Black Conservatives

[A.M. Kittenplan]

9. In February and early March,

I attended open mike at my favorite coffeehouse. Often, stand-up comedians try new material there. One guy’s schtick is being a Black Republican. After telling a few jokes about how
he is the only Republican in his family, he talked about Joe Biden moving towards a decisive lead. Followed by “. . . Oh look, y’all are gonna nominate your own cranky, old, white guy!” - Trying to make this sound like mote in my eye, plank in your’s, kind of thing, sounding a little confused about who gets the plank and who gets the mote. It was obnoxious false equivalency. Trying to remind the audience that Biden has said some ethnically insensitive things years before. I turned to an acquaintance and said “We are going to forget about all this, one year from now.” And then I left. To be fair, I think he did get a few digs in, on Trump. It’s been many weeks, obviously the place closed soon after, although they are doing take-out service, with no evening hours.

Stand-up comedians walking up to an open mike at coffeehouses have a captive audience, which gives them a license to be annoying.