Tim Hofman reprimanded his television colleague Arjen Lubach on television last night after a dubious joke about the n-word. “You don’t do that like two white guys on TV.”
They are both known for their socially engaged programs: Tim Hofman and Arjen Lubach. Last night Tim was a guest for the first time in Arjen’s Evening Show. There they had, among other things, a ‘deugbattle’ with each other to find out which of the two gentlemen is the most good. For a moment there was a mild clash between the two.
famine or n-word
Arjen presented Tim with a humorous dilemma, namely: “You can solve the famine in Somalia, but then you have to use the n-word live on CNN and you can never explain anywhere that you made that connection. You do that?”
Choosing between starving people in Africa or racially treating black people on a mass medium… Not very funny, Tim thinks. He decided to gently point this out to Arjen.
‘Don’t joke about it’
Tim thinks it’s a bit awkward of Arjen. “No, the really good answer is you don’t joke about black people in this context when you’re two white guys on TV.”
Arjen: “Oh!”
There is laughter in the studio, but Tim emphasizes that he means this seriously: “And I really mean this, don’t I? I mean this.”
‘Don’t I?’
Arjen seems to find Tim’s comment a bit exaggerated. “I’m not kidding about black people in this context, am I?”
Tim: “Well, now it’s two guys who relegate problems for black people to a joke. That’s how it feels to me.”
Arjen: “Oh, really dude?
Tim: “Yes.”
‘Should be possible’
Arjen: “I think these kinds of jokes should be allowed.”
Tim: “I’m not forbidding you, am I?”
Arjen jokingly: “No, I know that too. Okay, this is going to be a fight.”
Later Arjen also makes a slavery joke, namely that you should now call a slave finch ‘made a slave’. “But that probably won’t happen again.”
Fragment
The TV meeting between Tim and Arjen (with the above confrontation from 7:40 onwards):
