Trigger warning: The n-word will soon be spoken on primetime television without bleeps or blur.
The news comes from NBC, which plans to use the racial slur multiple times during an episode this summer. Jerrod Carmichael confirmed this at a company press event on Monday.
Carmichael is the star of "The Carmichael Show," the series which plans to feature the n-word for an episode after the show returns in May for its third season.
Carmichael said,
'N-word' is childish… say it! We know what we're talking about. We're not speaking to children.
He added that the word would be used "like six times," according to Variety's Elizabeth Wagmeister.
Despite the fact 'The Carmichael Show" is a comedy, an episode that takes on a more serious subject wouldn't exactly be out of the series' wheelhouse.
Wagmeister noted that the show has a history of taking on hard-hitting topics, from police brutality, to Bill Cosby, to the election.
3NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke told Variety last March,
When we decided to move forward with Jerrod's show, we bought into the idea that this is a show that tackles really uncomfortable conversations that should be happening in living rooms all over the country.
NBC will show a parental advisory notice before airing the episode.
Using the N-Word likely makes sense.
Though the exact content of the episode is not yet clear, the use of the word "n*gger" is likely to draw mixed feelings, especially if the former president's use of the word is any indication.
You might remember back in summer 2015 when Barack Obama said,
We are not cured of it. And it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say 'n*gger' in public. That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior.
That many people freaked out and clutched their pearls at the use of a word that was mentioned pretty nonchalantly, instead of actually considering Obama's actual point, can pretty much be linked back to what Carmichael implied.
There really is a need to stop policing the use of the word in such a childish way. An actually informative and unfiltered conversation about racism is much more useful than treating the n-word as the boogeyman.
If "The Carmichael Show" legitimately plans to have one of those conversations, it only makes sense that they keep it real and use the n-word accordingly.
