‘The View’: D.L. Hughley Weighs in on Nick Cannon’s ‘Problematic’ Anti-Semitic Rant

D.L. Hughley has waded into the controversy behind Nick Cannon and the anti-Semitic remarks recently made on his YouTube series, Cannon’s Class. In an interview with The View on Friday, Hughley speculated on whether ViacomCBS firing him was the right approach.

“I think that we learned a lot,” Hughley said. However, he noted that Cannon’s firing led to a potentially problematic gray area. “It depends on what our goals are,” he continued. “Are our goals to make a better society, one that can have an open dialogue or is it one to be punitive. I think what Nick said was problematic, but I think one of the ways you deal with someone who says problematic things is to make them have to explain what they meant. Sometimes, holding things up to the light of day, they crumble under the truth.”

Hughley then went on to talk about fights he had in his childhood, and even after a teacher would make them apologize to one another, “the reasons we fought were still the same.” He then went on to argue that without addressing the root of comments like Cannon’s and only taking away their platforms, the issue itself never really goes away.

Cannon had previously apologized for his remarks on Facebook after his firing by ViacomCBS. However, the lengthy post wasn’t all that well-received, so he crafted another apology on Twitter, where he promised to extend a dialogue to those who may have offended. He also teased what this will look like on Monday when he hyped an upcoming episode of his podcast with Rabbi Abraham Cooper.

“I made a lot of people mad,” Cannon says in the clip. “[I made] your community mad, I made my community mad by apologizing.” Cooper then interjects, saying that “the question in my community is ‘is he sincere,’” regarding the apology in question. Cannon then asks him if he believes that he’s being sincere, to which Cooper replies succinctly, “At this point, yes.”