Tears of a Hound

After a very emotionally taxing week following the goings-on at the University of Delaware, we didn’t have much energy left to spend on Duane “Dog” Chapman’s rant against his son’s black girlfriend where he continually used the n-word. Still, Sean Hannity’s best attempts to rehabilitate him this past week are worth some consideration. Here’s our two cents on this.

(BTW: We’re still watching the U of D situation, but not much has changed; the “free speech” white folks at FIRE have succeeded in getting diversity language off campus. Three cheers for free speech!)

Dog is human, and he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He’s racist like all of us, and he’s clearly a bigot to boot. But he says he’s not, so it’s worth examining his hour-long interview on Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes program this past week (click on the links below to watch the interview in its entirety).

Here’s some of what Dog had to say:

“[O]f course, I knew that that was a word that I should not be saying. As far as believing in what that word means, I did not — I do not believe that that word is — means what a lot of America is thinking. . . .I've used the word for a long time not to mean what it does to a lot of black people that are offended.”

Ok, so what we are to understand here is that, as we’ve noted previously, intent is all that matters. Dog didn’t mean the n-word as a racial slur, so despite its history and the fact that its denotative and connotative meaning are widely understood and accepted, it’s not what he meant.

He continued:

“I thought that I was cool enough in the black world to be able to use that word as a brother to a brother. I'm not. I didn't really know until three or four days ago what that meant to black people. . . .Of course, I know the story, and I know America's story. But I never realized that that's like stabbing a black person in the heart. I would never do that to any kind of person. I've always taken pride to be the white guy that can talk to the black people, that can refer to them truly as a brother from a different mother. But this is America and this is entertainment, and that doesn't fly there.”

He knows the story about the n-word (presumably that means that he understands that it had been used to enslave, control, dehumanize, ostracize, and persecute African Americans based on their skin color), but didn’t realize how much it might hurt them to hear it used. He’s not “cool enough” to use it? We guess if Fonzie were around today, his trademark “Aaaay” would be replaced by the n-word. When did we walk into a Fellini film?

But Dog does have an interesting take with respect to his history with the word. He claims that he has used it with his black friends for some time, so he didn’t know that it was wrong for him to use it:

“[I] wouldn't turn around and say, ‘Hi,’ and use it out loud, because I'm going to get beat up, but I used it as a — when I meet a brother, and we shake, and we say, ‘How's it,’ that's how it is. It's not a degrading thing at all.”

Even if this is so (and we’re suspicious as to how widespread such use might have been), in the covertly-obtained tape in question, he is clearly using the word in a hostile way toward his son’s black girlfriend. But in a culture where the word is used as a form of fraternity between African Americans (mostly males), it makes sense that a white guy (part Native American) who thinks he’s black should be able to use it. “What?” you ask? Check this out:

“And I used to say, ‘I'm black, too.’ In other words, I — my whole life I've been called a half-breed, a convict, king of the trailer trash, this and that. I take that and stand. . . .So when I stood there and said, ‘I kind of know what you feel like, because I've been there, too,’ I felt that I could embrace and like, as brothers or, even as a black woman, say the word.”

Seriously. And then:

“You can't — I now learned I'm not black at all. And I never did it out of hate. This sounds so stupid. I always did it out of love. Other white guys would be like, ‘Boy, who does Dog think he is? Dog can say that.’ And black guys would be with me and walk with me and respect me.”

Well, now that his African American status is cleared up, we shouldn’t have any more trouble with this issue. If it weren’t for this episode, Dog might still be running around not knowing that he’s not black!

And even though he apologized in writing, Sean Hannity wanted to make sure he had a chance to apologize directly:

“[A]ll black people in America I owe an apology to. Whether how dark I think I am, I cannot say that word.”

We could not make this up if we wanted to.

“I owe the rest of the people, whether they're black or not in America, an apology, because people looked up to me. I've learned a lesson. All my lessons I've learned in my life have been the hard way, or I guess I wouldn't learn them. This is one of the hardest lessons I've ever learned in my life, even facing death. . . .If I could kill myself and people would forgive me, I would do that. I said on the way here, ‘I hope no one died thinking I meant that word before I got here. I must come out.’”

We’re clearly having some fun at Dog’s expense, but it is hard not to feel a little bit bad for the guy. None of us wants to be remembered for our worst moment, and again, by his own admission, he’s not real bright and he’s had a hard life. That’s not to excuse him, of course. Again, by his own admission, this wasn’t something he got caught saying the one time in his life he said it. He knew what the history of the word was, he knew that he shouldn’t use it, and he knew that if he was heard using it his career would be ruined (which, ironically, is what the argument was about). In another part of the interview, he even noted that his black friends warned him about using it. As easy as it is to make fun of his mullet and his television show, he is clearly a pathetic character, which means, in part, he is deserving of pity.

He cried in various places throughout the interview, including when he saw a picture of the target of his bigotry and realized that she was “cute.” We suppose if she were a “nappy headed ho,” he wouldn’t have felt so bad.

Another of Dog’s sons, Chris, had this to say about his father on TMZ:

“My dad is not a racist man. If he was he would have no hair. He'd have swastikas on his body and he would go around talking about Hitler. That's what a racist is to me.”

As we type this, we’re looking around the room for Allen Funt.

But while we can dismiss Dog as simply another bigot caught in the act, Sean Hannity’s behavior is condemnable, not pathetic. Here’s what we mean:

One of the black spiritual advisors consulted by Dog, Rev. Tim Storey, also argued that Dog is not “racist” (he clearly meant “bigoted”):

“He's not a racist. What you have with Duane — I met him before he was the big Dog the Bounty Hunter, before he had the A&E show. And he's rough around the edges. And, you know, God uses shaky people to do sturdy projects.”

(We should note that another of Dog’s black advisors is Roy Innis from the Congress on Racial Equality who, interestingly enough, is on the “advisory board” of FIRE).

A bit later, this exchange occurs:

D. CHAPMAN: “If I'm a racist, yes. I'm done.”

HANNITY: “But you just said tonight you're not.”

D. CHAPMAN: “I'm not a racist, so I'm not done.”

And then:

HANNITY [to Pastor Storey]: “Let me ask you. Is the ‘N’ word in Dog's life, in your estimation as a close friend and his pastor, is that the same as just any other curse?”

STOREY: “I will say that I've never heard him say it, but I was shocked when he said it and it did bother me. But I know that, down deep in his heart, that he doesn't mean it that way. But it's still an alarming bad word that he said.”

HANNITY: “Do you believe that he's capable of now saying he's going to change his life and not curse anymore?”

Two things are worthy of note here. First, even though Pastor Storey did not agree that, for Dog, the n-word is just another curse word (what rational person COULD agree with such nonsense), Hannity continues as if he had, thus leaving the impression that the black pastor agrees. Second, Hannity is a self-proclaimed conservative; conservatives are generally very opposed to hearing any “excuses” about how poverty leads to crime, racism leads to poverty, or even that mental retardation does not warrant an exception to death sentences for murder (see Justices Thomas, Scalia and Rehnquist’s dissents in Tennard v. Dretke). Why so much compassion for a white guy accused (and caught in the act) of being a bigot? Continued Hannity (back in the studio, without Chapman):

HANNITY: “All right, Alan, we actually taped about 25 minutes more. He was beaten as a kid. He was in the Devil's Disciples motorcycle gang. How he became a bounty hunter, was found guilty of murder one and changed his life. There's a lot of spiritual, religious side to all this. And — but he was very remorseful, as you could see, about this whole incident.”

COLMES: “I thought it was very interesting he thought he was a brother and he was talking — he would talk brother to brother, which is why people like Sharpton and Jackson will say even African-Americans should not use that word. Regardless of whether you're white or black it's not a word to be used. But he thought of himself as one of them.”

HANNITY: “He swore he would — and he swore he would never use it again, and you have to decide for yourself. I believe he's sincere.”

Well, okay then. That’s that. Hannity absolves Dog. His show should be back on promptly. We’re certain that if Sean Hannity were on Fox News in 1984 he would have similarly helped Rev. Jesse Jackson rehabilitate himself after Jackson’s “Hymietown” comment, which U. of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato included in a Washington Post special about “feeding frenzies of our time” in 1998. This summary, was helpful to commenter #17 of a November 28, 2006 TV Squad blog about the Michael Richards episode. In short, while conservatives may be quick to excuse away comments from whites about people of color, black Americans do not get similar consideration for equally despicable comments.

We’re sure the difference in treatment has nothing to do with race, though, since, according to the folks at FIRE and a lone undergraduate dissenter at the U of D (who apparently has a lot of time on his hands to post misinformed and hateful comments on the ResLife Facebook group page), “racism” is an ideology, as is the belief that there is racial inequality in America.

So Dog blames his son for surreptitiously taping the call and selling it to a tabloid (allegedly for drug money), and FIRE blames “liberals” in academia for drumming up racism where it doesn’t exist. Dog used the word, whether he got caught on tape or not, and racism exists, whether colleges responsibly point it out or not.

***

Afterthought: We couldn’t figure out how to work this naturally into the text above, but it’s too good to leave alone. We’re not sure if Dog was making a nifty Sidney Poitier reference of not, but if so, our hat’s go off to him for his wit. You be the judge:

Talking about introducing his cellmate to his first wife, Chapman said to Hannity:

“[M]y cellie, Edward Whittaker didn't have anywhere to live so I got married in Denver and told [my wife] one day, ‘Guess who's coming to dinner? This is my cellie. He's black. His name is Edward Whittaker.”

Woof.

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Full Fox Interview

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2S85DVq6Kw

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT0vTdKuAwk

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbbx6hKf4mg

Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqfHegcgM7M

Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_YMGc7eq8