Wilmore Faces Off with Sharpton Over N-Word Remark: ‘I Wanted to Make a Statement’

Larry Wilmore faced off with Al Sharpton on MSNBC this morning after the reverend publicly expressed his distaste with Wilmore’s n-word remark to President Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Wilmore said he “wanted to make a statement more than a joke” about the historical implications of the end of the first black American presidency. He felt that it would mean something to take a word that’s been “used against us… and now to turn that around on its head.”

Sharpton said no other minority group in the country does that and he doesn’t “want to see us take the power out of something that was structured to degrade us.”

Wilmore made the argument for using the n-word for satirical purposes, as opposed to never using it ever, and Sharpton asked him if he would do it again at the WHCD, given the blowback.

Wilmore said he felt it meant something to end Obama’s last dinner with it, while Sharpton said the very fact of it being Obama’s last was why he didn’t like it.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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