The internet is truly abuzz with this week’s news that NBC will not edit a racial slur in an upcoming episode of The Carmichael Show.
The episode in question won’t air until May, but the network (for some reason) made everyone aware now, nearly three months beforehand.
NBC may be a bit skittish, thus their wanting to face critics well before the show hits, but creator Jerrod Carmichael isn’t quite as concerned. Carmichael, a stand-up comic whose latest special, 8, premiered on HBO this week, called the word in question “childish” at a press event, casually mentioning The Carmichael Show will drop it “like, six times.”
Actress Loretta Devine, who plays Carmichael’s mom on the show, noted “that while other broadcast shows have aired the slur such as All in the Family and NBC’s Sanford and Son, those shows were on television ‘before political correctness.'”
And comic David Alan Grier, who plays Carmichael’s father, explained the necessity of addressing uncomfortable issues on the show:
You know, we have some new and different stuff to talk about because we’re still talking about it. I mean, for me personally I’m tired of talking about this shit. Like my whole life, the Arab/Israeli conflict, the N word, poor people, poverty, hunger, war, racism. I thought as a kid that all that stuff would be wrapped up…It never left; it’s just our tradition. . . . I just thought I’d be on a talk show going ‘Whelp, it’s done. No one’s hungry, all the hungry jokes are old news.’
The Carmichael Show’s fourth season, slurs and all, premieres May 31st.
