Hari Kondabolu on the year 2042...

 The awesome Hari Kondabolu on race and the projected year whites will become 49% of the US population. Enjoy! h/t Feministing

Wanda Sykes at White House Correspondents' Dinner

In case you missed it, here's a clip from Wanda Sykes performance on Saturday night at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. It seems to be causing even more of a stir than Stephen Colbert in '06.

Why has greater offense been taken? Maybe Colbert got a few free passes by speaking in character. But I'm willing to guess that Sykes race, gender and sexual orientation add insult to injury for a predominantly white, male-dominated and anti-gay party.  The general criticism seems to be that Sykes' tone was too mean-spirited, a criticism surely influenced by the fact that making aggressive jokes falls outside of the acceptable realm of behavior for women.  

Here's what Feministing had to say.

Sabiyha Prince on "Race And American Comedy"

Sabiyha Prince just put up this great piece over at Huffpost.

Excerpts:

[Shows like SNL, The Daily Show and Colbert Report] only paint a portion of the picture of political acumen and resistance on the American comedic landscape. What about the black political variety on U.S. television? To whom have Richard Pryor and Dick Gregory passed the baton of African American comedic observation? The absence of Dave Chappelle's cackle-punctuated prescience has left a woeful gap in an, already, floundering genre and while I'm not taking anything away from Chris Rock or D. L. Hughley, these two are yet to find sustainably lucrative vehicles for their politically-oriented work on television. 

[...] OK, women who challenge the sexual status quo deserve some sort of credit but where are the black equivalents to Tina Fey, Janeane Garafalo, and Stephanie Miller? Who are the sistah-friend humorists of Wanda Sykes, Nancy Giles, and Frangela?

The channels for black, female, political humor on American television are blocked. This dearth is fostered, in part, by limiting, age-old notions of femaleness and the funny which have been examined by such scholars like Regina Barreca and others. Juxtaposed against perceptions of race and class in American life, these views intersect to create an atmosphere uniquely ghettoizing of African American women comics.

Prince is currently working on an ethnography examining "black female standup life to show how raced and gendered ideas about status and identity affect the experiences of black women doing comedy today."  How cool is that?  

Marie Claire's Quotes from Comedians

I keep getting emails about this article, and even though it's not brand new, it deserves some link love.

Marie Claire has gathered dozens of comedians' comentary on gender, race, appearance, etc. It's an interesting read, although I find myself craving actual interviews, rather than sound bites.