No, no, we’re not talking about the ever-present farce that are diversity initiatives, we’re talking about a recent comedy skit performed for the ASUN Leadership conference. Apparently this troupe did a skit about Barack Obama and one of the actors, to impersonate him, painted his face black. This, many people seem to think, is a direct mimicry of “blackface” comedy that was meant to insult black people a long time ago. And while one of the actors sensibly claimed, “If we are going to portray a girl, we are going to dress like a girl,” there still seems to be a huffing and puffing about this particular incident.
Clearly, we over here at the UNR Students for Liberty would be fine even with actual racist comedy as we feel the freedom of expression is more important than upholding tired notions of racial identity, but it seems that this is not the case. And though we rarely find anything within the Nevada Sagebrush comments section that is worth the neurons we waste on it, this particular response, which we quote at length, is absolutely wonderful. Go Brandon Ford:
“I like the fact that I was interviewed and nothing I said seemed to matter. I am a African American male at the University of Nevada, Reno and was in the audience when this sketch was performed. In no way was that racism. It was just a sketch highlighting Barack Obama and the things he has done over his first year in office. Because brown makeup is used, it is automatically racism. In that entire sketch or show, were they trying to single out a race or anyone. It is comedy, deal with it. Saturday Night Live does the same thing and we laugh and tune in the next week. A amateur troupe does the same thing and now they are racist. Seriously??? When a clown puts on white makeup, is he not entertaining people? When people are dressing up like women and over sized women is that not the same thing? People are creating racism and a problem now exists because something so small has to get blown up for no reason. As a black man, I did not feel threatened nor did I feel like these comedic actors were attacking my race. I am a proud person but I know the difference between racism and comedy. Now, we have three performers who happened to be white on the chop block because they did what they like to do: MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH!!!! If I did a Bill Clinton impression I will try to make my skin paler and hair grayer and whiter. I can’t sell my performance without looking it. Because it was a white performer who portrayed Obama, who wanted his performance to seem as realistic as possible, put makeup on his face not to defame him but to merely be like him. He even sounded like our president which was quite impressive. I am from a state and town that is predominately black and I know for a fact those same people I call friends would sit with me and laugh too because: IT’S FUNNY!!!! As a adolescent I had experienced racism that was real and for real, and never on that Saturday afternoon in the theater in the JCSU did I once think that those three performers were racist of any kind. During that sketch or any sketch they did, it never once crossed my mind that these actors were racist or trying to send the wrong message. They were looking for one thing and that was to: MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH!!!! And they got what they wanted. I am proud to call those of who you accused my good-good friends here at University of Nevada, Reno and never would once think that they meant any of this nonsense taking place as I speak. There is a reason why racism and its undertone still exists, and this the reason why. Thanks for free speech on campus UNR, we greatly appreciate it!”
