Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Chet Hanks Was Asked If He Wants To 'Apologize' For Cultural Appropriation—And His Answer Is Very On Brand

Chet Hanks Was Asked If He Wants To 'Apologize' For Cultural Appropriation—And His Answer Is Very On Brand
@ziwe/Twitter

Chet Hanks, the internet-infamous white rapper who is somehow the son of iconic actor Tom Hanks, is no stranger to accusations of cultural appropriation. And he's not apologizing for it.

That's what Hanks told comedian Ziwe Fumodoh on her Showtime show Ziwe, which lampoons America's issues with race by asking guests deeply uncomfortable questions about it.


Asked by Fumodoh if he'd like to apologize for frequently appropriating African American Vernacular English and Caribbean patois in his work, Hanks had a one-word answer—"Nah."

See the clip below.

Hanks' appearance on Ziwe comes fresh on the heels of his one-episode arc on Donald Glover's FX series Atlanta, another series centered on race issues and the Black experience.

In the episode, Hanks plays a white guy from New York City's ultra-posh Soho neighborhood who speaks in Trinidadian Patois, one of the many Caribbean languages that blend West African languages spoken by slaves with the European languages of the colonists who trafficked them.

Hanks seems not to have picked up on the significance of his Atlanta character's details.

Fumodoh asked if there were "any marginalized communities" Hanks would like to apologize to, gesturing offset presumably toward a crew member and adding, "maybe the Patois community."

Hanks told her:

"I don't feel like I've truly done anything offensive."

Fumodoh then baited Hanks into saying he instead sees appropriation as a "celebration of culture" and agrees "social justice warriors can go kick rocks'."

"Yeah... I a hundred percent agree, social justice warriors can kick rocks."

Interestingly, Hanks seemed to refrain from using his usual mix of Patois and an AAVE-mimicking "Blaccent" while talking with Fumodoh.

Hanks has repeatedly been criticized for the way he seems to almost pretend to be Black in his work, on red carpets and on social media, and his "kick rocks" response to Fumodoh is one he has frequently invoked, as in the Instagram post below.

Hanks has also defended his use of Black speech and Patois by absurdly comparing it to Black people engaging in the "mainly white" sport of snowboarding or wearing cowboy boots and loving country music.

On Twitter, some Jamaicans, one of the largest Patois-speaking communities, defended Hanks and agreed that his use of the language is celebration, and not appropriation.

But many others people were not exactly impressed by Hanks' Ziwe appearance.






White Boy Summer 2022 is certainly off to an interesting start.

More from Trending

Jeff Ross
Mike Coppola/Variety via Getty Images

Comedian Jeff Ross Shares Photos Of Puffed Up Lip After Allergic Reaction To Ice Cream

Insult comic Jeff Ross revealed he had a medical emergency after a show Saturday night that resulted in a trip to the ER. However, he assured fans the show must go on despite "looking like Mickey Rourke at the end of The Wrestler."

Ross recounted the ordeal on Instagram, showing his swollen lip taking over his face from eating burrata ice cream after his Take a Banana for the Ride show in Mill Valley, California, near San Francisco.

Keep ReadingShow less
screenshot of Jesse Watters on Fox News
Fox News

Jesse Watters Offers Mind-Numbing New Claim About Masculinity—And Is Instantly Dragged

Problematic Fox News MAGA pundit Jesse Watters has made another bizarre claim about masculinity.

Having already taken exception with eating ice cream, drinking milkshakes, and taking bubble baths, Watters is now targeting tech jobs.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump with the Dodgers
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Trump Leaves Everyone Confused With Hilariously Bizarre Word Salad Tribute To The Dodgers

President Donald Trump was widely mocked after he welcomed the 2024 World Series-winning Los Angeles Dodgers to the White House on Monday with a bizarre, tangential, and rambling speech.

The team arrived at the White House on Monday morning, where Trump, in his remarks, praised two-way star Shohei Ohtani and infielder Mookie Betts. The Dodgers had defeated the New York Yankees in five games to clinch their second World Series title in five seasons.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Trump Roasted After Giving Clunky New Nickname To People Criticizing His Tariffs

President Donald Trump was criticized after he pushed back against critics of his tariffs, coming up with a new nickname for the "weak and stupid" people who oppose them.

The Trump administration’s newly imposed tariffs on imports from various countries have unsettled consumers, triggered a trade war, disrupted global markets, and sparked widespread fears of a potential recession in the U.S. and beyond.

Keep ReadingShow less

Childhood Experiences People Thought Were 'Normal' But Weren't At All

Content Warning: Child neglect, child abuse, narcissism, gaslighting, people-pleasing, and other traumatic childhood experiences

It's important for us to work on ourselves, to continue bettering ourselves throughout our limited time on this earth, and a key way of doing that is acknowledging what we do not know, and working on that.

Keep ReadingShow less