Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
A week after Bill Maher used the n-word on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Friday’s episode of his show focused largely on a discussion of race. For several minutes, Maher was on the hot seat and on the receiving end of questions. Actor-rapper Ice Cube didn’t seem to hold back, telling Maher that he and white people shouldn’t get too comfortable with saying the n-word, even if done without a hint of racism. “What made you think that it was cool to say that?” Ice Cube asked. Maher repeated his apology and said that he simply reacted, without thinking, to a comment by Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., about working in the fields. Though he accepted the apology, Ice Cube dished out many reasons he felt Maher’s behavior was so problematic. He said, in part: “You know, it’s a word that has been used against us. It’s like a knife, man. You can use it as a weapon or you can use it as a tool. It’s when you use it as a weapon against us, by white people, and we’re not going to let that happen again … because it’s not cool. … That’s our word, and you can’t have it back.” The longtime HBO host drew widespread criticism last week after using the racial slur. He apologized in a brief statement the next day, saying the word was “offensive” and that he’s “very sorry.”
Roman Polanski’s sexual-assault victim made an impassioned plea Friday to end the fugitive director’s four-decade legal saga, saying she felt more abused by the justice system than by the man who she said drugged, raped and sodomized her when she was 13. The trauma of the ordeal that followed was so great that, you know, the brief encounter with him that evening that was unpleasant just faded and paled,” Samantha Geimer said outside a courtroom in Los Angeles Superior Court. “It just wasn’t as traumatic for me as everybody would like to believe it was.” Geimer asked Judge Scott Gordon to either dismiss the case outright or sentence the Oscar winner to the six weeks he served in prison during a court-ordered evaluation before he fled the country on the eve of sentencing in 1978. “I implore you to consider taking action to finally bring this matter to a close as an act of mercy to myself and my family,” Geimer said. Gordon, who praised Geimer for her courage and elegant words, said he would take the matter under consideration. He has consistently ruled against Polanski’s repeated requests for similar outcomes and has said the director must appear in court to resolve the case.