University of Wisconsin students laughed for two hours Wednesday night at two different viewpoints of race and ethnicity during a performance of the “Post-Racial Comedy Tour,” presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
The show featured Christian Lander, the author of the blog “Stuff White People Like,” and Elon James White, who stars in the YouTube series “This Week in Blackness.” The two speakers gave separate comic routines about their opinions regarding race and ethnicity in contemporary America.
White and Lander gathered in The Rathskeller over beer before the show Wednesday discussing the racial implications of James Cameron’s most recent movie, “Avatar.” When asked to respond to the campus controversy over Coasties and Sconnies, both said the divide was a question of “white people hating other white people.”
“I think it’s hilarious that racism has broken out with different white people,” White said. “So many of you guys are like, ‘fuck you, different white guy!'”
White gave an hour-long stand-up routine at the beginning of the show, critiquing perceptions of race, color-blindness and Barack Obama’s presidency. He asserted the idea that “post-racial” cannot be possible in today’s society and said attempts to say Obama is not black are themselves racist.
White also addressed diversity at UW and the relative lack of racial minorities on campus.
“I am the black neighborhood,” White said. “When I got on stage I thought I automatically qualified for a grant.”
Near the end of his routine, White received laughs after explaining his opinions about the n-word. He said the campaign to bury and have a funeral for the word were misguided, and he made a conscious decision to call someone the n-word out of hate, deriding the desensitized use among black Americans.
Lander followed White with another hour-long presentation about how he and his blog rose to worldwide fame. He said his blog is not a critique of white people in general, but instead a reflection of the “rich people” he met during his childhood in a diverse Toronto neighborhood.
Lander also said white Americans have a collective desire to be better than one another, especially in matters of multiracial friendships.
“We’re trying to collect friends of every race like they’re Pokemon so one day we can have caught them all,” Lander said.
Lander added this phenomenon is a continuation of the “Keeping up with the Joneses” trend of the 1950s and ’60s, but with hybrid cars and multiracial friends instead of finely manicured lawns.
Amber Sebastian, a UW senior who attended the event, said she was ambivalent about Lander and White’s opinions about race.
“Even positive stereotypes are limiting to the expression of anyone’s individuality; they’re still constructing an image of whiteness or blackness,” Sebastian said. “To call it highlighting differences is overlooking the fact that it’s also putting people in categorical boxes.”
The next speaker will be self-proclaimed skeptic Michael Shermer on March 1 at the Union Theater.
