Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [108]
Though of course it does. In some circles, there are very strict rules that determine who can say what and when on the basis of one’s friendships. Philosophers sometimes call this phenomenon linguistic license. The idea is that we sometimes recognize another has having the right to say certain things because they belong to, or are involved in, a certain group—be it through birth, through marriage, friendships, or whatever. We see this all the time. An African-American can say things about members of his or her community that a white person could never say, at least not without daring to offend. A Jewish person can crack jokes about other Jews. A drama geek can make fun of other drama geeks. In cases such as this, we will say that someone has linguistic license that not everyone has, and that they have it in virtue of group involvement.
I bring up linguistic license because I think it gives us a nice way to explain why Stephen’s display of his black friend is supposed to matter. (Never mind for the minute if it actually does.) Whenever Stephen puts up a picture of him with his black friend, he is looking for a little extra license to clear the path for, or defend his right to say, something probably more than a little racially insensitive. And there can be little doubt that Stephen, of all people, needs a little extra license when he talks about race. Stubborn ignorance is a defining feature of his character, after all.
To see what I mean, take what he said about Rosa Parks on his show the night of October 25th, 2005. The WØRD of the night was “Overrated.” According to Stephen, Rosa Parks is little more than a criminal. All she did was break the law by sitting at the front of the bus. If she and her friends were so upset about the way they were being treated, why didn’t they just start their own bus company and let the free market decide which system is better? The best thing Parks did, Stephen goes on, was enrich our vocabulary “by allowing us to call anyone who is the first to do something the Rosa Parks of whatever it is that person did first.” For instance, we can use expressions such “Michelle Wie is the Rosa Parks of adorable teenage Asian pro female golfers.”184 Funny though they may be to the it-getters of the Colbert Nation, these words are potentially offensive at any time. But seeing as how Stephen said them the day after Rosa Parks died, he must have brass balls indeed!
Well, that and he knows about linguistic license. It’s of course no coincidence that Stephen followed up his controversial comments about Parks by asking Jimmy to put up his picture of him and Alan, saying:
I was talking about this to a friend of mine last night, Alan. He’s a black guy. I gave Alan my take on Rosa Parks and you should have heard the string of expletives he started yelling. [He’s] just as mad about this as I am. (Episode 1006)
From Stephen’s perspective at least, it’s precisely because he has a black friend that he can say what even he recognizes is going to be controversial about the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.
But note something odd here. As Stephen reported (though seemingly with no awareness of the implications) Alan wasn’t quite convinced by Stephen’s opinions on Rosa Parks. As usual, Stephen has taken what most of us would read as an obvious sign of anger and misinterpreted it as a show of support for him. (This happens a lot during interviews, for example, when the audience applauds something the interviewee says but that Stephen doesn’t agree with.) Presumably the string of expletives that came out of Alan’s mouth upon hearing Stephen’s opinions on Rosa Parks wasn’t due to his outrage over how “overrated” she is. Alan couldn’t believe what he was hearing!
It’s quite an ingenious twist of comedy writing, in fact. Stephen