If you’re of a certain age, you also probably know about The Sarah Silverman Program, an absurdist take on TV sitcoms that aired from 2007 to 2010 on Comedy Central. As someone who’s seen every episode, it was frequently very funny — and, on the other side of things, it also featured bits like Sarah wearing blackface makeup, which you can watch right here.
Now, let’s clear something up here before we go any further: White people doing blackface for comedic effect was never OK — not now, not in the 2000s, not ever. Another thing that was and still is never OK is white people using the n-word — which Sarah used to do in her comedy as well. Such acts of provocation are usually deployed with the notion of comedy as a shield, but it’s always offensive, no exception.
One person who seems to have finally realized this, thankfully, is Sarah Silverman. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the comedian and actor acknowledged her past usage of racist language and imagery in her comedic work, and disavowed the practice — but she also seemingly tried to justify her approach at the time, too.
“I felt like the temperature of the world around me at the time was ‘We are all liberal so we can say the n-word. We aren’t racist, so we can say this derogatory stuff,’” she explained. “I was playing a character that was arrogant and ignorant, so I thought it was OK.”
“Looking back, my intentions were always good, but they were fucking ignorant.”
I’ll say! You can read the entire interview here.