Tonight after a late night at work (again) I came home and my roommates were SUPER excited to show me a new TV show that they’ve found called “Community” on NBC. Community as in community college is where the show is set.

The Cast

I think the best part of the show is the last 30 seconds:

Evidence clip #1:

And, evidence clip #2:

If you liked those clips, you can also watch full episodes on Hulu: click here

So I finally made it to see W. Kamau Bell do a comedy show last Friday in Berkeley at La Peña Cultural Center called “The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour.”

Mana has been telling me and sending me flyers to his shows for awhile now, and my schedule and whereabouts finally worked out so that I could catch a show! I met up with Mana and Thao at the theatre, and her friends (now my friends too?) Aaron, Tania, and Jakeya caught up with us right before the show started. I met Aaron and Tania last time at the Art & Soul Festival in Oakland, and Aaron actually did a workshop for us during Public Allies awhile back.

So, I learned quite a few things at this show. He was quite on-point with his set, and the energy was so contagious.

1) I learned who Peter Norman is.

So Kamau Bell was saying that he had white guy walk out on him during a show because he felt like he was ragging on white folk too much (what do you expect when you go to a comedy show dealing with race issues?) …and when he left, he said to Kamau “I’ve done a lot of things for black people!” So then Kamau Bell presents his list of “white people that can maybe say that they’ve done something for black people” and Peter Norman was #5. When he put his picture up on the screen, everyone was like..”Who is that?” —- Peter Norman is the Australian dude who got second place at the Olympic Games when Tommie Smith and John Carlos, received 1st and 3rd in the 200m respectively.

Kamau Bell explained that the reason that this guy is on his list is because he didn’t open his mouth. He broke the Australian 200m record that still stands today, and so it was a huge moment for him as well, but what was happening behind him was even bigger. John Carlos apparently forgot his gloves, so they were semi-panicking about what to do…then Peter Norman pointed out that Carlos should just wear Smith’s left glove. Ta da.

2) I learned that in the US Census, Arabs are classified as being white.

3) Chinese people have been reclassified as Blacks in South Africa.

4) Black people are responsible for all of popular culture. He named out all of the genres of music and everyone was like “yes, yes, yes…” then someone shouted out “Country music!” and he came up with this equation: Country music = The blues (minus) slavery.

5) There has been only on non-white individual who has been named People’s Sexiest Man of the Year. Denzel. Even Cindy Crawford has been on the cover before.

I’m trying not to spoil all the punchlines….For all you East Coast people, catch him in his next few shows in NYC Aug 14-Aug  30 and check the schedule on his website to see where he’ll be going next!

You can check out his YouTube Channel here.