Two hours before Donald Trump was set to take the stage at Madison Square Garden in New York City, right-wing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe warmed up the crowd with a shockingly racist performance.
“Where are my proud Latinos at tonight?” Hinchcliffe asked the packed arena, eliciting scattered loud cheers. “You guys see what I mean? [The border’s] wide open. There’s so many of them.”
“These Latinos, they love making babies, too,” he added. “There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside just like they did to our country.”
The crowd groaned and cheered as Hinchcliffe continued, saying, “Republicans are the party with a good sense of humor.”
If you don’t understand what is racist about saying black people carve watermelons for Halloween, I think you should ask any black people you might know if that’s a funny and not racist joke.
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Considering I did both standup and professional comedy writing for 20 years, I think I do actually.
What people don’t get is that they brought Tony (and tony went) to a political rally, a serious place, to tell really old unoriginal racial jokes. Just like that guy said to you that where a joke is told matters. A watermelon joke at a roast oriented show? Eh not the worst thing to ever happen. Telling that same joke at a rally? 😮 But the fact Tony went shows he’s not joking when he says that stuff which makes him stop being a comedian and just a racist. But plenty of people will still slobber to defend it 😄
I think the setting is bad in this context. You’re right that if he was at a comedy club or on his show it would be funny but he is at a political rally. He created this set to pander to a crowd of racists. In any other context I think it’s clear it’s a routine but not here.
This is the biggest thing for me. If it was at a Kill Tony show or a comedy show then it would literally just be someone making dumb jokes. At a political rally it takes on a whole different meaning. It’s leading the audience to think a certain way. Not everyone at those rally’s is actually paying attention to anything other than big talking points. Saying a whole island of people are garbage is a pretty leading thing to say. It leads the audience to feel their racism is confirmed.
There’s also the problem that it’s just not particularly funny. Jokes that punch down on minorities are always shit. Even ‘ironically’ they’re usually shit. It’s uncreative, it’s the lowest common denominator and it also tells me the people thigh-slapping their way through the comedian’s set are idiots at best, straight-up racist at worst. Given the context this set took place in, I think we can safely assume the latter here.