Comedy Is Our First Amendment’s Last Defense.
Comedic silence is deafening.
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People who are defenders of free speech, believers of human rights, and believe in whatever is left of America, are still processing that fact that the Trump administration just detained and for a period of time disappeared a permanent resident, Mahmoud Khalil, with intent to deport him. Khalil’s offense: dissent toward Israel’s war on Gaza, which has amounted to an ongoing genocide campaign—and calling on his Alma Mater Columbia, to divest from financial ties with Israel, along with hundreds of other protesters. ICE agents went into his home with his 8 month pregnant wife and threatened to revoke her citizenship and kidnapped Mahmoud for his 1st Amendment right of free speech.
The Trump administration tossed in their recent catchphrase that his activities were “aligned with Hamas” and connected his dissent to a Cold War era law that allows the Secretary of State, who today is Marco Rubio—and tomorrow might be Hulk Hogan—to revoke legal residency for someone deemed to “threaten the foreign policy of the United States.”
By that standard—how many Vietnam protestors would be deported? Iraq? Free speech and dissent have always been a threat to ideology. Whether domestic policy, like slavery and segregation, or foreign policy like neoliberalism and financing war crimes. The detention of Mahmoud Khalil should disturb every American and their right to free speech. But we still have an extremely powerful defense in our arsenal to protect it: comedy. The question is if we’re brave enough to use it.
On February 16th, a Florida man, Mordechai Brahman, who is Jewish, shot two men he believed were Palestinian. He also believed he killed them. He then called the police and proudly proclaimed that he killed two Palestinians.
Except—they weren’t Palestinian. They were two Israeli men on vacation. And they didn’t die. They survived. And those men also thought this was a hate crime against them for being Jewish. For which they blamed Arabs and called for death to Arabs.
In nearly a month, and this shit should have been be EQUAL OPPORTUNITY funny. It is nearly objectively ripe for comedy. But it barely made any late night/talk show rounds beyond the Daily Show, and it barely made your mainstream comedy clips and reels.
Of course, if an Arab or Palestinian man shot two Jewish people, two Israelis, on the basis they were Israeli or Jewish, they would be called a terrorist. But, in this case, US legacy media barely done anything of the sort. We’re used to this. Doesn’t make it any more of an egregious hypocrisy that we must call out. And doesn’t make it any less batshit insane.
After segments of social media caught wind of the shooting victims accusations, people who are against Palestinian rights, and supporting Jewish and Israeli supremacy, were pointing at each other believing both the cause of the shooter and the victim. In fact, in saying ‘death to Arabs,’ the victims were advocating for, in the mind of the shooter, themselves to be shot.
Let me illustrate this from every comedic bone in my body:
This is Neal Brennan’s head exploding once Clayton Bigsby takes off his hood revealing he’s black.
This is Clayton Bigsby finding out he’s white and divorcing his wife because she married a black person (HIM).
And on top of all that.
IT IS A FLORIDA MAN.
There is a whole TV series on Florida Man. There is a game on Florida Man. To omit this mf Florida man would do a disservice to comedy.
It would be like comedy omitting a guy who called a calendar a terrorist cell, is a high ranking official in the Israeli military and can’t read Arabic in the right direction…oh wait…
(And this was over a year ago)
To be clear, some comedians have been talking about this incident and other lunacy based in Israel’s annihilation Gaza and general treatment of Palestinians. Comedian Mo Amer released one of the most critically acclaimed Netflix series ever on the subject, among others, as a comedy series. And you can reference the clip from hilarious and consistently insightful comics Samy Obeid at the beginning of this piece and Atheer Yacoub below.
But having barely any non-Arab, Muslim, or south Asian comics or talk show hosts include this topic or any of the other insanity over the past year and a half is like the, mostly white, comedians who don’t want to piss off police—so they don’t discuss the epidemic of black and brown people being killed with impunity in the country. Leaving it to BIPOC to not only defend themselves in real life but in comedy.
This is about the worst allyship and lack of backbone I have ever seen from the comedy frontier that is supposed to ‘not be afraid of where the lines are drawn.’
Following Corp Calendar’s revelation—we sent over 10 billion dollars to Israel. Probably the GDP of Wyoming, West Virginia and one of the Dakotas. States who all voted for MFs who would rather send money overseas than help them and their families be both working class and alive.
That’s terrible. It’s also hilarious. This is all terrible and also hilarious. Because comedy is meant to take pain, show the absurdity of its source, and laugh in its face. Because it’s better to laugh than to cry. Or do both at the same time. That is the strength of comedy and entertainment. How it can break barriers and bring issues of oppression to the public consciousness.
Just like Trump, displaying his preferred course of Hurricane Harvey with a Sharpie, pretending to shooting 3’s w/ Bounty at Puerto Ricans that survived Hurricane Maria, and saying he’ll buy Gaza and and Greenland like it’s mf Monopoly money, I refuse to normalize this. I refuse to let the state of Israel define the scope of my sanity. And you should too. Unless your sanity, your humor, your comedy, is bought. Bought by Israel and its lobby. And I thought we were tougher than that.
As a lifelong NYer, the epicenter of comedy—where randos on the 6 train alone are funnier than half the comedians in this nation—I am embarrassed. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be edgy, especially doing that annoying shit, announcing “WELL YOU KNOW ME I AINT POLITICALLY CORRECT” and let this be the MF who corrects you. Because I’ve sure seen many punch down on trans people for the sake of comedy—trans people who are getting murdered everyday—who are suddenly mum on iCal Terrorwatch, ButHamas™️, and the Literal Living Spiderman Meme.
But I guess maybe that’s where our comedy in aggregate draws the line—at the most dry thing of all ‘unsafe politics.’
Sure, many NYers make fun of Trump. Yeah, because we’re in NY. Or in LA. It’s ‘safe’ comedy. Of course you’ll find your hecklers; there’s hecklers no matter what, but you have literally an entire democratic establishment behind you. Against Trump? So is Dick Cheney. How edgy.
To be clear, we should continue to use comedy to criticize and demonstrate the ludicrousness of neoliberalism, capitalism, Trump, Musk, and everyone adding to this authoritarian racist, sexist, xenophobic regime. But if you draw the comedy line at what is declared ‘unsafe’ d by those who are making life for millions unsafe, while living through a global phenomenon of death and destruction—your comedy has a price, and it’s a pretty low one.
I’m sure Carlin and Pryor would be proud.