Bill Burr vehemently rebuffed his conservative critics in a new interview with Vulture‘s Good Ones podcast, stating that people who call him “woke” don’t even understand the word, while also calling out the “horrible people” who send racist pictures to him and his wife.
The exchange began when Burr was asked about far-right commentator Ben Shapiro, who leveled the “woke” criticism after attending one of Burr’s stand-up shows last year. “He doesn’t even know what that word means,” Burr fired back. “His definition of woke is white liberals’ definition of woke, and they didn’t even know what it was; they just took the word from Black people. That’s the worst thing about our people — not only do we take from other cultures, we don’t even take the time to understand the definition.”
Speaking on Shapiro specifically, Burr claimed he just attended one of his shows so he’d have “something to talk about” online and “make money off dividing his own country.”
“Those people,” Burr added, “It’s treason what they do.”
When asked about the extent to which Shapiro’s shtick worked in enflaming right-wing corners of the web, Burr remained unfazed. “Racists. They’re racists,” he said. “They send pictures of monkeys to me and my wife. They’re fucking horrible people. And they’re cowards, and they never say it to your face.”
Looking at the highly politicized media ecosystem more broadly, Burr continued: “There’s an ugliness out there right now where if you’re a racist, if you’re an antisemite, if you’re a psycho nationalist and you want a softball interview, there’s podcasts out there where you can get one, and they will laugh at your fucking bad jokes and give you this pass. There’s a really ugly thing going on out there, and we’ve already seen what it does to a nation, and it’s not the way to go.”
But Burr also pushed back against the way the left has ostensibly embraced him in this new era of his career. “Most of the left feels like if they have a Black friend, they don’t have issues,” he cracked. “You voted for a guy that is staring off into space … Your fucking party has not let you choose your candidate since Obama’s second term.”
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The comedian stated flatly he wanted nothing to do with any of it. “I am out of that, so I don’t want to hear any ‘left’ and ‘right’ crap,” he said. “They’re all fucking nuts.”
For Burr, his primary villains are billionaire “puppeteers” and cable news stations that are “always distracting us with other stuff.” CNN and Fox News, Burr pointedly added, “are a fucking disease.”
“[M]y new perspective is there’s nothing wrong with being a billionaire, but if somebody is working 40 hours a week, 160 hours a month, and they can’t make their rent, you’re not paying them enough money,” Burr said. “Maybe you should just be worth $900 million. How does a CEO take a fucking eight-figure bonus and none of your employees have dental insurance? They can’t even go out and get a filling.”
From Rolling Stone US
