The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Marie Myung-Ok Lee and Josh Johnson

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

Marie Myung-Ok Lee and Josh Johnson

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Comedy Cellar Show here on Sirius XM Channel 99. I'm a little hoarse today. I hope Dan might have to talk extra. Oddly enough, I'm a little bit that way too. I think it's a change of seasons. Maybe. We're here at the table at the Comedy Cellar.

I'm with Dan Natterman next to me, famous and talented comedian Dan Natterman. Well, talented perhaps. Our guest, Josh Johnson, has become a semi-regular guest on this program, which makes me very happy. Josh is... He's got a beauty. His voice is so rich,

such a great timbre that I just enjoy hearing. He's also a thinking person. Well, forget that. I mean, it's his vocal quality. Josh Johnson is a stand-up comedian, writer, and performer. I'm looking at Perry all like these introductions. He's a stand-up comedian and a writer and a performer. You perform outside of doing stand-up?

Yeah, I've done one-man shows and stuff. Excuse me, these bios come from the artists. I don't write these. I ask people to describe themselves.

Okay, okay. Thank you. His credits include The Tonight Show, Conan, Comedy Central, and Netflix. He's currently a writer on The Daily Show

with Trevor Noah and can be seen regularly at the Comedy Cellar. And our guest of honor, Marie Myung-ok Lee. Did I say it okay? Perfect. Thanks, Noah.

Perfect. Noam. Noam. Sorry. I'm already like... She did it just like we rehearsed it. Okay.

Is an acclaimed Korean-American writer and author. Her numerous writing credits include The New York Times, The Nation, The Paris Review, The Washington Post, and The Guardian.

She's a professor at Columbia. So you know Coleman Hughes? No. No, okay. She's a professor at Columbia, and her next novel is forthcoming with Simon & Schuster. Is that okay? That was very good. Thank you.

Wow, very pleased to have you on the show. Now, before we dig in, I just want to make you mindful that we have a jam-packed show, so just be mindful of time. We've got, hopefully, to get to Greta Thunberg and the Trump impeachment and maybe some Trudeau and that whole thing, so just be mindful. We have a lot to get to. But first, we're going to talk to... Also, I'm here. My name's Perrielle.

Perrielle Aschenbrun. Okay, so she's a comedian and a performer. talk to. Also, I'm here. My name's Perrielle. Perrielle Aschenbrun. She's a comedian and a performer. And a writer. And a writer. I'm having trouble talking. Go ahead. We're going to talk about Shane Gillis. First, we're going to talk to Marie Myung-ok Lee. I said it better, didn't I?

I'm going to divide it. Because last week, we had a great episode. We discussed Shane Gillis, and we kind of examined that under every angle and looked into every nook and cranny. We didn't have an Asian-American last week, however, to give perspective. Marie came out harshly critical of Shane Gillis, and I think it's fair to say you were in accord

with the SNL decision to let him go. Is that fair to say? That is fair to say. Now, you wrote a column about this on NBC, is that correct? Yes, it is. That would have been good for the intro, but go ahead. It wasn't just about Shane Gillis. It was kind of an overview about...

And I do want to mention, I feel extremely overmatched because I'm the one not performer. I'm a pretty, the guest of honor generally is like you, you should, you're perfect. Don't be nervous. Complete introvert. Um, but there is such a, there is such a history of it. And a lot of it isn't, you know, I got a lot of blowback from, Oh, it's canceled culture. It's this, it's that. Basically, from the Asian American family, even my son's swim teacher, everyone was saying, oh, it was so wonderful that somebody's finally said it. And basically, I don't even feel, I think racism just isn't funny. So if we're talking about doing a job, then there are other comics who would do a better job and go beyond the Shane Gillis I was talking a little bit about another culture figure Andrew Yang

which I almost felt like well maybe you should have Andrew here that he kind of plays with these stereotypes but in a way that makes it safe for somebody like Shane Gillis. He has hats that say math on them. He, um, in response to a question about healthcare, he talked about how he joked about how he knows a lot of doctors and that's, that's a way that he's kind of,

I almost feel like he's internalized some of these stereotypes, that he makes fun of himself to make himself seem safer to like a larger, like a wider electorate. And like I was saying, it's sort of a lot of the white, you know, a lot of the blowback I got was, oh, this cancel culture, or are you censoring him? But a lot of the Asian Americans felt like this was their inchoate feeling that they'd had so much about capitulating. And I also started it by saying I was at a comedy show and they started making fun of Asians. And I know if they called on me, I probably would have laughed it off, too. It's just this it's performative. I'm not a performer.

It's a performative laugh that I would have done just to get get it over with. And a similar friend said he was at a Robin Williams show. And as soon as he did it a little bit on cab drivers, he looked at him and he did the same thing. He just laughed. So you're just kind of laughing on the outside because you're trying to fit in and then you're raging. I'm sorry, you're laughing on the outside and then raging on the inside. And so I feel I want my insides to finally match my outsides. And that's kind of what I was trying to get across from that piece. Well, so one thing that's interesting that you brought up is this notion of positive stereotypes. I mean, you didn't articulate it that way, but you're talking about being good at math or being successful. These are what we regard as positive stereotypes.

But it's still a stereotype. But you still feel that it's wrong to make fun of them. Oh, it's a complete stereotype. Can I ask you a question? Sure. Are you... I don't mean to challenge you. I mean, I'm going to challenge you. I don't want you to think I'm aggressive because you said you were nervous and I don't want you to be nervous. It's a friendly

show. Do you... Do you believe that these stereotypes are all based on lies, or do you acknowledge that there's some statistical truths to differences between populations? Like, for instance, the Indians always seem to win the spelling bees way in excess of their per capita, what you'd expect.

Similarly, I think you'd have to go down like 50 people on the list of the fastest people in the world to find one who wasn't black. So is any reference to these true facts considered stereotyping and therefore off-limits in your mind? Well, see, it also depends on what you mean by facts and what are what's empirical because i believe a lot of these stereotypes are constructs that are useful for maintaining basically the white centered like white supremacy because for instance wait if i'm not my thing first wait i am answering it if you want to talk statistics we're talking something empirical we could say, every serial killer has drunk milk in their life. So there's a stereotype that milk drinkers become serial killers.

You know, you're... No, that's the other way around. No, I'm saying this is kind of a logical fallacy. You see a lot of Asians and they seem rich. That's a stereotype. But for instance, some of the work that we're doing at Columbia, if you, quote unquote, disaggregate the stereotypes, for instance, everyone, the stereotype

is like a lot of East Asians are wealthy, but actually if you disaggregate the stereotypes, a lot of East Asians, particularly elderly, in New York City, are some of the poorest groups. That's a stereotype. Why is it okay to say a group is poor, but not okay to say they're rich? But it's a stereotype because... Why is it not a stereotype

to say they're poor? No, it's a stereotype that East Asians are rich. It's a stereotype because... Why is it not a stereotype to say they're poor? No, it's a stereotype that East Asians are rich. It's a stereotype that South Asians are quote-unquote rich. That's a stereotype. You'll accept statistics that a group is poor, but you'll bristle at a statistic that a group is... But let's get back to my example. I wouldn't say all spelling...

Everybody who enters a spelling bee makes them more likely to be Indian, which would be milk makes you more likely to be circular. I'm saying that everybody, that again and again and again, Indians either win this, children of Indian Americans,

I don't want to put it the wrong way, either win the spelling bee or are very close to winning the spelling bee. I mean, you can't not notice it if you watch these spelling bees. Yeah, it was a five-way tie with one white kid. Yeah, so, but I can't make a joke about that. Well, but you could, why don't you make a joke about

most serial killers are white men? I'm not against that. By the way, for the record, people make jokes about that exact thing all the time. All the time, right? Yeah, I think one thing that's tough about this thing in particular, to what you're saying, All the time, right? isn't considered funny, but when the joke is funny, it's okay that the logical fallacy was there. So there is no chicken, there is no road, this is a made-up thing.

And in regards to race, the problem with Shane specifically is that he wasn't doing stand-up in that moment. He was having a conversation. So to me, it is a bit separate from, like, if Shane had been on stage doing prepared bits, said jokes that felt racist or whatever, then as a comic you could more easily band behind him and at least give him, like, say in quote-unquote,

at least give him the chance to try to be funny with the material he's prepared. Can I ask you a question about that? Sure. Because I heard it once, and I can get these things wrong sometimes, but you tell me if this is fair or not. When I heard him use the word chinks, I heard him putting it into the mentality of the people that he imagined created Chinatown.

Something like, why is there Chinatown? People said, let the chinks go here. Like, I didn't... Now, is that a fair characterization of what, because, so by hearing it that way, I didn't hear, I could hear my father

saying to me, like, oh yeah, they said, let's just put all the Jews over there, like, he wasn't saying that about Jews, he was describing

how people viewed it or how people might have thought about it. Or at least, arguably, that's what he meant. Well, this is where, like, being able to articulate your point or your joke

is very, very important, because if your entire thing is to parody a person who seems like a racist or is dumb for being racist or something, but you don't fully articulate that thing, it can be perceived as if you were doing the thing in the moment. Yeah, and sometimes things that we all say, you know this as well as I do, after the fact, you realize,

oh, God, yeah, I can see why you took it that way. I didn't mean it that way. This is a very, But don't you think using racial slurs is always wrong?

That's kind of my base. It depends if you're the race. Like, I feel like it doesn't bump me. This is maybe a very particular thing with me, but when I see

Puerto Rican kids from my neighborhood use the N-word, it doesn't bump me. This is maybe a very particular thing with me, but when I see Puerto Rican kids from my neighborhood use the N-word, it doesn't bump me at all. Oh, but I'm also talking about, when I'm talking about the white power structure, it's coming from the power structure, that's when a slur becomes a slur. Within the group, I don't think it's the same thing as a slur. And that's why I was trying to explain George Takei, when he came to Columbia and somebody asked him about Star Trek, he very happily made this joke that was truly funny, where he just said, you know what, I'm talking back to these anti-Asian stereotypes because I was the best helmsman in the galaxy.

That is funny. Okay, so I want to ask you a question. Whenever you say white like one of those in the presidential debates when somebody mentions somebody's name they have the right to respond

I think whenever she says white power structure I have the right to respond represent you can do this so when you say use a racial slur do you think that it's okay

to read Tom Sawyer out loud because it has the N word in it what do you mean by use a racial slur, do you think that it's okay to read Tom Sawyer out loud? Because it has the N-word in it. What do you mean by using a racial slur? Quoting it? I'll let you answer that one first. Is Tom Sawyer no longer allowed to be read out loud? That's a very difficult one. I have trouble.

I feel a lot of trepidation because I want my students to read, for instance, a lot of Flannery O'Connor. Flannery O'Connor does use the N-word. I myself do not want to say it. If I were reading it, I would not say the word out loud. Let's say I read it out loud. I'm not allowed to? You don't have a problem with that? I'm not the boss of you.

No, but why? Can I give you an analogy? Yeah. The Holocaust is very important to Jews. And yet I see Hitler in comedy-type things. I would never expect someone not to show a picture of the camps. I guess what I'm saying, John McWhorter, your colleague, wrote a column like two weeks ago saying that,

like essentially how fragile do people think, he's black, do people think we are, that we can't hear the word uttered? He says, I understand. I think he used the word, I understand it shouldn't be wielded. I think that was his word, wielded, like, you know, with the intention of murder. But he didn't understand why you couldn't say the word. Why among all the horrible, painful things that you can see in the world,

that this is the one thing that, again, he was saying it from the black point of view, that we're so fragile we can't even hear it. I made a joke one time that if the, during the they had video of the Christchurch massacre that if the guy had yelled the N-word while he was doing the shooting, they would have showed the video but bleeped out

the word. Like this is, you know, this is how ridiculous they've gotten it. And when I was a kid and then I'll stop talking, like for instance, John Lennon had a song where he used the end. Woman is the N-word of the world was the song. And he was making a powerful point. And nobody at the time, I mean, this was about as left-wing and good-standing guy as you could get.

Nobody at the time had any problem embracing him and understanding his point. And the point was powerful because he used the N-word. How could he, I mean, you know, if I say woman is the N-word of the world, that's not the same thing. So anyway, that's my thoughts. Well, also Elvis Costello had a song,

you know, Oliver's Army, where he's talking about the white N-word, but referring to Irishmen. Randy Newman had a song using N-word, so go ahead, answer. Well, my answer would be a little bit like when I was on a show and people were asking me if they thought a certain person be treated differently in North Korea. And I would have to say I repeated myself.

I can't really. I prefer not to speak on what other groups would think. And I don't feel like it's helpful or productive to compare different groups as in, well, we can say Hitler, but we can't say N-word. Or if they would have said N-word, it would have been la-la-la. Or we can say chink because it's actually also a word

versus, you know what I mean? It means something else. So I'm just going to... Like in the armor. Yeah, exactly. Because they're... So I'm just going to gracefully pass on this because I would not like to comment on

comparing different groups' oppression. We'll get to my... You're passing on the heart of the matter. This is what we're all here to talk about. I would also like to talk about enforcing the white power structure by making a joke about Asians being good at math, for example.

Have you... My point of view is that other cultures are funny. Other people, ways of doing things, stereotypes can be funny. We have a dear friend, Colin Smith. He's from Ireland. And, you know, I talk to him. I say, hi, how you doing, old boy? Top of the morning to you. You know, because I think his accent is funny.

And his accent, to me, is funny. My Irish accent, I understand, is not good. And then you usually make jokes about him being hungover. Well, I don't do that. But one might. Yes, you do. But the point, or English people, you know, you remember the movie Austin Powers.

I don't know if you saw the movie. And with love, I think, Mike Myers went through every stereotype in the book, you know, and using that ridiculous accent and the bad teeth and, you know. He's part of the power structure. Thank you, Noel. Which I think is ridiculous. But the point is, you know,

if it's coming from a place of somebody talking about Asians being good at math, they're not coming necessarily and probably not coming from a hateful place. Certainly, Andrew Yang's not coming from a hateful place, but even a comedian might be coming from a place of, hey, you know, you're Americans, we're all Americans, and

we can jibe each other a little bit and I think we can all handle it. Josh, what do you think about positive stereotypes? I do think that it is it's tough to say it's tough to make rules for comedy that any one thing

no matter what it is is never okay or funny because then we do see that thing likewise to the question that you posed where it's like well this thing in this particular way when you tweak it then becomes funny you know it's like the um i know it's not his original joke but gilbert godfrey had that joke about uh there were two jews uh waiting to kill Hitler, and they were sitting there, you know, like, camped out waiting to shoot him if he came home, and they waited, and then an hour passed, and he still wasn't there,

and then two more hours passed, and he still wasn't there, and one Jew said to the other, like, gee, I hope nothing happened to him. And it's like, even in that right there, it's like you're bringing up a joke about Hitler, one of the most, like, evil in that right there, it's like you're bringing up a joke about Hitler, one of the most evil historical characters that there is. You're bringing in a joke about two people specifically because they're Jewish. And then you're bringing in the concept of them showing concern for this person, then we shut the door off to jokes that then in their inception are fairly harmless and pretty funny to the general public.

I think that you get a pass for what's funny. It's the same way that jokes and stereotypes work the same way that art does, where it's like, is that stuffed shark worth $2 million? Well, it is if anyone in the room is willing to pay $2 million for it. I would ask you then what you thought about that Shane Gillis actually literally told W.H.R.Y.'s Billy Penn that, oh yeah, we did this kind of experiment and we tried to see if we could be racist against Asians. And everyone thought it was really funny. And he said the conclusion was, yes, racism against Asians is funny and you can do it because people don't object.

And so, again, what I'm thinking, well, that falls into another stereotype. Either there are not a lot of Asian Americans in the audience or Asians are meek and we don't speak up. Again, I am pointing to myself, like, capitulating to certain stereotypes and trying to laugh around, laugh along. Did you just say Asians are meek? I'm saying that's a stereotype. Right.

But I, but, but you're also kind of copying to it in, by describing all the Asian people, you know, who will just sit there and take it. No, what I'm saying,

no, what I'm saying is why I'm, I'm, and I'm asking Josh, what, what you think of the idea that Shane Gillis actually literally said that you can be racist against Asians. So there is some self-awareness there that he's saying. Sure. And here's the thing I will say, I don't know Shane, so I am not going to sit here and insert the best possible scenario for his words or his thought process or anything.

So I don't know him. So I will say, though, from what you're telling me now, as someone who has seen it from like a black perspective of people making jokes about black people, jokes about black people being very passable in the days of like the Ed Sullivan show and stuff like that, that things that we're seeing is completely derogatory now now we're like funny and everyone would laugh at them back then i do say that comedy in that way does shed a light on on that aspect of society so even though i don't think that that thing is right i don't think it's right to be racist or make fun of a particular group for any reason other than camaraderie. I do think that him even saying that sheds a light on maybe that is what people think right now.

So even if he didn't have the best intentions, let's say he's a full-blown racist for the sake of argument, he still sheds a light on what the general public, at least in his eyes, is saying to him in the moment. And I think that that is tantamount to research. That's tantamount to putting a lens on society and then being able to discuss it afterwards, you know? I think that it is... It's a shame if people feel comfortable being racist towards Asian people. I'm not going to sit here and, especially as a black person, just be like, ah, it's whatever group is whatever. But I will say that, let's say someone feels that way

and then they say it out loud and no one corrects them. Then maybe they are correct in their assumption that it is okay, quote unquote, to be more stereotypical about Asian people in jokes, you know? Or they think they're correct in their assumption, which is why Asian Americans finally need to speak up against it. Sure, sure. Which is where the whole upswell came from. Can I say just a couple things to build on what you said before? First of all, tell me if you think this is right.

I feel like I've noticed that every single ethnic group, when they go on stage, will make jokes based on the stereotypes of their own group. The same jokes that, and this may be completely understandable, the same jokes that might make us cringe coming out of a white mouth. But every ethnic group will make the same jokes that will allude to the same stereotypes. And people will laugh. And I think, to be honest, part of the reason that people will laugh is the grain of truth in so many of these stereotypes about people. So, like, there's that Jewish joke. I'm not going to get it right.

There's only two Jewish kids in the whole class. How does it go, Dan? I don't know that one. And the teacher asks, the assignment is that who is the most important person in history? And Yossi raises his hand and says, Jesus Christ was the most important person in history. And after class,

his Jewish friend comes and says, what are you doing? How could you say Jesus Christ? He says, look, everybody knows Moses was the most important person in history, but business is business. So this is a joke that Jews tell to each other. Now, this is us giving a little wink to, yeah, you know, there's something about this which we understand.

You know, in the same way Andrew Yang is. Yeah, there is something about Asians and the doctors and the achievement. This is not all smoke and mirrors out of thin air. And finding the line between that and being wielded for hateful purposes, that's very difficult.

We struggle with that. But if we have to take it to the extreme where we're going to pretend not to see the world that we all certainly see in front of us, that's where you've lost me. And then I want to say one other thing. Think about the white power structure. I understand that there is something that strikes us differently about seeing somebody white mocking somebody black, somebody black mocking somebody white.

I understand that. But I don't know that that means that somebody black mocking somebody white is not doing the wrong thing. Meaning that, we touched on this last week, that if it's wrong to make fun of somebody based on their immutable characteristics, then it's wrong. And to say to yourself, it's wrong, but I know I can get away with it because people will kind of laugh if I do it, they won't laugh if he does,

so I'm going to take that liberty and do it. I don't know if that really holds up to scrutiny. It's still wrong. And does that mean that overnight when white people become a minority in the country, that all of a sudden it flips? Do you? I mean, it's, you know, or somebody's going to magically tell us when it's no longer a white power structure.

Wouldn't it be better if we're going to have a rule and say, listen, yeah, I agree it strikes us differently depending on whose mouth it comes out of, but we should all not do it. It's wrong. Maybe a rule or a guideline could be, if it's upsetting people, we don't want to upset people. And if it's upsetting people, we should be mindful of that.

How are you going to police that in a comedy club? In a comedy club, comedians, we police ourselves because we've been doing this a long time. And we can see the audience react. But I'm not saying to erect or establish strict rules. I'm saying that as comedians, we all do this. Yeah, there's a difference between ruffling feathers and straight up bombing. You know, we all decide what the audience is going to...

I don't want to upset anybody on stage. I had a joke years ago about when I used the N-word. And I thought I was using it in an okay way, but the audience didn't think so. And this was years ago, and I stopped doing it. Can you tell the joke without saying the N-word? The joke was NASA was sending it to outer space. Jesus Christ. I was also in my early 20s.

Like Shane Gillis. NASA was sending things in outer space so that if aliens found it, they'd know about our culture. It's true. NASA sends in outer space. They got recordings and magazines and books. Have you heard about that? It is true.

So I said, I don't know if they have gangster rap in there. Because if they didn't, the aliens found it, and they'd come to Earth, and the door of the ship would open, and they would say, greetings, N-words. I'm laughing at you saying the joke. I'm not laughing at the joke. I'm picturing you in your early 20s. In any case, cheerfully saying.

There was no ill intention on my part. I thought it was funny. The audience didn't think it was funny. I stopped doing it. Not because I thought in any way, show, or perform I was being racist. I didn't then and I don't now think that that's a racist joke. But I don't want to upset the audience, so I made the decision. I'm not looking to upset people. And I'm certainly not looking to bomb and get fired either.

Right, but so the jokes that are made on stage are gauged by whether or not they're funny, right? I think the thing with Shane... Whether they're funny and whether the audience... If somebody comes up to me after... If the whole audience is howling laughing, but one person comes up to me after the show and says, I was upset by that, at a minimum, I'll consider the joke and reconsider doing it. I might decide, well, her reaction or his reaction...

That's just like a mercenary standard. Yes, it is. You're not talking about morality right and wrong anymore. The morality is my intentions. If my intention is to harm, that's immoral. If my intention is not to harm, then that's not immoral. And stand by your guns.

But I also have a business business business. Also, if we want to slide into the other topic that you're talking about, and I haven't seen a lot of stand-ups I'm making. You won't like it. I'm fascinated listening to you about this. But then if we want to talk about Justin Trudeau and his yellow face that he did, you know, at what point?

Did he do yellow face or brown face? Well, I believe he was mocking someone who is South Asian. He's also done lots of fakes. But what I'm saying is at some point people laughed at minstrel shows and at blackface and yellowface. And at what point are we supposed to say, well, it was funny. It worked. People laughed at it.

People love these shows. I just got to stop because people are going to be lost. Who was he imitating that was South Asian? I don't remember this. I am not saying. I don't know that he was. But he was. He was apparently wearing brown face.

Brown face. And I'm not sure if he. Well. No yellow face that I know of. Well, he's worn brown face. He's worn black face. And there's another instance where things are murky because there aren't pictures. Right.

But it wasn't talked about. I never heard anybody say it was yellow. But I think it was someone who was South Asian, if I'm correct. Because I know he was doing Arabian Nights. Be that as it may, he was doing something that many consider offensive, but others might consider funny. And as I said to you, my personal standard of morality is, what are your intentions?

Do you intend to harm? If you intend to harm, then you're doing something immoral. And if you don't intend to harm, even if it does harm, but I look at intentions. So let me ask you about the blackface thing. In terms of morale. I think,

what do you want to say? Oh, yeah, yeah. Just a couple of things. One, to your point about the blackface and everything in the Mitchell shows, it's like, that's kind of exactly what I was talking about before, where there is,

and maybe that's what's being exposed now, which is what gets people talking about, which is where I still think that comedy about everything is a good thing. Because then if we don't like something, we get to talk about not liking the thing as opposed to just all assuming we agree and everything. One thing I still think that in certain instances, blackface can be funny. Like I wrote a sketch about the last guy to do blackface and just how poorly it went because he was the last guy like it wasn't okay 10 guys ago but he didn't get the memo so now he's trying to do his show and he's just bombing because he's in blackface you know i mean and it's like that to me when i wrote that i thought it was very funny because it plays on the fact that one people don't find it as okay anymore, but people also used

to. But then there's jokes within the sketch to save if the blackface itself isn't seen as funny enough. You know what I mean? No, that does sound funny, talking about why it's not funny, but it's actually you're doing it funny. Do you see what I'm saying? There's so many complex layers to that.

That's the point about blackface. Can I do a callback to the black? So this was the thing. This is my little thing on blackface. First of all, I think that in retrospect, it's pretty clear, given everything that's transpired since then, that Megyn Kelly, of all the people to have actually paid the penalty for this, all she did was ask about it. Yeah, yeah. Where people who actually were doing it, including a Democratic governor of Virginia with somebody else in a KKK mask

is still the governor of Virginia. Yeah. So this just shows how, and exposes actually one of the things I'm always worried about is that how we really make this stuff up as we go along and it's hypocrites overnight about this stuff

and it's really about who we hate, that we tend to come at them because everybody hated Megyn Kelly, and all of a sudden, when everybody adores Justin Trudeau, now they're finding all kinds of excuses for him. Number one. Number two, it's an interesting philosophical thing to me is at

what point will we allow the bad things from the past to no longer be controlling in the present? So that at what, yes, we know that black people were mocked with blackface, but in the world that we're all hoping for, um, everybody's going to love each other. And so I might want to dress up as Michael Jackson or Eddie Murphy or whatever it is.

And the black kid might want to dress up as me and the other kid might want to dress up as Bruce Lee. And if we didn't have that history, we'd say, well, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Why would anybody care about that? At what point do we let go of the past and say, well, okay, this can't go on forever. We can't permanently hold on to these things that have nothing to do with us and impose them on people and then catch them because they didn't, you know,

people in this country are barely educated about anything. They didn't know. This 17-year-old, of course, from wherever, he had no frigging idea why this was so wrong. I'm saying just, or 21 or whatever it is. I mean, you've seen these surveys about how little factual knowledge Americans have about anything in their history. They don't know how many states there are. To think that the average American understands the painful legacy of blackface when he's dressing up as Michael Jordan, who he adores, that's just preposterous. And then we have to fall back to my thing about intentions.

Right. And the final thing is, I want to say that one of the lies about this whole thing to me, and then I'll stop, is that clearly Megyn Kelly turned out to be right. Because what's happened since she said that is we found out that Joni Mitchell dressed up as blackface, Jimmy Kimmel dressed up as blackface, Jimmy Fallon, Philly Crystal, Sarah Silverman, all liberals. And not only did they all do it,

but the major networks put them on. And not only did the major networks put them on, but the people who they dressed up as, Isaiah Thomas or Oprah Winfrey, didn't complain. So if you take a snapshot of what it was like 15 years ago, and somebody says, well, it was okay then. It wasn't okay to mock somebody on their race, but it was okay to dress up as a black guy.

Clearly, it was okay. I mean, what is the evidence that it wasn't okay? If the major liberal networks and liberal types in the country and black people were all accepting of it, that's a pretty good empirical case to say, yes, it was okay. And now we're changing the rules again. I do recall Ted Danson did get some flack, but it hardly was career-ending and everybody accepted his mea culpa. The thing about Ted Danson

was he actually hearkened to actual mocking blackface. He wasn't dressed up as, like Joni Mitchell dressed up as a blues singer. Ted Danson wasn't dressing up with the sense of honoring or admiring the black character. He was actually dressed up as this mocking black character, and he had Whoopi Goldberg.

But you're right. But even then, it was kind of passed as he's making a point or being outrageous. But no, so are you suggesting we bring back blackface if it's benign blackface? I am suggesting that I would like to live in a world where, as Dan said, that my... I mean, it gets so complicated. My children are of mixed race, right? My wife's Puerto Rican. My son loves Black

Panther. Can he dress as Black Panther? Can he not dress as... I don't fucking know. I was like, why shouldn't he be able to dress as Black Panther? He doesn't even understand. Like, he loves Black Panther. It's like we're going to create permanent roadblocks to getting to where we want to be if we are going to maybe never get out in front of it

and risk a little bit letting down some of these racial rules to allow positive intentions to grow. The expression of love, of admiration. I love Prince. I want to dress as Prince expression of love, of admiration. I love Prince. I want to dress as Prince. Or my interactions. That's a healthy progression. That's a healthy direction to move in.

Not mocking. Or my gentle, fun-loving imitations of Colin Smith's accent. Yes. But that's not a sensitive thing. Do you want to go first? Please. Josh Johnson, you say what? I think that, does anyone here know what a moon cricket is?

A moon cricket? Moon cricket. Is that a derogatory term for? Sounds like a racial term. Yeah, does anybody know what it is? No. Have you ever heard moon cricket before? No.

Moon cricket, wider than a mile. You don't know what it means, and you've never heard it before, right? Moon cricket was a thing that they, oh, thanks. Moon cricket was a thing that they used to call slaves that would sing spirituals while they worked after the sun had gone down. So it's like when you know the history behind moon cricket, you're like, oh, God, that's pretty rough. That's harsh. You know what I mean? I think that to what you're saying, enough time would have to pass.

We're going to be so dead. Enough time would have to pass that all of these things that are seen as hurtful past things can be let go. They do get let go all the time, but we don't even in the consciousness of the present moment know that they've been let go because they're so old that finally there wasn't anyone to pass down moon cricket to anyone. I think that for certain things, that's going to take a long, long, long, long time.

I think that for other things, that's going to take a long, long, long, long time. And I think that for other things, it gets let go fairly quickly. I would also like to live in a world where people can do plenty of things and no one... I mean, we even talk about a world where women would be able to walk down the street topless as well without getting googly eyes, catcalling, everything like that.

That's not going to happen. Sure, sure. But I'm saying a thousand years from now. I don't believe that you were offended when Fred Armisen darkened his skin to play Barack Obama. I don't believe it. Wait, what did he do? He darkened his skin a bit when he played Obama on SNL.

I don't believe you were offended when Billy Crystal did Muhammad Ali. But I'm a very particular case, because as a comedian, I always look for the joke first. I don't remember anybody being offended. I didn't hear anybody offended. But that's the thing. Now that they're being told, hey, don't you know you should be offended? Now there's a whole new rebirth of offense.

This is the only thing I'll disagree with that on, is to what you're saying. When there is a power structure at play, there's plenty of people, like even the Duck Dynasty guys got in trouble for this a couple years ago where they were reminiscing about the 50s and 60s and they're like,

I don't remember it being that bad. But that's when they were actually being, but that's when they were actually being mean to Gates. No, no, no, no. But I'm saying, if you're part of a thing that isn't the butt of the joke

or isn't taking offense to the thing. It's very easy to feel like the thing is not as bad when people who aren't willing to speak up aren't enjoying it. There are things that I think to what you're saying with stereotypes and stuff. Look, you go to any black club, straight up black club where it's going to be mostly black people, a lot of jokes are said to black people from black people that are stereotypes that would maybe make some of those people cringe if anyone was white. So does that mean the joke shouldn't be said? Absolutely not, because we're all enjoying the joke when there's an understood dynamic of like, okay, we're all in the same playing field here. But I'm going to tell you what it means to me.

Yeah, yeah. You want to finish the sentence? And so the two aspects of stereotype and joke that I think are important, and one of the things that happened with Shane is that he was talking, you know, like trying to be funny on his podcast. He wasn't doing stand-up, but because he is a stand-up,

the conversation bled into stand-up. And I don't think that it should have because he was talking, joking with a friend trying to be funny, whereas other people who make some of these same offensive jokes prepare the joke in a way where maybe it has a turn, maybe it has a specific premise that's supposed to perk your ear, so that way when they get to the joke, you laugh even more because you thought it was going to be hateful,

it was going to be easy, whatever. The two aspects of the thing are, one is the punching down, whatever, punching up. I actually don't believe in that at all. I don't either. I think that it's actually ludicrous because whoever is the butt of the joke will not feel punched

up on, even if they are, quote unquote, the person with power. So, I think you can hurt a white kid's feelings just as bad by talking about how pasty and unrhythmic white people are as you can about talking about how poor black people are to a black kid. I think that

punching up is a thing that people do they say they do to make themselves... Did you say pasty? Yeah. But I think that punching up is a thing that people lie to themselves that they do to feel better about doing the same thing they don't want done to them. They're permitting themselves. Yeah.

And so, you know, in a way, when stereotypes are wrong, when they're completely unfounded and there's no general consciousness about them, we actually don't laugh. You know what I mean? Like if I were to go up on stage and be like, man, Mexicans love grapes. It's like, alright, that might be funny because of how goofy it is, but no one thinks that.

So then it doesn't have the shared experience of like, I have also noticed this thing. Because you either laugh from surprise or you laugh from recognition. You know?

And I think that's why people have such a hard time letting go of stereotypical jokes because there is recognition within them. Okay, go ahead. Well, if we're always talking about intentions, because I agree, comedy is a kind of art and you do have to push boundaries. When you're doing it, you kind of don't know what's funny.

You kind of need the response and so forth. So, I don't know, I kind of get this idea that people, you guys were talking about this last week when I wasn't here. But so then what do you feel like, what would you find objectionable about my piece if finally Asian Americans are speaking up to say, no, that's not funny, we're offended. And it's not, it's not coming from a place of good intention. So you're kind of saying this generally as a corrective that we want, you know, like Dan was saying, like we want, you know, you want to know if people are offended. So now if I say...

I don't find your piece objectionable. Oh, I would say that I don't remember your actual conclusion. I am very averse to firing people for this sort of thing because I think it's an impossible standard and it's applied completely. Because it's haphazard, right? Completely. I mean, as I said, I love Chappelle and I loved his special, but he made some pretty problematic jokes there, too. And I guarantee you, if he wants to host SNL, they're going to roll out the red carpet. So to me me I'm like

you know what guys and Joy Reid is still working on MSNBC and she said really bad things about gays and she wasn't kidding or even trying to be funny so I'm like spare me your sanctimony you're full of shit and so why don't you just let the guy apologize

or not and put him on and let's just give people a little let's just give people a little wiggle room, a margin of error to just make mistakes and whatever. So would you have kept him on? I'm not familiar with his comedy at all. So you would have thought he was inappropriate. Otherwise, besides the racism, we'll just say that never happened. If he said this, he always says things about Jews. If he said, Kaisa, I'm telling you, and they know me, you don't know.

I'd be like, whatever. Let's see how he does. He was trying to be funny. People also act like people are on SNL for years. It's like a lot of people are on SNL for like half a season. At least let him have his chance. I think firing is such a slippery slope because

anyone who got popular before the internet is uncancellable. When you look at people who have done things older than the internet that we even know about, like we know Mark Wahlberg has said and done terrible things to Asian people. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah.

He beat the shit out of some Asian kids and would make fun of Asian people all the time. And he is actually one of the rare celebrity cases where you can say like, oh this person is probably a full-blown racist and he will never be cancelled because all that stuff happened before the internet. There wasn't the passability,

the shareability of the thing because that's the other problem with the Shane thing is that because it is so easy to share and it's so easy to build the context around exactly what you shared, people weren't sharing the whole, I don't know, hour-long podcast or anything with that in there. People were sharing the four minutes or so of him and his friend making the jokes about Asian people. And in that context, when that's all that you get, you are like, oh, God, this is not, this isn't good. You know what I mean? And I think that

it's hard for a body of work to stand against that, which is why anyone who has a body of work pre-internet, you're, okay, Elvis was a racist. All right. What are you going to do? You know what I mean? And that's to say, even if he was still alive, would you really be able to get everyone to stop going to his concerts

because of a racist interview you found in 1950s? Like, we act like that's the thing? Yeah, they canceled John Wayne after last year. But anyway. I just think that you have a harder time with things like that, which is why to what you're saying I actually agree, where it's like I think there's a problem with having different standards for different people the same way that it is for different stereotypes for different races, you know?

Can I apply a little Jewish business wisdom to this? I'm all ears. So, you know, one of the things that my father used to tell me was that you need to know what you want out of a situation before you go into a situation and and if you spin that and and and most business people will tell you this that whatever you're doing you have to know what your goal is like where you're going with this and i and a lot of these new rules and uh controversies and the reactions and the repercussions of them do not seem to me to be guided by any wisdom of, well, okay, if we do this stuff, this

is going to lead us to the world that we're trying to live in. This is going to lead us to King's dream. It actually seems, if you were wondering who would devise this strategy, it's someone who's saying, let me see how I can make an America which is totally divided, where race and ethnicity always and forever shall be the most important thing that anybody thinks about. Black people can wear Indian people's hair, but Indian people can't wear black people's hair. And you can't open a Japanese restaurant, and you can't play this kind of music.

And yes, you Asians, we're going to give you a pass on classical music, but I mean, it's it makes no sense. It's ad hoc, and it's gibberish. As opposed to what I'm saying, and this is where I'm coming from on a lot of this stuff, this is not going to work. I want my kids to really not worry about race.

So I'm going to have to take some risks to get there. And one of the risks is going to be a little, I think, a little forbearance. I'm saying, all right, you know, you didn't mean it. It's clear you didn't mean it. Okay. Let's move on. That's it. That's it.

But see, that's part of your privilege is you don't have to worry about race. I have to worry about race. No, no. I tell you, I have mixed-race kids. I'm worried about them, too. And I raised a half-black stepchild. I'm not... So, I mean, that can just sound like... And you're a Jew, to be fair. Yeah, but I'm worried

about... All right, you know what? You can make an ad hominem response, which is saying that I'm not going to deal with the logic of what you just said. I'm just going to say it came out of a white mouth. So that's my argument against it. And I think that's racist, actually.

I think what you just did was textbook racism. You just dismissed me. You dehumanized me, actually. I made a really long, rational point, which you just wrapped up in a bow and threw out because I'm white. Am I being unfair to you? I mean. How would you like if you said, oh, blah, blah.

And I said, well, of course you think that this is offensive. Well, you're Asian. So, Josh, that's what you just did to me. I'm going to hit you up with a little ethnic studies. There's a professor. I would prefer if you didn't duck what I just said. I'm not talking what you're saying. I really think that what you just did was racist.

Okay, well, I don't think that it was racist. Did you not judge me on the color of my skin? Did you not dismiss me because of the color of my skin? There's two types of way that ethnic formation is done. There's consent and dissent.

Who says? Werner Sollers at Harvard. Oh, then it must be true. So, see, and you're very dismissive, so if you could just let me continue. No, I'm upset

because I think that you're, Doug, you're not. I'm not, Doug? Okay, so there's consent. Give me some jargon from some Harvard professors where these peer-reviewed journals actually, you know, you know all the scams. No, I'm trying, I'm explaining.

So there's consent and there's decent. Consent is how you perceive yourself. So you're perceiving yourself as the parent of a mixed-race child, etc. Strike all that. Decent is something you cannot help. perceiving yourself as the parent of a mixed-race child, et cetera. Strike all that. I'm just saying I made an argument. Decent is something you cannot help. So I could consent to say I'm a white person, but when I'm on the bus, my decent is different. So we have these two different sets of how you can move through society.

So all I'm hearing is that you can dismiss me because I'm white. I'm not dismissing you. And I have to respect what you say because you're Asian. And you can bring in all the Harvard gobbledygook you want, but that's the bottom line. I made a long, pretty, I think a pretty rational case. I don't think... And rather than, please, and rather than dismantle

or even quibble with any of my logical leaps, the first thing out of your mouth was, well, you're white. All right. And somehow, because some Harvard guy wrote something, you're going to tell me that that's not racism. Then I don't know what racism is. I would like to know what you would think would be my ideal answer to you. Tell me where you think I'm wrong.

Well, I just, could I? Without, in other words, if I wrote it out on a page and I handed it to you, and I'm saying, I'm not going to tell you who wrote this. What do you think of this? That's the answer I want. I want the answer you'd have to give me if you had no idea what color the person who said it was. Because a black person could have said it.

A little more personally than it was meant. I'm not taking it personally. And I'm really not taking it personally, even though I'm agitated. My agitation is at, to be really honest with you, the fact that the intelligentsia, the elite professors and all the people

who are handing this stuff down to us, they pass this off as factual. And you're not the first person I've spoken to. And then when you challenge them on it, they allow themselves the very things, I read this in a book recently, the very things that they claim

to be fighting against, dehumanization, judging people by the color of their skin, all these things, they weaponize these things for themselves and do them. And like I said, I'll make my point again, I could have written out exactly what I said and handed it to her

and told, and given her no information about who wrote it, and she would have had to answer it. And by the way, I know black people who would say the same thing. But because I'm white, that became the answer. And by the way, I know black people who would say the same thing. But because I'm white, that became the answer. And I'm saying, maybe I'm asking you to look at yourself

and maybe consider something you haven't thought of. That's racist. You have racist feelings about white people. I'm still asking you, what would have been your ideal answer from me? Whatever you actually believe. You could have said any answer. You could have...

The answer is not the point. No, it sounded like you were waiting for me to say a certain whatever you actually believe. I don't, you could have said any answer. You could have, you could have, the answer is not the point. No, it sounded like you were waiting for me to say a certain answer that would have made everybody happy. No, I don't know if you really believe that,

but that is not the case at all. But I think to your point, to what you're saying, I, here's the thing. I agree with you. I do think there's give and take. So,

the give is, there are certain concessions that end up getting made, like how people don't really it's not it's in poor taste in almost every social setting, except maybe comedy to do it anymore. Likewise, there are some things where people are being too sensitive. And I think that when we start to become more truly honest about all of these discussions that we have, we actually get closer to the world that you want to create, where is a world where you worry less about race and you worry less about gender and all those other things and people can just be themselves. The problem is there is so little give because there are people who don't want to stop or adjust at all and then there's

so little take in the people who want to try to see anything past their potential abuse or oppression you know i mean i think that i you know i feel like i'm fortunate that I grew up black in the South because I have a very thick skin because I've had a lot of bad and aggravating things happen to me to the point where now when I see Justin Trudeau's black face, I actually don't feel anything. And to your point with Fred Armisen, even though I didn't see the sketch, even if I saw the sketch now,

I don't think it would bother me at all because I've been in real fires. You know what I mean? Being called a nigger to your face in front of people who want to beat you up is very different than someone not taking into account your

humanity on Twitter. And I think that there's a little bit of understanding that needs to happen and a little bit of toughening up that needs to happen. And I think that there's a little bit of like understanding that needs to happen and a little bit of toughening up that needs to happen. And I think that until either side can really admit like, okay, I was being a bit sensitive about this thing or another side can be like, all right, well, we don't really have to say that thing anymore. We are going to stay in this limbo of like, well, here's the power structure, so here's how I look at you. Here's what

you can say that I'm okay with. Here's what I should be able to say. Can I ask a question about the white power structure? That's a stereotype, but Asians are the highest earners in the country. So they're sharing the power structure at

some point, no? They're the only group that's being limited in terms of their numbers and how many we're going to allow in universities. The only group that we are actually thinking about eliminating gifted programs because they're doing too well on tests. These are not stereotypes. This is all factual. They really do seem to be part of the power structure.

How do you define the power structure? Power structure is the people who make the decisions. There hasn't been, for instance, an Asian-American, an East Asian-American comic on Saturday Night Live for 45 seasons. So a lot of it has to do with gatekeeping and who's making the decisions. There's very few Asian Americans in Congress. I'm not sure where you're...

So that's your definition of power structure? Well, I'm also curious where you got your Asians are the richest. I can Google it right now. I just Googled it last week. Are you talking about East Asians? Are you adding Hmong? I don't know the answer to that. The tough thing about that is that, because I've you married East Asians? Are you adding Hmong? Are you adding South Asians?

The tough thing about that is that, because I've seen the same stats that Noam was talking about, Asian is grouped together in the same way white is grouped together. So, even though a lot of Jewish people don't consider themselves white, or very authentic first generation Italian people don't consider themselves

white, they're all looped into white. You just made a brilliant point. When you say white people, who do you mean? You mean the people in trailer parks? Are they part of the power structure? Well, that's what I'm saying is, interestingly, it's white people who hold... You see how you're guilty of the same thing that you call people of?

No, I'm not. White people hold most of the wealth, but then also, white people are the largest group of people who are in welfare. Are they part of the power structure? Yes, white people are part of the structure. But what I'm saying is you're also just lumping in white people. But if you disaggregate the data, you have a similar thing with white people. There are white people who do this, white people do that.

And so similar with Asians. There are Asians who are doctors. My dad's a doctor. But guess what? He was also an undocumented immigrant so there's different so if Andrew Yang were to meet a guy from

the Hillbilly Elegy kind of set somebody from a trailer park somebody maybe whose family has the opiate abuse in that whole group of people that we are paying a lot of attention to now. And I'm supposed to say, okay, this white guy is the power structure

and Andrew Yang is the underdog or whatever the opposite of power structure is. This is racist. This is absurd. All I'm hearing is that we are not going to judge anybody as individuals no matter how overwhelming the case is to drop that nonsense with these two people say all right you know what yes and we know in overall white people doing better but you have a billionaire whatever he is businessman and a white guy living in a trailer and I'm going to look at the white guy as the power structure, and I'm going to think that, and that's actually, that's because I'm righteous, because I'm far thinking I'm seeing it that way.

But I don't judge people by the color of their skin. Oh, no, only racists do that. This does not hold up to me. Okay, so just quick thing. So to what Noam is saying, right? When you look at power, do you look at the power of the individual or the power of the group?

Because my thing is, if you look at the power of the group, then it is easier to make these distinctions of, okay, I see a lot of white people in Congress, a lot of white people in business, Fortune 500 companies, everything like that. A lot of white people on the Forbes list. But if you look at the power of the individual, I think you have to start taking into account for certain things that even if you consider

them anomalies. Barack Obama was president for eight years. As a black man, with blacks having, you know, 50% of the homeless population is to, youAmerican people. It is tough to me to say that power is like access plus privilege, everything like that. Because once you have an individual that breaks through that thing, we're now seemingly not accounting for them. I think Barack Obama was a great president. And I know a lot of people can disagree with me on that. But I do think that it is wild to say that because of the lack of power of his group, that he, the most powerful person in the U.S. and maybe the world for eight years,

could not have been racist or could not have done something racist because racism is like privilege plus power or something. All of these dynamics that we talk about, they negate that there are people in different pockets. Can't racism just be hating someone because of the color of their race? What's wrong with that? Do you think then with Obama's election

that we have, as some people have said, we've entered a post-racial future where race really isn't a big deal anymore? No, I think that's overly optimistic because I think it's the same people to what we've said before with how certain jokes used to be okay, but they were only okay because other people

weren't speaking up. I think a lot of people who weren't saying that post-racial thing were actually the ones who we should have waited on to say the post-racial thing. But I do think that if I as a comedian and you take someone like Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart's one of the most powerful people in comedy.

Yes, he's a black person, but he's one of the most powerful people in comedy, no matter what you say, no matter what. So, even if a white audience member or a white executive at a network company were to call him a nigger to his face, he is still more powerful than that person. And I don't think that it loses anything for the severity and the gravity of that situation to act like he isn't. Does that make sense? Like, I think that power is a tricky thing because there are some people that have very little power and access but they're cis

or they're, you know what I mean? Like all the things. And I think it's tough because it can be very, very frustrating when that person is trying to say something or has a feeling or anything like that.

And they do feel dismissed to a certain degree. I remember, just to speak to that, the one thing I saw Chappelle special, I enjoyed it as well, the one thing I did find a little bit disturbing was when Chappelle was doing imitations of the cracked out, methed out white guy. I don't know if you remember that part. Yeah, no, I know.

And that's the only part I said, well, that just seems a little bit mean and a little bit hateful, if I had to pick at something. Because Chappelle, he's a black man. He wasn't making fun of Michael Jackson's victims that got you? No, it happened not to be. I don't think he was making fun of the victims. He said they were liars. I don't know if he was making fun of them.

And you should be happy, at least. But he was doing like a white voice, like, dude, you know, being like a meth addict. And I have to say that I did feel like, it feels a little mean to me. All right, it's a meth addict. And I have to say that I did feel like, it feels a little mean to me. All right, it's a little mean. But my point is that to what Josh is saying is, I thought Dave is the powerful guy in that situation

as the white guy that he was making fun of as the disenfranchised person. And then I felt a little bit uneasy about it. And I'm saying that this paradigm needs to be really reconsidered because I'm not sure it tells us all that much. I'm not saying that you couldn't come up with a hypothetical scenario where that would be part of what I wanted to consider in the story, but in general, I'm quite happy just saying,

well, you're making fun of somebody because of their skin color and you should be ashamed of yourself and we're not going to tolerate it and i don't care what color you are and what color he is or what his what his w2 says what your w2 says or we will tolerate it depending on or if you want to make jokes i'm just saying like because the the the very idea that you get up, that it's immoral, but less immoral, or actually not immoral if you do it and it becomes immoral if I do it,

I don't think that this can be justified. As I said, I think the morality lies in the intention. Yes. Which is what I said about... I mean, intention or not, I agree that it's not sustainable because then you have shifts. You have, like, at a certain point, I don't know

when it happened, I think that plenty of black people still feel marginalized, but a lot of us feel like Americans now. Does that concept make sense? Is there anything more American than the black American? You've been here the longest. No, but it means now they're feeling accepted.

Now I think more black people feel like citizens of America than any other point in time. Because those like hurtful histories are still very present. They weren't actually that long ago if you look at the time, lifespans. But they aren't as prevalent. It just, when I talk to other black people and I think that it's not, it's not the structure that we have now about talking about power, about talking about race is not sustainable for the future when things are going to change and people will start shifting in, in, in levels of their group, having power and level of their group, having um size and numbers because there will come a day where

white people are like a slight minority i mean like they're they're you know what like 77 right now but like you know what let's say one day they hit 49 to gnome's point is that gonna then be by the standards that we're setting okay for all of of those quote-unquote racist things to make a comeback? Because now they are the slight minority and they have slightly less power. And by the way, this has an ugly history. I don't know, have you been in New York for the last 30, 40 years or just nudity? On and off since the 80s, yes. So, now I'm going to say some things that happened in the black community, but just because I think the point is correct,

that I felt a lot of this redefining of what's racism and the power structure stuff came about as a defensive measure against some ugly chapters that happened. For instance, there was a Korean boycott where people like Al Sharpton and I think Mason and Maddox and Carrington don't buy from people who don't look like us. Crown Heights, where the Jews were considered somehow to be, even though these were poor Orthodox, privileged and it was explained away. In the LA riots,

I think 70% of all the damage in the LA riots happened to the Korean community. I might even be underestimating. It was a tremendous outpouring of hate towards the Korean community in L.A.

And rather than call this stuff racism, which it was, however you want to understand it or explain how it got to be, or you can undertake to understand it sociologically but it was racism pure and simple and rather than call it out and

admonish it we created these kind of new paradigms where we defined it out of existence no it's not racism, they can't be racist so whatever so we just kind of it just kind of goes down the memory hole in a way No, it's not racism. They can't be racist. So, whatever. It just kind of goes down the memory hole in a way.

Whereas if you had a white protest and 70 or 80% of the damage was all targeted to the black community, this would go down in history as one of the great racial, despicable incidents in world history but we can't bear that to happen from anybody but white people but the fact is we're all human and you know what white people are no better or worse than black people or asian people and we're all capable of it we're all especially capable of it if we know we can get away with it we're all even more capable of it. We're all especially capable of it if we know we can get away with it. We're all even more capable of it if we know we're going to be forgiven for it and actually said, no, you had reason to

do that. This is human nature. This is not racial. And I think we all need the same disincentives. We all need to be called out in the same way. We're not helping anybody by telling them, no, it's okay if you do that. It's not as bad when you do it. What is going to come from that?

Less of it? Not. It's not going to. Unless I know nothing about human nature after 57 years. I know that they were my kids. That is not the way I would raise my kids. I would tell them, oh, no, you don't. Don't think because you're Puerto Rican, your mom's Puerto Rican, you can say that kind of stuff.

No, no, no. You don't like it when somebody says it to you. You don't say it to the white guy. That's what I would tell them. And they would understand that. There's a logic to that. Oh, no, no. You don't like it when somebody says it to you, you don't say it to the white guy. That's what I would tell them. And they would understand that. There's a logic to that. Oh, okay, Dad, I get that. Yeah, I mean, the Buddha said that, you know, hate isn't begat by more hate.

So I do think that there are people who have... The Buddha or Tracy Morgan? I think there are people who have, to what you're saying, an unchecked amount of anger or hatred that doesn't get checked because they are perceived to have less power in society. I think that it's – are you guys familiar with August Ames? No.

August Ames was a porn star, and she committed suicide. I was going to say she's like a black intellectual. No, no, no. Wouldn't that be wild if she were both? She was a porn star who committed suicide last year, and basically what ended up happening was she was supposed to do a scene with a guy who had done a guy-guy scene the day before, but he hadn't been tested again yet. And if you're familiar with sex workers,

you're all supposed to get tested all the time to keep everyone safe. She didn't want to do the scene with him the next day. And I'm pretty sure, I don't know if it was the studio who did it, but basically it got out that she didn't want to do a scene with this guy who did this guy-guy scene the day before. I don't know if that was the studio trying to put it on

social and pressure her. Either way, lots and lots of people from the LGBT community hit her up and were like, why are you so homophobic? What's your problem? All these things. And she was like, I'm not homophobic at all. I'm actually a member of the community. I'm bisexual. I've done scenes with guys, scenes with girls. I've had relationships

with guys, relationships with girls. It didn't matter. She just got an overpouring on Twitter of hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate from people who are arguably the most marginalized members of society and it continued until the point where she killed herself and there's no

there's no evening out of that thing. People who are marginalized, who are hated or who are harassed or who are killed for who they are, bullied someone to death. And it was someone who, I mean, I don't know if she was white or mixed, but it was someone who could pass for white, who was a woman.

And it's like, we can't allow ourselves to have this shield that the things that I do that I don't want done to me are okay because they're not technically being done to me. And I think that I don't know what it leads to except chaos because Twitter doesn't issue any retractions, and there's no apology and there's no punishment for when all of that vitriol goes out into the world and affects a person, you know? You know, maybe I'm simple-minded,

but when you put it that way, the bubble over my head was saying, there's such a power in a simple idea. You know, do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. That's really what you're saying. And

somehow now, I think the smartest people say, oh no, it's not that easy. You know, no, no, not do unto other stuff. No, no, you don't know nothing. You've got to read these books and you've got to go to Harvard and blah, blah, blah. It's actually much more complicated than that. And I'm not buying it.

But to your point, I don't think that's what you're saying. Yeah, I think she is. I'll let her say it. I mean, I'm. I got to admit, I'm kind of losing the thread of this whole discussion a little bit. We got to wrap it up anyway. Well, I would have wanted to. I don't know.

I guess we don't have time. But I was fascinated by this whole Greta Thunberg story. Okay, we can talk about it. Well, I mean, did you see her speech before the UN? I saw it. How dare you? How dare you? Yeah.

Did you see it? I only saw the meme that they made out of it. I didn't see the meme. I was in the library, dude. Well, I don't know. I just wonder if you had any thoughts. I don't like when they put these kids up to, you know,

I don't believe a 16-year-old is capable of the depth to whatever her conclusion is about anything. But I would say the same thing about 90% of adults. I mean, if you've read Twitter and you've read Facebook, most people are imbeciles that probably know less than Greta Thunberg about the issue. I mean, she may not be the most qualified to talk about global warming,

but she's probably more qualified than 90% of the adults out there. Look, were they saying bad things about her? Pardon? Were they saying bad things about her? Well, they were saying she was creepy and that she has telekinetic powers. I actually said that. I would not want them to say anything bad about her. I would say bad things about the people who put her up to it and the people who were passing her on.

Well, I don't know who they're putting her on. Somebody put her up there. Somebody's encouraging her. Somebody put her up. Somebody put her in front of the UN. Yeah, somebody decided this would be a good strategy to find this young girl and put her up in front of the UN because this makes a point in a visceral way.

That's the person I would have a problem with. She's too young to have done anything right or wrong. Right, but she's certainly, like, not, I don't know. I don't get the sense that she's being manipulated by her parents The bottom line is, is she right? I think it's, is she correct that we're facing a grave crisis?

Probably And that we owe it to the younger generation to clean things up because they're the ones that are going to deal with Or is she being alarmist? Well, I don't want to bash Asians yet again on the show, but China is... They've got to find a way to get China and India to stop this too,

because apparently America ain't going to be enough. But I don't know. I haven't heard any good answers to this global warming thing. Because I never see scientists on the... No, I'm with you. I've been researching it. Nuclear would help. And everybody seems to agree that it's real and that it's man-made.

But what they don't seem to agree on is what's going to happen and how grave the consequences are going to be and if there's a way to mitigate those consequences, even if they arise, so that we might have more flooding, but there might be ways to deal with flooding. Those answers I'm not getting because I'm not hearing a lot of scientists on TV. I'm hearing a lot of celebrities

and 16-year-old girls. But to the extent that she's inspiring people to at least take a look at it, I can't quarrel with that. I find the whole thing a silly...

I mean, I'm not surprised it's a meme. You know, we've lost the ability to distinguish between trivialities and ultra-serious things, like even this Trump thing. Like, the accusation against Trump now is that he tried to get a foreign power to investigate an American, which could be a grave violation of civil liberties. Could be. It doesn't seem like it is, but that was my first inclination.

And another, so we want to impeach for that. And the other reason we wanted him impeached was because he paid his porn star mistress off in a not-technically-correct way to do it. And they're put up there next to each other. A guy pays his mistress off who's hitting him up for money, and a president tries to deny an American of his civil liberties by having a foreign power investigate him. And yet, it's not immediately apparent to most people that you're talking about a boulder and a pebble in terms of how important these things are. And I think that goes on for so many things in the news. But how would you say that that relates to Greta Thunberg? I think that this is, that her, she's getting a tremendous amount of attention, but she's not going to have any impact.

And it doesn't matter. And it's mostly because it was just such an interesting video and she was so odd. I don't want to insult her. Whatever it is, like memorable, whatever the word is. I'd never quite seen. It burned in your brain to see that presentation. But global warming is not going to be affected by Greta Thunberg. How do you pronounce her last name?

I've heard Thunberg. I've heard Thunberg. Thunberg. That sounds better. Thunberg. All right. We're losing Marie. I can see she'sberg. Thunberg. That sounds better. Thunberg. All right. We're losing Marie. I can see she's tired and she's pissed at me.

Are you pissed at me? No, I'm not pissed at you. I just kind of lost some of the thread of the discussion. Yeah, well, it's a little freeform. Yeah. Oh, and you know what I needed to tell you is my friend Paula Lee said she went to music camp with you. Ho John Lee's sister?

I bet you it is. Paula Lee and Ho-Jung, yes, went to New England music camp. Sure. You know, isn't that interesting? Such a small world. Yeah. And it is also interesting,

when I think back on it, how, you know, this is super corny, but how we weren't really aware. Like, Ho-Jung was this little, I guess he was a Korean kid, but it just didn't register in those days. You didn't see color?

Well, kids don't as much anyway, but the thing is now they do more than they used to when we were kids. I told this story many times on the podcast. So my first-grade daughter came home. She'd never said anything like this. Now, she grew up in a home where she's seen quite a lot of diversity.

Quite a lot of diversity her whole life. She comes home and she goes, Daddy, you're white, right? I'm like, yes. She goes, do you treat people badly? I'm like, what? She goes, well, we learned in school that white people treat people badly. Now, that's the way she put it. That's probably not the way they said it to her. I'm like, what? She goes, well, we learned in school that white people treat people badly. Now, that's

the way she put it. That's probably not the way they said it to her. I'm like, no. Have you ever seen daddy treat anybody badly? She goes, well, I thought maybe you used to. They said that white people used to. This is kind of a perfect way to end the reason I was getting so upset before. This is the

outcome that a child who never saw Rayays comes home and now all of a sudden sees her father as a white dude, which she never even conceived before. And then she's wondering if her father might be mean because of it. And this is our progress. At first grade, she

thinks there's a Santa Claus. She thinks there's a tooth fairy. And they want her to understand racial hatred. This is madness to me. That's not, that's not, nothing good is going to come of my daughter being told that in first grade. She can learn it, you know, on the streets. She can learn it

in fifth grade, sixth grade, when she's kind of old enough to be able to understand it. But I just think that this is not designed to get us where we want to be. I would say that Noam certainly can be mean to people, but it's got nothing to do with race. Who said that?

I mean, who accused me of being mean to race? Oh, because of my daughter. I misunderstood you. Yes, I'm saying that you asked your daughter, have you ever seen Daddy being mean to people? And maybe she has not. But I saw you tear Ray Allen a new asshole.

He's Jewish, so it was okay. We were on equal play. We were punching even. So I could call him cheap. Okay. Maria, I'm sorry that if I got upset. This is a recurring you touched on a recurring nerve and I'm reading a book which you'll think is a bunch of

right-wing trash, but it's pretty interesting. The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray. Douglas Murray, okay. The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray, which touches on... He's not beloved either, by the way. I'd never heard of him until this book. He's a gay English guy, I believe. Yeah, he's a gay English guy.

So it's written from a very anti-PC point of view, but boy, is it well written and strongly reasoned, whether you agree with it or not. You can't deny that this is A equals B equals C equals D. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I hope you come see a show. I hope you come again. Say hi to Paula. Does she still play music, by the way?

I'm not sure. Oh, you're not sure. Okay. Good night, everybody. Thank you. I'm not sure oh you're not sure okay goodnight everybody thank you