Ice Cube Schools Bill Maher on the N-Word: ‘That’s Our Word Now. And You Can’t Have It Back.’

Ice Cube did not let Bill Maher off easy on Friday’s Real Time. The rapper-actor used a chunk of his time as a guest on the HBO gabfest to both admonish and educate Maher about the host’s recent N-word transgression. Ice Cube’s impassioned takedown came towards the end of a show that began with Maher addressing the proverbial elephant in the room when he thanked the audience “for letting a sinner in your midst.” 

Upon joining the panel, Ice Cube cracked to Maher, “I knew you were gonna f–k up sooner or later,” before dinging a visibly rattled Maher for continually “bucking up against that line” with his “black jokes.”

And while Ice Cube told Maher that he accepts his apology, but called his gaffe a “teachable moment” that should serve to remind white people that the N-word is off limits to them. “It’s like a knife,” he explained. “You can use it as a weapon. Or you can use it as a tool. It’s been used as a weapon against us by white people. And we’re not going to let that happen again.

“That’s our word now,” he continued. “And you can’t have it back… because when I hear my homies say it, it don’t feel like venom. When I hear a white person say it, it feels like a knife stabbing me — even if they don’t mean it.”

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