Chet Hanks, the aspiring rapper and son of movie megastar Tom, has landed himself in hot water by defending his use of the ‘n word’ in a description of his latest track ‘Juice’ in a social media post.

Hanks, who uses the artistic name Chet Haze for his music, posted a snapshot of himself on London’s South Bank on Friday last week (May 31st) with the caption “F*** yall hating a** n***** I'll never stop chasing my dream #OneLifeOneGodOneLove”, apparently a reference to former friends.

Chet HanksA fresh-faced Chet Hanks back in 2008

Rather predictably, this prompted a sharp backlash from a lot of social media users. One typical commentator said: “You are so very racist, @chethanx. You should really reconsider what you're doing here. I have no doubt your parents find your racism adorable but the rest of the world does not. GROW UP.”

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Hanks, 24, responded to the initial outrage by posting: “If I say “f**k yall hatin a** n***az” it’s because that’s really how I felt at the time. And I don’t accept society getting to decide what ANYBODY can or can’t say. That’s something we call FREE SPEECH.' Now I understand the older generation who grew up in the Jim Crowe era might have strong feelings against this. And that’s understandable.”

“But what I’m saying is this is 2015. We have also reached a point where the word can no longer have a negative connotation,” he asserted, “if we so choose. And who is to say only black people can use it?” He then said that the ‘n word’ “unifies the culture of HIP-HOP across ALL RACES, which is actually kind of a beautiful thing”. Well, I can’t exactly see that settling the argument. He then posted a short online video where he further defended himself.

Chet, the first child of Tom Hanks’ second marriage to Rita Wilson, was privately educated and has been ridiculed in public for appropriating black culture. Back in March, he got involved in an on-air contretemps with shock jock Howard Stern and his sidekick Rude Jude.

The latter had admonished Hanks by saying “it irritates the s*** out of me to see someone take that culture and appropriate it. It's like, come on, bro, you're not from that. You learned how to talk from a video, dawg.” Hanks fired back by labelling his remarks “boring yuppie humour”.

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