Let’s just make one thing clear: Creating one of HBO’s only shows with a predominantly black cast does not give said white creator a right to use the N-word in any situation, ever. So you can understand why David Simon casually dropping “nigga” in a tweet on Monday night about Sean Hannity moderating Donald Trump’s town hall on race like he’s in The Wire would be met with universal cringing. And yet, for some reason, Simon can’t. Because after being called out — by both black and white people — for his use of the slur, he decided the next best thing would be to then whitesplain why he was just kidding. Hitting back at “hall monitors,” he repeatedly attempted to reason that “use of the wrong racial vernacular was precise intended metaphor for use of wrong racial interlocutor.”
Not following? That’s because brushing off his misappropriation of the N-word as a sarcastic device — especially one meant to mock an event at which black people will inevitably once again be made a mockery of during this presidential election — is almost as inexcusable as using the word at all. Simon has since moved on to tweeting about Donald Trump Jr.’s equally bad tweet about the Syrian refugee crisis, so feel free to resume eye-rolling.
