Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.
As more people claim a multiracial identity, and it subsequently becomes more mainstream, I have been disturbed to also see a lot of mixed-race work rewrite white supremacist ideologies of old (e.g. postracialism, excluding non-white mixed people, not naming race, anti-blackness, etc.). Same oppression, different era, under somewhat changed circumstances. Racism is a clever shapeshifter. I have been looking for a while for a mixed community that resists, holds fast to a hard edge, refuses to re-inscribe, and pushes forward transformative dialogue.
Robin Thede, writer, comedian and creator of ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’, joins Variety’sAngelique Jackson on ‘Through Our Lens’ to discuss how her perspective as a Black woman has shaped her comedy career and outlook as a creator and showrunner.
“The thing about tragedy, is that it causes people to react in a myriad of ways … [and] some of them are very hilarious,” Thede says, laughing. “You don’t make fun of the actual tragedy. You make fun of the ridiculous ways people react to it.”
“You’ve got people on the news saying ‘Black Guerilla Family’ 4,000 times because they get a kick out of saying ‘gorilla’ when connected to black people,” she says…
Wilmore made a bit of history then as the only black man hosting a major late night talk show.
And Thede also made history: She’s the first black woman to serve as head writer for such a show. But she’s quick to counter the notion that The Nightly Show is just a parody of Meet the Presscentered on jokes about race…
Read the entire article here. Listen to the story (00:04:09) here. Download the story here. Read the transcript here.