Twitch streamers Steven ‘Destiny’ Bonnell II and Mychal ‘Trihex’ Jefferson are at a crossroads over the private use of racial slurs.
Co-hosts of The DT Podcasts, the two personalities usually dive into hot-button issues centered around gaming, streaming, politics, and more. But the conversation has been getting a bit personal ever since it resurfaced that Destiny uses a taboo racial word in private jokes.
The conversation got rather uncomfortable for Trihex, who is of African-American descent, when Destiny, who is of Cuban-American descent, wouldn’t relent from barring the use of the slur from his private life.
Even though Destiny’s use of the word has been known for quite some time, it’s been stirring a lot of emotions and opinions, especially with the interactions with his long-time friend.
“It hit me kind of hard, not going to lie Destiny,” Trihex said on the Rajj Royale Podcast. “When you said you don’t care how others come off with your private demeanor even if it includes the usage of the ‘n’ slur. I don’t choose to be black, but I ultimately have been offended by that word.”
Even though Trihex has defended Destiny when similar situations cropped up, the pro Speedrunner says “it’s really disingenuous for me to converse with [Destiny], if [Destiny] privately still uses ‘hard R’, the most contextually offensive word in modern American English language.”
Destiny responded by saying “that’s completely for [Trihex] to believe” if the use of the word offends or makes it seem like he’s a racist.
In a separate occasion, Destiny tried to justify his use of the slur with four premises: race being a social construct, half-black/half-white people are still considered black, that “Hispanic people are allowed to say it,” and that he was half Cuban.
Even though Destiny may think that his argument justifies his actions, the Wednesday 23 iteration of The DT Podcast ended rather abruptly after a single point of conversation.
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Trihex had asked Destiny if he’d publicly say he “wouldn’t use possibly edgy jokes that contain the n-word with a hard-R,” since Trihex is known to associate with him. But Destiny said he wasn’t prepared to lie about “some principle I have to save face for you publicly.”
The situation at that point was at an awkward stall until Trihex opened up about it with a flurry of tweets on October 24.
“Slept on it & I’d like to clarify some things concerning yesterday: I ultimately went into this conversation about private n-word usage incorrectly w/ Destiny. I regret making it a public convo as I was way too emotionally volatile to engage,” Trihex said.
While we disagreed on the notion of public admittance of private affairs vs truly private affairs (point 3), he DID apologize for the empathy stuff from Saturday (point 1).
I got what I wanted but dragged the convo further on the topic of N-Word Private Usage.
— trihex (@trihex) October 24, 2019
I wish I had a private convo w/ Destiny about all this after Rajj, instead of panic-saying “we’ll follow it up on DT Podcast on Wednesday” to avoid the awkward social atmosphere we were all in — making this whole thing toxic all-around via bystanders escalating it.
— trihex (@trihex) October 24, 2019
He noted how he wanted to have a discussion of the “lack of empathy [he] felt from Destiny,” the use of the word in private, and enabling these slurs from him by association.
Destiny had apologized for the “empathy stuff,” but Trihex still wanted to make his point that “edgy jokes, including slurs, can be hurtful. Public knowledge of them is a weird position to be in as it calls on principles to dictate how you feel.
The DT Podcast’s next installment has been cancelled, according to Destiny, and it remains to be seen how the situation will shake out between the two.