JR
Hare Krishna
On his album, "2042 and the White Minority":
KONDABOLU: Here's the bigger point, here's the bigger point, right: 49 percent white doesn't make you the minority. That's not how math works, right? Forty-nine percent white is only the minority if you think the other 51 percent is exactly the same, right. It only works if you think, well, it's 49 percent white people and 51 percent you people. That's the only way that works.
Because that 51 percent is not a united front, OK, and it's easy to find out. Just ask a black guy and a Korean guy what happens when the black guy walks into the Korean guy's store, all right. I bet you the interaction might be pleasant. I bet you it's not going to be like hey, teammate, how's it going, teammate. Pretty excited, you? 2042, am I right? It's not...
That's not what's happening. There's some historic tension there. It's not a united front. And some of you might be thinking, well, Hari, you're saying that 51 percent is not exactly the same, but you're assuming that all white people are the same. Yes.
No, no, of course not. I'm joking, right, because white isn't a thing. Race isn't a think, right. It's a social construct; it's a way to divide us. It's not real, and we know this. There used to be signs in this country that said no blacks, no Irish, no dogs, right. The Irish weren't white; the Jews weren't white; the Italians weren't white, right. Race is a way to divide us. It's not real, and the people of color in this room, you know this.
When you ask your white friends what their cultural heritage is, they don't just say white. They give you a math equation.
Well, I'm a third German and a fourth Irish and one-sixteenth Welsh and one-fortieth Native American for college applications.
You know how this works.
On his album, "Waiting for 2042":
KONDABOLU: When I was living in London, I was dating this Englishwoman, and the first three months I was there, I was, like, really excited. We were - she was over at my place like three nights a week, immediate trust. And then four months in, she was over at my place four nights a week, and I noticed she was starting to tell me what to do, like when to wake up and when to sleep and what to eat, and I'm like this is weird.
But, like, early on in the relationship, you have to set boundaries. So maybe this was part of that boundary-setting process. I'm like OK, let's go with this. Five months in, she's over at my place five nights a week, and my brother had come to visit. I don't know what she said to my brother, but by the end of his week there, like he was angry at me. She had, like, turned my brother against me. It was so strange.
And then six months in, I hated how I was being treated. I decided to assert myself. I said I don't like how I'm being treated, I'm a human being, I deserve more, and that's when the beatings started, and...
I don't know why she felt comfortable hitting me, but she did, and it was terrible. I felt defenseless. I felt like nobody could help, nobody was listening. And after seven months, she's over at my place seven nights a week. She has her own place. She has her own place that she's paying rent for, but she's over at my place every night of the week, eating my food, telling me what to do, hitting me, and that's when I knew this wasn't love. This Englishwoman was trying to colonize me.
And I of course did what I was trained to do in such situations: nothing.
I simply didn't cooperate. I used nonviolent resistance. And after a month, she finally left, and she took most of my best stuff with her: food; art; self-esteem, all gone. And she left a few things. She left some clothes and some books and of course an extensive railway system.
So for the non-South-Asians in the audience who perhaps didn't understand why there was applause, the British built a really extensive railway system throughout India before they left, and it wasn't so much for transportation for the Indian people, it was because it's really hard, of course, to plunder on foot. And...
All about Hari Kondabolu and the above excerpts at: For Comic Hari Kondabolu, Explaining The Joke IS The Joke | WBUR & NPR
KONDABOLU: Here's the bigger point, here's the bigger point, right: 49 percent white doesn't make you the minority. That's not how math works, right? Forty-nine percent white is only the minority if you think the other 51 percent is exactly the same, right. It only works if you think, well, it's 49 percent white people and 51 percent you people. That's the only way that works.
Because that 51 percent is not a united front, OK, and it's easy to find out. Just ask a black guy and a Korean guy what happens when the black guy walks into the Korean guy's store, all right. I bet you the interaction might be pleasant. I bet you it's not going to be like hey, teammate, how's it going, teammate. Pretty excited, you? 2042, am I right? It's not...
That's not what's happening. There's some historic tension there. It's not a united front. And some of you might be thinking, well, Hari, you're saying that 51 percent is not exactly the same, but you're assuming that all white people are the same. Yes.
No, no, of course not. I'm joking, right, because white isn't a thing. Race isn't a think, right. It's a social construct; it's a way to divide us. It's not real, and we know this. There used to be signs in this country that said no blacks, no Irish, no dogs, right. The Irish weren't white; the Jews weren't white; the Italians weren't white, right. Race is a way to divide us. It's not real, and the people of color in this room, you know this.
When you ask your white friends what their cultural heritage is, they don't just say white. They give you a math equation.
Well, I'm a third German and a fourth Irish and one-sixteenth Welsh and one-fortieth Native American for college applications.
You know how this works.
On his album, "Waiting for 2042":
KONDABOLU: When I was living in London, I was dating this Englishwoman, and the first three months I was there, I was, like, really excited. We were - she was over at my place like three nights a week, immediate trust. And then four months in, she was over at my place four nights a week, and I noticed she was starting to tell me what to do, like when to wake up and when to sleep and what to eat, and I'm like this is weird.
But, like, early on in the relationship, you have to set boundaries. So maybe this was part of that boundary-setting process. I'm like OK, let's go with this. Five months in, she's over at my place five nights a week, and my brother had come to visit. I don't know what she said to my brother, but by the end of his week there, like he was angry at me. She had, like, turned my brother against me. It was so strange.
And then six months in, I hated how I was being treated. I decided to assert myself. I said I don't like how I'm being treated, I'm a human being, I deserve more, and that's when the beatings started, and...
I don't know why she felt comfortable hitting me, but she did, and it was terrible. I felt defenseless. I felt like nobody could help, nobody was listening. And after seven months, she's over at my place seven nights a week. She has her own place. She has her own place that she's paying rent for, but she's over at my place every night of the week, eating my food, telling me what to do, hitting me, and that's when I knew this wasn't love. This Englishwoman was trying to colonize me.
And I of course did what I was trained to do in such situations: nothing.
I simply didn't cooperate. I used nonviolent resistance. And after a month, she finally left, and she took most of my best stuff with her: food; art; self-esteem, all gone. And she left a few things. She left some clothes and some books and of course an extensive railway system.
So for the non-South-Asians in the audience who perhaps didn't understand why there was applause, the British built a really extensive railway system throughout India before they left, and it wasn't so much for transportation for the Indian people, it was because it's really hard, of course, to plunder on foot. And...
All about Hari Kondabolu and the above excerpts at: For Comic Hari Kondabolu, Explaining The Joke IS The Joke | WBUR & NPR
