CNN: Joe Rogan ‘N-word’ Controversy is ‘Another January 6 Moment’

The podcaster Joe Rogan did not join a mob that forced lawmakers to flee for their lives. He never carried a Confederate flag inside the US Capitol rotunda. No one died trying to stop him from using the n-word.

But what Rogan and those that defend him have done since video clips of him using the n-word surfaced on social media is arguably just as dangerous as what a mob did when they stormed the US Capitol on January 6 last year.

Rogan breached a civic norm that has held America together since World War II. It’s an unspoken agreement that we would never return to the kind of country we used to be.

That agreement revolved around this simple rule:

A White person would never be able to publicly use the n-word again and not pay a price.

CNN has been at the forefront of efforts to frame the January 6 Capitol riot as a “coup” attempt, and has also been pushing Spotify to remove Rogan — the top podcaster in the world — from its platform.

CNN's @BrianStelter & Jim @Acosta strongly suggest Spotify should remove Joe Rogan from their platform; also note his "profanity-laced apology"

"It seems untenable to have that kind of video surface, and that kind of compilation surface, and keep one’s job" pic.twitter.com/rSyAV8f1dN

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 6, 2022

A compilation video emerged earlier this month showing Rogan using the “N-word” while discussing various topics. He issued an apology, as Breitbart News reported:

Rogan took to social media on Friday to address the N-word video, explaining, “There’s a video that’s out, it’s a compilation of me saying the N-word.”

“It’s a video that’s made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast, and it’s all smushed together, and it looks fucking horrible, even to me,” he said.

“I know that to most people, there’s no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly, on a podcast, and I agree with that now,” Rogan added.

“I haven’t said it in years,” he said. “But for a long time, when I would bring that word up — like if it were to come up in a conversation — instead of saying ‘the N-word,’ I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing.”

Nigerian-born UFC champion Israel Adesanya defended Rogan last week, as Breitbart News reported:

“First off, let me take this one. Hold up. I’m Black. I can take this one.”

“Look, there’s a lot of c*nts in this game,” Adesanya continued. “There are a lot of snakes in this game. I’ve been in this fight game since 2008. Joe Rogan is one of the nicest, coolest, humble motherf*ckers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Understand that.”

Adesanya went on when a journalist tried to press on with talk about Rogan.

“F*ck the noise. You know what they’re trying to do. You can’t control the man. He’s got the biggest platform in the world right now. That’s my n*gga Joe Rogan. F*ck the noise. Just keep doing you, Joe. Have some mushrooms. Keep doing you,” Adesanya concluded.

CNN’s Blake, upset that Rogan has not appeared to pay a professional price yet, argued that to “allow a White public figure to repeatedly use the foulest racial epithet in the English language without experiencing any form of punishment” means to “accept the mainstreaming of a form of political violence that’s as dangerous as the January 6 attack.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.