Controversial D.L. Hughley
doesn’t pull punches in book
As the many fans of the popular comic D.L. Hughley know, he can be counted on to be controversial. The creator and star of his own sitcom, “The Hughleys,” that ran for four seasons on ABC, he’s also a regular guest on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” In his new book, “I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up,” the standup veteran writes about a comic’s right to say what sounds to many like the wrong thing. Comedy Central’s Tosh. O, who recently ignited a firestorm with a rape joke, likely agrees.
IAM NO STRANGER to having jokes backfire. In the early 90’s I was a sidekick on an L.A. radio station run by Stevie Wonder called KJLH. One day on the air I made the mistake of saying, “Do you think this station would be this raggedy if Stevie Wonder could see?” Forty-five minutes later, Stevie Wonder came barging through the door and he was livid. He must have driven his car down KJLH as fast he could, honking at t all the people e on the sidewalk to get the f--- out of his way.
He started dressing g me down. Of course I’d always s loved Stevie Wonder, so to have an n icon like that yell at you was more re weird than anything. He kept going on n about how it was disrespectful and it wasn’t funny, and that I don’t understand. Maybe I shouldn’t have pointed ed out that I was sitting over here, and not where he was yelling over there. I was so fired. As a comic, I say incendiary stuff all the time. I have the right to tell a s----- joke or to be offensive, and I refuse to take away a right that I enjoy from someone else. I’ve defended Tracy Morgan and I’ve defended Rush Limbaugh. Going back k further, I defended John Rocker in “The Original Kings of Comedy.” I am consistent. But when I defended Don Imus, s--- hit the fan.
Imus had called the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hos.” They weren’t hos, but they sure were nappy-headed. I defy a sister to play basketball for four quarters and keep a perm. You start out looking like Halle Berry, and by that fourth quarter it’s Ben Wallace. But America wasn’t interested in hearing any more jokes. A women’s college basketball team had been insulted! Our country was in crisis! A joke? Women’s basketball? Those terms should never appear together!
My defense of Don Imus was as follows: I thought that what he said was hurtful; I thought it was malicious; I thought it was a bad joke on a slow news week. I wasn’t defending Don Imus the person. I was defending his right to say
ON O DON IMUS: If Americans have earned no other right, it’s the right to say something g dumb.
something dumb. If Americans have earned no other right, it’s the right to say something dumb.
I’ve been asked, “How would you like it if your daughters got called that?” My reply: “My daughters would know what they were and what they weren’t. I didn’t prepare them for the world that I wished existed; I prepared them for the world that I believed did exist. I always told them, it’s never what you’re called, it’s what you answer to.” Is it more prudent to prepare your children for real life, or for a made-up fantasy world where everything is great and people love each other and respect each other? If I’m wrong, even better. I’ve prepared them for a bad scenario that will never come. It’s a good thing if you have a fire drill but no fires. That’s just insurance.
But few were hearing what I was saying. I had to argue with Al Sharpton about it. Everybody was angry and no one would talk to me. It was the first time I’d ever had any kind of interaction with the black community where I wasn’t their darling. Yet it never occurred to me that saying what I believed would draw this kind of ire. Steve Harvey wouldn’t let me on his show, because he said black women were mad at me. I could see why. He plays specifically to that audience, and he wasn’t about to have it jeopardized.
Many people wanted me to apologize, but I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong and I wasn’t going to. I knew I could take it. What I now know about myself is that I’m tough. I can last. I’m not scared to give an ass-whupping, and I’m not scared to take one. I’m not scared to be wrong; I’m not scared to be right. Even now, if you Google my name you’ll see people are still talking s--about it — and I don’t care. Any fear or reservations that I had about saying anything that I wanted to onstage died during this period.
If I had apologized, it would have made my comments more sinister than they were. It would have meant that I had something to apologize for. To me, I was being more ironic than I was malicious. Apologizing would have given my critics credence. It would also have changed my whole mindset — a mindset based on feeling comfortable being uncomfortable.
Apologizing is not the answer to controversy. Honesty is the answer. I defended Tracy Morgan when he went on about how he’d stab his son if the kid turned out gay. I said Tracy should have never apologized. Not only did he end up apologizing, but he had to do it more than once. Every week it seemed like he was sorry again. But was he sorry for his views, or for the reaction that they caused? He may have expressed himself in a particularly incendiary way, but what he meant was pretty straightforward and uncontroversial.
A similar thing happened in my family. In 2011, my nephew came out of the closet. He came out to his mother, and then came out to
I have the right to be offensive
my wife. He came out to his father and my kids and his sister. I don’t know why he felt the need to come out, because he goes to Morehouse and he designs women’s dresses. I’ve known he was gay. I’ve never judged him and I’ve always loved him. He and I are very, very, very close. Yet the last person he came out to was me. “Why am I the last person in the family that you’re telling?” I asked him.
He didn’t really know what to say. “It was difficult to tell you,” he finally said.
“There’s two things I want you to understand,” I told him. “First off, I will love you no matter what you do. I want you to be safe and happy. I want you to know that. And second, I’m glad you’re not my son.” He stopped and he laughed. Then I called his father to tease him about his son making dresses. That’s all I could do.
I meant both things that I told my nephew. I am going to love him unconditionally. It’s just the extra bulls--- I didn’t want. Everybody wants it easy. The coward lives to tell how the brave man died. It’s easier for my kids to marry people of the opposite gender. Everywhere in the world, everything seeks the easiest route. The lion goes for the easiest gazelle to kill. Even water automatically finds the easiest path to flow, that of least resistance.
Forcing comedians
ON GET GETTING TING DRESSEDDOWN BY STEVIE WONDER: Maybe I shouldn’t have pointed out that I was sitting over here, and not where he was yelling-over-there.
to apologize doesn’t make sense on a strategic level. Everyone remembers Imus’ comments and the brouhaha, but people forget what the consequences to his actions were. First of all, they had to pay off his contract. I don’t give a f--- what you did that caused the networks to succumb to public pressure. You still get your money. Even Charlie Sheen got paid off. So Imus didn’t lose any income.
Six months later, Imus
ON TRACY MORGAN: Apologizing is not n the answer to controversy. Honesty is the answer.
got a new show with a bigger audi- di ence on more stations than the show he had before. His agent couldn’t have done as well by him as his critics did. Every radio show’s goal is to have as much of an audience as possible. In other words, a show’s success is directly tied to how much attention it gets!
There’s a reason comedy and tragedy are so often tied together, two sides of the same coin. By trying to destroy Imus, his foes ended up making him a bigger success. Isn’t that absurd? Isn’t that ironic? And aren’t absurdity and irony two of the greatest sources of comedy? We really only have two choices in life: We can either take a joke — or we can end up as the punch line. Sadly, the more contemporary civil rights leaders focus on frivolous throwaway comments like Imus’, the less powerful they are in fighting actual grievances. It’s exactly like the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
The attacks on Imus set a terrible example. The message was: If you say the wrong thing about race, then you will be vilified. Even though it worked out for him, I’m sure Imus didn’t like the gauntlet he had to run to get there. But since this is such an uncomfortable subject to begin with, many aren’t sure what “the wrong thing” is.
It wasn’t always this way. Black sitcoms, for example, were universally beloved. But nowadays there are no black shows on network television — and I would wager that there probably won’t be any in the near future. My show, “The Hughleys,” was among the last of a dying breed.