On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that the biggest loser of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock was the “liberal hypocrisy” where people “who are always talking about microaggressions in the workplace” and believe “silence is violence and words can be violence” were okay with actual violence.
Maher said, “It exposed, I thought, a lot of aspects of this society that we have that are not terribly positive, toxic masculinity, victim culture…liberal hypocrisy, I think, was the big loser.”
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Laura Coates responded that she “couldn’t believe” that Smith still got a standing ovation.
Maher added, “It does look like those people, these are the very people who are always talking about microaggressions in the workplace and how you should…not have to face an uncomfortable moment, or people shouldn’t touch you unwantedly. Suddenly, they were okay with this. It just seemed to show, to me, broken morals, like you really have no principles. When it’s a star that you like in the service of some vague principle of…intersectionality, like your wife shouldn’t be insulted even in a mild way, then it’s like, well, too bad. That’s what I like, it made me feel good. So, I forget my principles.”
Coates then remarked in jest, “A part of me is concerned that that was the first moment you realized there [were] no principles in Hollywood, though.”
Maher later said, “And what about — what do we make of what’s going on with violence and the word ‘violence’? Because it’s a common word among the woke. They seem to have broadened the definition, silence is violence and words can be violence, but then actual violence? Not a big deal. It’s like, violence is not an answer, except when I f*cking feel like it, and then it’s a great answer.”
Coates jokingly responded, “I mean, your assessment is probably violent to them right now.”
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