The situation with Spotify and Joe Rogan continues, as the leftist mob keeps trying to force the streaming platform to boot Rogan from the platform. The latest effort to get him canceled came when someone unearthed videos of Rogan using the N-word during multiple past podcasts. Rogan insists that the supercut is misleading and his uses of the word are taken out of context.
Rogan supporters were quick to point out that famed shock jock Howard Stern has similarly used the same racial slur in the past, and if Rogan is going to be canceled, so should Stern.
If the woke mob is so offended by what Joe Rogan said in the past… just wait until they discover Howard Stern.
— Tim Young 🚛 (@TimRunsHisMouth) February 6, 2022
The most often-cited example is a skit from 1993. The video features Stern wearing blackface make-up and a wig to mimic Ted Danson at the actor’s Friars Club roast of his then-girlfriend, Whoopi Goldberg. Goldberg was portrayed by actor Sherman Hemsley in the bit.
You can watch the bit below (warning, lots of offensive language):
From years ago…
Current liberal spokesman Howard Stern as Ted Danson in blackface. If someone else did this today, Stern would be the first calling for that person's cancelation. pic.twitter.com/6CZu7YN1Tw
— Sgt. Rock 🇺🇸 (@SgtRockUSofA) February 6, 2022
Danson, of course, has never been canceled for the stunt that inspired the Stern skit, though it was controversial at the time. Danson later called it a “graceless moment in my life” in a 2008 interview with NPR.
Stern also has expressed regret for the skit. “I’ll be the first to admit. I won’t go back and watch those old shows; it’s like, ‘Who is that guy?’ But that was my shtick, that’s what I did and I own it. I don’t think I got embraced by Nazi groups and hate groups. They seemed to think I was against them too. Everybody had a bone to pick with me,” he said back in 2020.
“If I had to do it all over again, would I lampoon Ted Danson, a white guy in blackface? Yeah, I was lampooning him and saying, I’m going to shine a light on this. But would I go about it the same way now? Probably not. Not probably, I wouldn’t,” he added.
Of course, Stern actually has a history of using the slur on his radio show a lot.
So, of course, people are taking to social media and calling for Stern to be canceled. While I’m sure there are plenty of people who had never seen the clip before and are legitimately offended, others are pointing out that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and one can’t be canceled and not the other.
It would be nice if it worked that way, but there’s never been an objective standard equally applied to all. Last year, Disney fired Gina Carano from The Mandalorian allegedly over a tweet comparing cancel culture to Nazi Germany, but did not fire star Pedro Pascal for making a Holocaust comparison of his own on social media.
Stern, for his part, has argued that Rogan shouldn’t be canceled. “I’m against any kind of censorship,” Stern said last month. “I really am. I don’t like censorship.”
“I don’t want to see Joe Rogan cancelled. I don’t want to see Neil Young cancelled,” he added.
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Unfortunately, most people on the left disagree with him on this. They want to see views they don’t like and facts inconvenient to their preferred narrative get censored.
But Howard Stern is right. He’s been saying offensive things for decades. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to his show. If you don’t like Joe Rogan, you don’t have to listen to his show, either. That’s what’s great about America: you have the freedom to choose what you listen to.
