Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [112]
But here’s the problem with the rights that Stephen’s license confers. Not only does Stephen again and again display that he’s insensitive to the issues that matter to African-Americans (as he proved in his discussion with Alan over Rosa Parks being overrated), it seems that he claims to be colorblind precisely so that he doesn’t have to pay any attention to such issues!
Think of this way. As Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”187 Having linguistic license to say racially charged things is a great power. What great responsibilities come with that power? This is a difficult and complex question. But I would suggest that a necessary element of such responsibilities must be a deep and abiding interest in the issues that matter to the potentially offended group. Though it would take an argument to show that these attitudes are required for, for instance, the issuing of a linguistic license to a white person to use the N-word, at least one writer (Randall Kennedy) seems to be of the same opinion. (Indeed, it’s quite possible that all currently held Intentionalist views come down to this.) Either way, I think that these are the attitudes that being colorblind in Colbert’s impossible sense rules out. By treating Alan as he did, Stephen proved that he is out of touch with African-Americans. But if one were to suggest that Stephen needs to change his ways, he would just turn it around on them. He would simply claim that he is “so not a racist” that he can’t even fathom what the problem is.
This was essentially Stephen’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Consider the conversation that Stephen had with noted African-America scholar and social critic Michael Eric Dyson.188 Dyson, who was on the show promoting his book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (Basic Civitas Books, 2006), was arguing that Hurricane Katrina was, in a sense, an “unnatural disaster” in that African-Americans bore a disproportionate burden of the pain and destruction of the otherwise natural disaster. But Stephen couldn’t make sense of this idea. His response was to ask how New Orleans is doing, and in particular if Bourbon Street is “still there.” When Dyson says that it is, Stephen replies, “So what’s the problem?” Stephen’s colorblindness causes him to overlook the racial element of Hurricane Katrina, something Dyson would not have been surprised by. In a later interview with Stephen, Dyson has this to say about colorblindness: “I don’t want to be colorblind… . I don’t want race to be something that I overlook.” 189
If this is what being colorblind really amounts to (at least as practiced by Stephen and others like him), then it seems fair to say that Stephen wants to have his cake and to eat it too. With the power to say racially charged things comes the responsibility to be sensitive to the complexities of racial identity. But it’s this complexity that Stephen, hiding behind his colorblindness, refuses to understand.
Now, let me make perfectly clear what I hope is already obvious. I am not saying that Colbert the comedian is insensitive to racial issues. Fans of his show (along with all the other work he’s done) know that Colbert displays a great deal of sensitivity to issues of race. Colbert regularly treats racial issues with the complexity that they deserve. What’s so impressive is that he successfully treats these complex issues by way of a character (Stephen) who himself treats them as simple. It’s in showing us how poorly the complexities of race can be grasped that Colbert displays how complex they really are.
Truthiness and the Denial of Responsibility
To wrap things up, let me make one general observation about how Colbert’s treatment of race in America relates to his most characteristic idea: truthiness.
We shouldn’t see Colbert’s character Stephen as claiming rights and