Full disclaimer: I've seen Leslie perform MANY times at The Comedy Store. The first time I saw her it was around 1 in the morning, and The Store had mostly emptied out. Within a few minutes I thought, "why the fuck is this woman going on at 1 AM?" She was one of the best female comics I had ever seen (along with Amy Schumer, who was also almost anonymous at the time). Several months later during christmas night she walked up to me and stood within a few feet to my right. I glanced at the huge arrangement of food behind us, then turned to her and said, "we're pretty sad, huh?"
I did my insignificantly tiny part during the Saturday Night Live "no-black-ladies controversy" to get her a spot on the show by writing her name as a suggestion constantly on their message boards and by tweeting it to them a few times.
When I saw this....
...I laughed my ass off. Now there is the inevitable controversy, which is only more hilarious to me.
I'm not a stranger to racial jokes. Recently a black comic who had seen me killing at an open mic of all places stopped me as I was walking into a club and said, "this guy doesn't like our people." His black friends, who surrounded him groaned and said, "come on, man. He's a good guy." I just sort of shrugged and continued walking. He called to me, "seriously, though-- that shit is racist." I just said, "Kool and the Gang, man" as I entered the club. I will NEVER defend my material to ANYONE, let alone a fellow comic. The thing that annoyed me most is the guy was just a jealous bitch; he didn't even have a real concern with the material. He has seen perform for almost three years. Now when I'm doing well it's suddenly offensive to him.
For a long time I bought into the belief that white people are just offended by anything that reminds them of the ancient past. Now I consider that no one cares about the Iraq war anymore or the death squads in central America or-- well, I could go on for paragraphs, but the fact is that America just doesn't care about history. If it's not happening now then it doesn't matter to them. So if anyone of any race brings up anything that might remind people of the ugliness of any part of the past then people of any race feel that they have a right to be offended. Black people are some of Leslie's harshest critics right now. Of all things, it seems that even black people want to believe that slavery never happened.
The vast majority of Americans don't know who the hell was president during The War of 1812 or which president was a veteran of The Spanish American war. They're not even people or events that anyone can even joke about because no one gives a shit. Witty satire about an event with which most Americans are familiar shouldn't be condemned, but to many morons it's just something that should be swept under the rug like so many things that are lost to the memories of the general population.
You know what? Fuck 'em.
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