Columbia University Students Kick Saturday Night Live Comedian Off Stage for ‘Offensive’ Jokes
“it’s like undermining what our generation is trying to do in accepting others and making it safer”
Last week at Columbia University, the school’s Asian American Alliance held a fundraising event called “CultureSHOCK:Reclaim” and invited comedian and SNL alum Nimesh Patel to perform. Halfway through his performance, student organizers walked on stage, took his microphone and told him to wrap it up.
Stand-up stars like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock have said in recent years that they will no longer perform on college campuses and this is why.
Shubham Saharan writes at the Columbia Spectator:
Student organizers boot former SNL writer from stage during standup routine for jokes deemed offensive
Comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer Nimesh Patel was pulled from the stage by event organizers after telling jokes that were criticized as racist and homophobic during his performance at cultureSHOCK: Reclaim, an event held by Columbia Asian American Alliance on Friday night.
Patel, 32, was the first Indian-American writer for SNL, and has since been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing. Patel has previously performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers and opened for comedians such as Chris Rock.
During the event, Patel’s performance featured commentary on his experience living in a diverse area of New York City—including a joke about a gay, black man in his neighborhood—which AAA officials deemed inappropriate. Patel joked that being gay cannot be a choice because “no one looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘this black thing is too easy, let me just add another thing to it.’”
That was, apparently, a step too far:
About 30 minutes into Patel’s set, members of AAA interrupted the performance, denounced his jokes about racial identities and sexual orientation, and provided him with a few moments for closing remarks. Compared to his other jokes, ones specifically targeting sexual orientation audibly receive less laughter from the crowd.
Patel pushed back on the officials’ remarks, and said that while he stood in solidarity with Asian American identities, none of his remarks were offensive, and he was exposing the audience to ideas that would be found “in the real world.” Before he could finish, Patel’s microphone was cut from off-stage, and he proceeded to leave.
Toni Airaksinen of PJ Media has quotes from students who were at the event:
Columbia Students Kick SNL Comedian Nimesh Patel Off Stage after ‘Rude’ Jokes
“Although [my friends and I] weren’t laughing at the jokes, we were all surprised when he got kicked off. None of us were thinking: ‘god this is so bad someone should get rid of him,” Barnard College student Elle Ferguson told PJ Media on Monday.
“I was very surprised. Either that means I’m not as sensitive as I should be, or the whole thing was just dramatic,” added Ferguson, clarifying that she didn’t think Patel should have been kicked off. “I’m open to hearing other perspectives,” she added…
“When older generations say you need to stop being so sensitive, it’s like undermining what our generation is trying to do in accepting others and making it safer,” said Jao.
“Obviously the world is not a safe space but just accepting that it’s not and continuing to perpetuate the un-safeness of it… is saying that it can’t be changed,” she added.
Another writer at the Columbia Spectator named Liberty Martin offers this take on what happened:
This is the issue with telling jokes about other people’s identities: It’s hard to grasp the intricacies of a life you haven’t lived. Personally, I think comedians should be allowed to tell jokes about different communities, but they often end up falling into clichés, stereotypes, or just predictable material. Patel brought himself on stage to perform a tired joke, the punchline being marginalized struggles about which he has no true insight. Some may argue that he was making a comment on society’s racism and homophobia, but for whom? I watched a brown man use the experiences of Black people to make white people ponder and laugh while two of my gay Black friends cringed.
Patel’s mic wasn’t just cut off because he told offensive jokes to a sensitive, snowflake audience, which is the narrative that I see being talked about. He was booted off the stage because he sucked the energy out of an entire auditorium. When he told the gay Black joke, even he noted the tension. His routine was the antithesis of what cultureSHOCK stood for. He stepped into an uplifting atmosphere and soiled it, which is the opposite of what he was meant to do as a hired entertainer performing at someone else’s event.
It’s easy to see what happened here. The progressive culture which has infected our colleges and universities has clear rules about who should be mocked and who is off-limits.
Does anyone believe Nimesh Patel would have been removed from the stage if he used this opportunity to mock Trump and the voters who elected him? Not a chance.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Offensive speech will not be tolerated. SMH, What these kids do not understand is that the best way to overcome something evil(or offensive), is to laugh at it. That takes away its power. My Alma Mater btw, and I am not proud.
Humorless future Khmer Rouge.
Q: How do you know when Social Justice Warriors are around?
A: Nobody is laughing.
SJWs: THAT’S NOT FUNNY, BIGOT!
So, the left will deify entertainment icons until they disagree with them, at which point they will degrade them as “hired jesters” to fall in line with their mantra.
It’s not only that these people are living in a bubble, but that bubble is so vulnerable to being burst that it needs to be constantly protected from sunlight. Or the ultimate porcupine: humor.
This is why pigs don’t riot while awaiting slaughter in the stockyards. Come to think of it, even pigs can smell the blood, here the squealing and sense the foreboding of their situation. Lots of laughs in those stockyards.
These kids evidently didn’t realize that SNL stopped being funny long ago, probably before they were born. The bloom is long off the rose…
“dash Americans” are counterfeit Americans.
Yep. IMO SNL has been the least funny show for well over a decade.
People are getting so serious about silly stuff that we must wonder how stupid it will get. In the Navy way back when we hung nicknames on everyone. Hungain Jew, Dago, Turkey Neck, Futz, were just a few. My monicker, because I was balding early, was “Skin Head”. If your feelings were hurt? Tough S- – -t.
was skinny in army, add buzz cut and my nickname (over in gemrany in 80’s) was dachau boy.
big deal.
its some letters strung together in a certain order. I never cared.
Just picture the event- with Asian American Alliance lurking in the background, giving the hook to anyone that does not say what they want them to say. So it’s OK for organization officials to control speech- at a comedy event! What is this, communist China?
In Great Britain, now, Islamists who kill people are referred to as “Asian” in the news stories.
Perhaps this Asian American Alliance is similar. We all know how tolerant Islamists are.
“When older generations say you need to stop being so sensitive, it’s like undermining what our generation is trying to do in accepting others and making it safer,” said Jao.
“Obviously the world is not a safe space but just accepting that it’s not and continuing to perpetuate the un-safeness of it… is saying that it can’t be changed,” she added.
What a lifeless, bland world they’re trying to make for themselves. I’m glad I won’t be part of it.
Intersectionality bites its own.
Generation Aunt Pitti Pat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imANoNt6scw
Hey Columbia/Bernard student body. The real world which has the ability to laugh at itself starts on the other side of the Hudson River. That world is going to eat up up and spit you out just for fun. FYI in college I was called WEJ which is Jew backwards. You should know what I called them. 50 years later I still love those guys. Grow up
They’re never gonna grow up, they’ll just find another Michael Avenatti type to torment those who they find offensive
I am left to wonder how Lenny Bruce would have done today.
The progressive culture which has infected our colleges and universities has clear rules about who should be mocked and who is off-limits.
No.
Patel was not mocking gay men, or black men. He was commenting on how difficult gay black men have it because of their intersectionality. He was crucified for making the right jokes in the wrong fashion, and I use the word fashion very deliberately.
Social justice wokeness is about social positioning; the ‘correct’ opinions must be ever-changing and ever more narrowly defined, because they have no value if you cannot use them to elevate yourself above the rest of the herd. By definition, the rules are not, and must not be clear.
If any comedian has not insulted or offended at least one member of the audience by the time their set is up, they need to be forced back on stage until they do. If they still can’t do it, they’re not comedians.
I don’t remember Bob Hope insulting his audience, or Jack Benny. Or Bill Cosby, for that matter. That did not start until the Richard Pryor era of comedy began……
I’ll just leave this here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3MUQRbrqu0
“it’s like undermining what our generation is trying to do in accepting others and making it safer”
Your generation has done jack except whine,complain, and blame. It’s okay because you won’t have anyone to blame eventually, and you’ll fail when you crack from finally being told no.
Censorship at it’s finest. But they point and say the Right Wing is Fascist?
The only comedians worth watching these days, IMHO, are Daniel Tosh and Bill Burr, because they are honest and don’t pander. They take the approach of not caring what the 90% think because the 10% love them. Bill Burr’s routines on hitting a woman and what is racist vs what is not are classics guaranteed to make an SJW pee their (whatever they are wearing these days). Daniel Tosh said that the hardest part of roller blading is convincing your parents that you aren’t gay. I still crack up every time I see someone on roller blades. As I tell people, you know the best part of being a straight white christian conservative male? Everything. I’ve started to use “right after you check your entitlement” every time someone uses the “check your privilege” comment. That sets back the smart ones and sets off the stupid ones.
Being of Irish descent I love Irish jokes and thought it ridiculous when the MSM took Jesse Ventura to task for telling an Irish joke.
So heres a thought from a gay Irish decendant for all the snowflakes out there: Joke ’em if they can’t take a f@ck.
They’re Nazi’s.
Shorter leftist overlords:
“This is a liberal, tolerant university. You can’t say things like that; we won’t tolerate it. You’re barred for from our inclusive campus community!”
I love the unintended irony of it all. Especially how the event was named, “CultureSHOCK:Reclaim.” There will be no shocking the culture at leftist universities like Columbia where they insist on having shock-free safe spaces as far as the eye can see. Das ist verboten.
“I watched a brown man use the experiences of Black people to make white people ponder and laugh while two of my gay Black friends cringed.”
TWO of my gay Black Friends? Did your other gay Black friends like the comic? LOL
The only safe target for “comedians” like Patel are:
– Trump and his family
– live Republicans (dead “decent” Republicans like McCain and Bush are off-limits, while Nixon and Reagan are probably safe)
– “Zionists” (read: Jews)
– white heterosexual men and women
– Christians
Bottom line? Make your jokes about Trump only (the more explicit the better), and your very own Netflix special awaits you!