Politically Incorrect wasn't doing that well and it didn't fit the current programmers' idea of what their network should be airing. He handed them a reason so they could rid themselves of him without saying, "We don't care for certain of his views." He won't lose the current show unless HBO was already thinking they'd be better off without him for whatever reason. And since that company prides itself on being gutsy and unafraid of controversy, I can't see that happening.