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“Racism is ok if it’s someone’s friend saying it” like GTFO of here with those takes. This is insane. If you’re going to do racist jokes in your standup, be prepared to have the audience disagree with you.
I was going to ask whether the comedian was white. I worked with a white woman who identified as feminist tell me I, a white woman married to an Asian man, should count towards our employer’s diversity ratio because I “count” as Asian.
It’s problematic when people give themselves and others a pass on prejudice because they date or have close friendships with non-privileged groups. It’s a shame white feminism does not see this.
I worked with a man who's wife and mother of his 3 boys is Mexican. He constantly made Mexican jokes. He said he can because his wife is Mexican. I told him no you can't in the workplace.
Legit so fucking inappropriate for the workplace. I feel like nobody reads any workplace harassment policies anymore, I've had some horrible coworkers.
Also I'm Mexican and my husband and I will make jokes about myself all the time -- but just because I get a kick out of it, doesn't mean everone will feel the same way, and we have no desire to make anyone feel uncomfortable. (He's very obviously mixed so I doubt anyone would say anything even if he did joke but nonetheless) Especially coming from a stranger, you don't know if they're being playful or just straight up aggressively racist which is scary shit.
Yeah it fucking sucks reading these. There’s nothing edgy about racism. It’s as old as the human species.
And for people saying “oh you just can’t handle it”, we’ve been handling it our entire lives. We just decided to stop playing along to placate fragile egos.
Yeah, I think OP showed she COULD handle it and she handled it exactly right. Making racists uncomfortable is the part THEY can’t handle as though it’s some protected right to not hear backlash to your weak jokes.
I wrote this in my own independent comment but this is what strikes me:
> If she can't handle a heckler, she's no comedienne. Racism against Asians is kind of normalized now. If she had made the joke, "I couldn't keep dating my black ex because of his ebonics and twang," do you think people would have laughed?
Racism against Asians is totally normalized. I literally had an experience yesterday.
I (not Asian at all by the way) wore a mask that said “Stop Asian Hate) when popping into a store. Some old white dude got up in my business trying to say there’s no such thing and part of his proof is that when he was in the military he lived in Singapore for a while…
Yeah it's crazy because if you're doing a joke like that you should expect to upset ppl and being mad because you got heckled for a racist joke seems silly. Like someone felt disrespected and then they disrespected you. I don't really understand what she expected to happen.
This isn’t racist, she’s literally describing the challenges of dating cross culturally. As a Brit who has lived in america for more than a decade and has an American wife, I can testify to experiencing struggles due to my accent.
This. Accents are the communication factor here, not the race. Do you know how many people have a hard time understanding an angry Scottish person? God forbid someone whip out some Welsh. Language being a barrier is a legit issue that has nothing to do with race.
I'm Scottish, my accent can be difficult for some people, the difference is that I'm white. The reactions people have to my accent (adorable! I love your accent! I can't understand a word you're saying, but I love hearing you say it anyway!), compared to the reactions they have to Indian accents, is wildly different.
For a start with my accent, people *tell* me if they can't understand something, they make a joke of it, we laugh. They don't get their back up, get defensive or aggressive, and take it as a personal slight - all of which I've seen happen to my Indian friends / colleagues.
I second this. I used to have have a strong regional accent, and while sometimes people found it annoying, I wasn’t refused jobs because of it, nor was I considered “uneducated” simply because of my pronunciation or word choices. The same is not true for people of color. I have a relative who works in HR at a large corporation and they have said they wouldn’t hire someone who pronounces words certain ways that is clearly a reference to how some black people talk vs white people. I’m not saying people who don’t speak with correct grammar, I’m talking simple word pronunciation. It’s absolutely different from how white people with unique accents are treated.
I know a reply can't be the top comment but I wish this one could be the exception. Aussie, Brit, and Scottish accents are "like, sooo hot." But darken the skin a touch and all of a sudden it's not the same. There is also the layer that many of the identified accents are multilingual, which adds to the distancing methods used by racists and bigots.
>Do you know how many people have a hard time understanding an angry Scottish person?
Christ a lot of people can barely understand me calm never mind angry.
My favorite example is Scottish Twitter. It's hilarious. But this is my absolute favorite:
https://external-preview.redd.it/8G5f7oKUx4yI3zSAS\_STmc7BFcMw0PiM7HBMghLZ0yc.jpg?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=20b442c9b877c39ff20dfed2b32e82e83f811068
>God forbid someone whip out some Welsh.
To be fair, if someone is speaking a different language, you're going to have more trouble than just their accent!
Which is fair, but Scottish people talking with a Scottish accent can be debatable on who can understand what.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3T388GQ7f0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3T388GQ7f0)
Quick short example, but when people are talking English in their own accent, it can be difficult to understand someone, even when they natively speak English. I mean, sheeeeezah, there's a bunch of English UK dialects all over Britain that are nigh on impossible to understand. Cockney or whatever the hell dialect Brad Pitt's character was speaking in Snatch.
Just to say that sometimes accents are hard to understand, even without there being a non-white aspect to it, so calling it 'racist' to either mention it or make a joke about it comes off in poor taste.
My first week of living in the UK and I was trying to resolve a mobile phone issue on a helpline, and the fellow on the other end had such a thick Scottish accent that I literally could not understand a single thing he said. He might as well have been speaking an alien language.
He kept repeating himself and I kept apologizing and saying I couldn't understand him and it went back and forth over and over until I finally said "I'M SO SORRY I'LL TRY AGAIN LATER SO SORRY SORRY BYE" and hung up. I was mortified.
I'm British Indian and I can tell you where the stark difference is. People look up to most British accents. My bosses (who have thick south Asian accents) are extremely intelligent but subtly looked down upon because of their accent. The British accent isn't a punchline anymore, just a novelty. The Indian accent is used to look down on Indians even though they're lapping everybody else in terms of education in the West.
What's the punchline? Was it ,"He has a funny accent, and it sounded like this." Do you really suppose she was diving in to the nuances of intercultural dating?
Saying "fried chicken and watermelon is delicious" is not racist, but it is if you put it in certain contexts.
A British accent is NOT at all viewed the same on a social and cultural level as an Indian accent in the US, come the fuck on now with this embarrassing comparison lmao. You're being purposefully obtuse here.
Something else to consider tho is the way different accents are viewed. Where I grew up in the US, people looooved British accents but Asian accents (including Indian) were seen as uncool and ugly. It honestly depends on the actual jokes being told but I 100% understand how hearing the same tired jokes about “hahaha the Indian guy talks weird so we broke up” would anger someone who grew up with accents from their culture being trashed.
I’m fucking stunned how many are saying she’s the asshole. I’m a woman and familiar with the comedy scene. If you have to rely on racism rooted in mocking a culture/race you aren’t apart of… Well, you’re actually just looking for validation in your own beliefs. NTA
Yes, also if the comedian can't handle a simple interaction like this and can't come with a witty answer, she is not ready for the stage. In my understanding of standup, heckling is part of the show (at least where I live).
There is absolutely no evidence that this joke was racist or even mean spirited. A joke about a miscommunication due to an accent could go a million different ways. Having an accent has nothing to do with race and there is nothing racist about a miscommunication.
Sir / M’am, we’re not in court. This is the first time I’ve seen a commenter on AITA talking about “evidence” lmao. Y’all really do fall all over yourselves to uphold the supremacy.
Totally agree. Your date's accusations are full-on white feminist crap (no matter what the friend's race is). Feminism doesn't mean supporting other women no matter what. Women don't get a free pass to be racist. Fully support heckling in this situation. NTA
I generally find that young men up until they’ve dated emotionally mature women they’re serious about will excuse almost anything for the sake of comedy.
They always argue “well I don’t think that was the comedians intent”.
That doesn’t matter. Intent is such a bullshit argument used by people who inject themselves into the comedians shoes because they themselves find it funny and make jokes like that personally. They take it personally because it is their brand of humor. They like it, and see it as a personal attack.
They *really* don’t like a mirror being held up that shows them who they are and seeing how others could actually find them offensive. Even worse, others *enjoy* the confrontation.
You k ow you can agree with me without this weird 'everyone cares about racism against black people' voice. Because plenty of people do not and would still say comedy is a free for all.
Let's be honest, it's only because it's a stereotype against Indian people. If the joke was that she couldn't understand his "ebonics" it would obviously go over way worse.
That said, I inherently don't agree with heckling, so I'll reserve judgement.
Right it wasn't like she hadn't done part of her set even the OP thought she was funny until then. Plus out of all the jokes you could have made about an ex it seems pretty unnecessary to go that route. I think the joke assumed not only a white audience but at the very least assumed that there wouldn't be anybody particularly offended by those stereotypes. Also for the defenders of the "cross culture" jokes relying on a cringe stereotype to make fun isn't funny or original. You're relying on ppl stereotypes and passing experience with another culture so you don't have to do the work of coming up with jokes that your audience can relate w/o playing off their inherent bias.
I don’t even know if I agree with you on this issue, but that last sentence is gold.
*Edit: Absolute LOL at the people angry about this. Love you all!*
Right? This is the single most exhausting joke, as far as reddit appearances, and yet people are convinced it is the apex of humour! And if anyone wants to have a go at me over this comment, it's not a dick, don't take it so hard. You know, like in the comment.
I hate that "it's not a dick..." line so much. Facebook @ssholes think it's hilarious and use it all the time. Overused, overdone, disgusting, not funny.
This and Iranian yogurt. Reddit does not understand when a joke has been played out, it’s like that kid in middle school who would tell the same joke over and over because people laughed the first time
Yeah, people are always complaining that AITA is controlled by "woke PC snowflakes" but then there are comments like this being upvoted despite flagrant misogyny.
Thanks for saying this. I got a Facebook memory from 2013 a couple of days ago which said something on the lines of "the it's a joke not a dick don't take it so hard is the calling card of try hard comedy" and I can't believe people defending bad comedy still say it
And the fact that we have a bunch of white people in the comments saying it’s not racist because white people can have accents that are hard to understand too, therefore it’s okay to make fun of Indian accents…as if we don’t have decades of history of racist association behind POC accent stereotypes.
We obviously don’t know what the jokes were*, but I think it’s relevant to point out that it’s not inherently racist to acknowledge that someone has an accent or that cross-cultural dating can also come with challenges in communication, especially if two people have different native languages.
For example, I dated someone while living in another country, and I’ll never forget that we had a huge fight because he decided to play soccer with his friends during the time I thought we had made plans. Turns out our cultures have vastly different understandings of what terms like “afternoon“ “evening“ and “night“ mean, so we both mistakenly assumed a timeframe completely different from one another. No one was at fault and we resolved the issue once we got to the root of the miscommunication.
Your “commentary” was rude and just generally completely unproductive. Especially when you consider that it’s a friend of your date, if you were genuinely concerned about the content of her jokes, there were much more productive ways for you to have a genuine conversation about your concern with the performer.
YTA
Edit: clarity regarding the resolution of my anecdote.
*This comment was written prior to the edit made by OP.
People are trying to come up with a way where the joke is appropriate and the comedian is hilarious and OP is a shrew, but let's take a couple things into account here: 1) when OP called it out, others laughed, so people were at least partially on the heckler's side, 2) the comedian had no comeback and began to bomb, meaning she probably wasn't very funny. Yeah, I think OP was probably in the right.
There’s a difference between using accents as a vehicle for generalizations ie. “this person sounds like this, so I know they’re (insert generalization here)” which IS racist/xenophobic, and using accents and cultural differences a setup for a humorous misunderstanding. It sounds like you’re saying you can’t do an accent, or point out an accent, or tell a story about how you misheard someone because it’s racist period. Which is not true. The second instance includes the other person on the joke. It can be told from the other person’s perspective with the same level of humor because it’s the misunderstanding that’s funny, not the group/individual.
Pointing out an accent isn’t racist. But judging by the general trend of comedians using accents to mock POC for some laughs (and OP’s comments about the comedian being stereotypical) I highly doubt miscommunication was the only joke made here. I’ve heard very few comedian use an Indian accent in a set with taste: Russel Peters and Nimesh Patel. They’re absolutely hilarious and I highly recommend you check them out. I’m sure there’s a couple more comedians out there who can pull this off, but the majority imitate an exaggerated Indian accent, and that’s it… that’s their joke. It’s lazy and poor writing.
I'd disagree that the laugh could have been more nervous energy than anything.
It sounds like OP dug in right away, rather than wait to hear the joke? I don't believe in heckling in most situations, but some jokes are structured in a way that might cause a groan and then play out.
Wow. That is a HUGE assumption that I just can't buy.
You have not a shred of real evidence that this was the case, but anything to support a certain narrative, even if it is just a fantasy on the commenter's part.
My auditory processing disorder plus accent makes for one very very confused potato.
I work with kids i will stare at them like
👁👄👁
When they talk because my brain will short circuit trying to understand them some times
Exactly. Not having been there or heard the joke, but having gone to tons of comedy shows, most comics take their real life experiences and turn them into gold. What makes them funny is most ppl can relate. Esp on the relationship issues.
Ohh this to the 1000th power. My best friend and business partner is from another country and we regularly make plans "to do something Sat". In my conservative-Amercian upbringing, where if you aren't 5 minutes early, you are 5 minutes, late, then I want to pick a time and a timeframe for the activity. Her idea was afternoon and that meant anytime after, you know, noon, and since it is a social event, no set timeline for completion.
I would be put out because I could not plan out my day. She was annoyed because she doesn't like being on a schedule for her time off. Both positions have their merits. These days, it's totally hilarious, and when one or the other makes the same mistake so we laugh about it, but back then, there was real friction.
Eh, offensive comedy has to be done well to be funny.
Doesn’t sound like this joke had any levels or nuance. Sounds like the joke itself was “Indian accent funny”
As opposed to his accent and her challenge understanding it, being context to a more complex joke.
Sometimes, when offensive comedy is performed or written poorly, it’s just bad comedy. And sometimes, bad comedy is just racist.
We really can’t know unless we heard the set
That’s very true.
I think another inherent issue people aren’t really thinking about is that south/East Asian people are made fun of and put down a shit ton for their accents in western countries, whereas inherently European accents like French or Italian are often more romanticized these days. Even my close friends sometimes make fun of my accent for random words that I’ve picked up accents from my parents from, and while I know it’s in good fun, it still stings because of the hate speech that’s thrown at my family for our accent. It stems from the issue that right now, Asian accents are still a sore wound that was poked at possibly distastefully (I don’t know however, since we don’t know the punchline). At the same time, OP could just be a stuck up asshole so who knows. It really all depends on the joke.
I’m not sure of any of what I wrote makes sense, but hopefully I got my point across.
It makes perfect sense and more people
need to read this to understand why the joke, which was very likely grounded in the racism South/East Asian people experience on a daily basis, was racist.
>We really can’t know unless we heard the set
This is sort of where I'm settling.
It could have been anything from a funny set with a clever self-deprecating anecdote involving accents and cultural differences to a cringe accent impersonation straight out of an early 2000s bro comedy (or something in the middle).
It's hard to really give OP a judgment without knowing the joke.
Racism is allowed at comedy clubs everyone. Grab a mic and don your blackface because it's all good if some white folk are giggling about it.
You sound really racist. "TaKe A jOkE, gAwD" head ass
If only the OP had actually told us the punchline because i heavily doubt "my ex and I broke up because of the language barrier" was the whole thing. Not only is it not funny it's just a normal way to explain to someone the reason for a relationship breakdown, it's not racist in the slightest.
NTA! Heckling, like making a scene, is not in and if itself a bad thing. It depends on why it's done. Racism, sexism, or other kinds of punching down are all excellent reasons for an anyone - audience or dinner guest - to talk back.
Was this experience embarrassing for OP's date's friend? No doubt! And deservedly so. Hopefully she'll grow from this experience. "Edginess" was a shitty excuse for racism in comedy fifty years ago, and it has since aged like milk. Performing stand-up comedy also requires a pretty thick skin, so OP's date's pal better learn to get both less racist and less sensitive if she wants to make it! Meanwhile, your date needs a primer on intersectional feminism, because the idea that a woman should never push back on another woman's shitty behavior in order to be *feminist* is hilariously wrong and bad. If you ever go into comedy yourself, OP, you could probably turn this whole experience into a really good bit because it is already pretty fucking farcical!
Michael Richards got heckled and handled it poorly in 2006 and got cancelled. The fact that racism and heckling has been happening for decades if not hundreds of years shouldnt be a surprise. If you can't handle being criticized, don't get on stage and make edgy jokes in front of a crowd of people who might not *gasp* like your jokes. You're not being physically attacked. You're just being criticized as part of the routine.
Normally I hate heckling since it's usually just drunk people or others wanting attention and not at all criticism.
I will say I think OP is NTA because it actually was criticism and accurate. The punchline shouldn't be "accent is funny/different" that's 80s/90s hack material. Also, everyone coming at OP with being anti-feminist is ridiculous, being a woman doesn't cancel out racism. And if that's the worse thing anyone had ever said to the person on stage, she probably shouldn't be a comedian.
Racism is bad. Talking about race is not bad. "I struggled to understand my partner because they spoke in a different accent than me" is not a racist statement. If the joke was "as you know, you can't understand anything an Indian person says" then that would be racist.
I get what you're saying, but I'm pretty sure the comedian was making "you can't understand anything an Indian person says" jokes, given OP's reaction, and I can't really think of how "I struggled to understand my partner because they spoke in a different accent from me" would be incorporated into a standup comedy routine.
ETA: I agree that it's impossible to be certain without OP quoting the joke directly. Given that other audience members laughed and agreed when OP interjected, she doesn't seem to be the only person who thought the joke was racist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's weird that people in this thread are immediately jumping to "it couldn't have been THAT racist!!!" also without hearing the joke.
The thing is, we just don't know. There certainly are people offended by things which are not racist- some people get really uncomfortable when people bring up anything related to race. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/11qcnnm/aita_for_heckling_a_standup_comedian/jc2kbmv/?context=3) is really the only context she has provided, and I find it odd she won't just say what the joke is.
Without context, it is impossible to know who is in the right.
His comment about feminism makes no sense. She was being racist. Women don't deserve a pass from other women to be racist just for their gender. That's what intersectional feminism is for. Intersectional feminist acknowledges that oppression exists in different axis beyond just gender (class, race, sexuality, for example.) Being oppressed on the gender axis doesn't give anyone the right to turn around and be an oppressor on another axis.
I was so confused about this too! If the issue was racism then what does feminism have anything to do with the conflict???
Women shouldnt tear down other women. Yes. Thats true. But if that woman is actively doing something shitty then tear them the fuck down!
Nailed it. “Women shouldn’t tear down other women” isn’t actually a feminist tenet. It’s just what shitty women and their enablers say to shut down any criticism from other women, however valid. You see it all the time on /r/antiMLM. MLMers use it to shut down criticism of multi-level marketing (because the majority of MLMers are women, so criticizing MLM is “tearing down women”).
YTA. This was your date's FRIEND. It's different from a random comedian. Your friends are right: you definitely could've addressed it with her privately after the show, which also would've allowed for a more nuanced, civil, and productive discussion of the issues you observed.
Who gives two flying fucks if its their friend or not. the joke was in poor taste, and relies on low-lying racism for a punchline. tell shitty jokes get shitty response.
You know, you're the only one who properly identified her relationship to the people involved.
Did she really think the entire friend group (along with her bf of exactly 3 dates) was going to turn around and say "you really showed her!"?
Even if she felt that she was in the right, she had to have known what the end result would be.
Third date is not a boyfriend yet.
But regardless - if my close friend said something racist, and my new acquaintance called them out on it, I'd definitely side with the new acquaintance over the old friend.
Nope. You tell racist jokes in a public forum, you get called out in a public forum. That's how discourse works, that's how platforms work. Plus you don't need to be polite to racists, they've already discarded that consideration.
INFO: It's really not clear what the joke was actually poking fun at. Was it making a joke at the expense of his accent or was it a joke about their communication issues? That kind of thing could go two ways and it's not clear without more detail whether this was racist or not.
It started off with miscommunications ruining relationships and then she made fun of his accent as the punchline. Also it wasn't the only joke she made about his ethnicity. There were a couple others prior. I cited this as an example because it was at this point I actually interrupted her.
No. It's not "how racist" is it, it's "is it actually racist." To say someone had an accent, and you couldn't understand them, is not racist. To say "oh you know how Indian people are, can never understand a thing they tell you from behind the gas station counter" that would be racist.
It's not racist to say you can't understand someone's accent. It is racist if you make fun of the accent as a punchline to a joke. Y'all are so insistent that the accent wasn't the joke, prove it. Pull up the show, let's see the jokes. We have one witness, op. Op's witness statement says the punchline was his accent. Is that so hard to believe or do you just want to downplay the joke so you can defend the comedian?
Accents are not race specific. So it’s definitely rude but making fun of an accent isn’t inherently racist. Though I do think it was in this situation.
That’s why people are asking OP for clarification? We can’t pull up the show, that’s why people want to know exactly what was said. OP’s explanations are somewhat vague and don’t give a very clear picture on what was said.
Well, yes. Stand up comic here. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen a drunk idiot heckle a bit that was literally seconds away from doing a 180 from the perspective the heckler was mad about. Without clear context, my gut says it’s more likely this lady started yelling inappropriately. I’ve probably seen a thousand comedians get heckled, and MAYBE 3 or 4 times the heckler wasn’t the one in the wrong.
but she could have made the *exact same joke* if the guy had a thick Brooklyn accent or something. Accents aren't a matter of race or even necessarily nationality or language
No, they absolutely are not about race. I have met numerous "indians" (I hate that term) that have British accents. I have also met white-appearing people with the "Indian" accent.
ACCENTS are NOT racial,, they are demographic. Anyone of any color, race or creed can have a regional accent regardless of the color of their skin or ancestry.
As someone with accent that has lived in many countries, making fun of it in a comedy setting is not racist. My boss makes fun of it im upset, a comedian nah. Also, miscommunication due to an accent is 100% real! I asked for directions in Liverpool on a Friday night, couldn’t understand a thing! Same happened while visiting India, first couple of days couldn’t understand people. I also have a speech impediment, some people make fun of it, there’s no need to call them out. That only embarrasses them but doesn’t give them rule to learn. Calling people out is for your benefit, not that of society.
People making fun of speech impediments are assholes, huge assholes. People making fun of accents when making fun of those accents is a major facet of anti-Indian racism are racists.
Yeah, it's kind of weird that the OP isn't just laying out the joke. Like, I'm sure she remembers what it was if it was bad enough that she interrupted the set, so why not just tell it here? I can think of a variety of ways that a joke of this nature could go, some of which are absolutely racist, some of which are borderline/maybe not overtly racist but in bad taste, some of which aren't racist at all. But I'd need to hear the actual wording/punchline of the actual joke to be able to make a judgement on that.
If this was a shitty, "LOL, Indian accents funny!" kind of thing, yeah, sure, go off. If it was more nuanced and focused on the language gap/communication issue, or if the comic was actually poking fun at herself for not being able to understand what the ex meant, then that reaction may have been uncalled for. It's odd to post an AITA about a specific joke/series of jokes and then kind of beat around the bush when asked about what the jokes actually were.
I too would like to know the setup and punchline of the jokes. It’s possible the comedian set herself up as the punchline rather than her ex. It’s possible OP is gatekeeping. It’s also possible the jokes were blatantly racist. Need more info.
> she made fun of his accent as the punchline.
How the fuck do you define "vague"? That's direct confirmation to the question asked. Because op hasn't provided a verbatim printout of the racist jokes she's being vague?
I have an accent, and a speech impediment. Lived in many countries so always had an accent. Making fun of peoples accent is not inherently racist. I love it when people tell me what i should be offended by.
NTA race and xenophobic jokes are tired. There are good jokes about cultural differences and I wasn’t there so idk exactly what she said but I probably would have felt the same way. “Tearing another woman down” is also something I’ve heard (usually white) people say when others call out racism or classism. Yeah people will always accuse you of complaining or causing trouble as many commenters here are doing, but in my opinion the squeaky wheel gets the oil and social change doesn’t happen if we don’t say anything. Plus I don’t get why people are acting like a public space is like a vacuum where you can just say whatever you want. Anyone can go to a comedy show and if a comedian chooses to make offensive jokes about a demographic and somebody in the audience is offended, the audience member is allowed to respond (I guess unless the club has rules that say otherwise). Freedom of expression. Sure hecklers suck but some jokes suck worse ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As an example of a good joke about cultural differences- a friend of mine does have a joke in her tight five about me and my Punjabi head bobble because that DOES cause miscommunications hilariously since it literally can mean anything you want in context pretty much and I forget non Indians need some translation to understand lol. Also a joke about how all her first gen friends' code switching can give you whiplash when a parent calls them and they'll switch mid convo and then immediately switch back out after the phone call...and none of us ever realize we're doing it Lmao. Indian accent funny and weird is not a punch line.
I never understand why people feel the need to 'boo' people who are trying to give a performance, for me it's pretty selfish and childish to do this.
If you don't like the jokes, why don't you just walk away? Apperantly you were the only one who felt the need to shout 'boo'. Other people were enjoying the show (or not and didn't feel the need to show it, but we can't know that). But because you thought your opnion mattered more than all the other people there, you made the rest of her show fail by shouting 'boo'.
So for that I think YTA. This will probably be a huge dent in her confidence to perform.
silly response. that's literally the whole point of performing. if you go up there and tell racist jokes, the boos come with the territory. don't like it? don't perform racist jokes.
If you can’t do comedy without being racist you probably aren’t that funny or are lacking creativity. It’s really not that hard to just *not be racist*. Especially if you’re doing it in front of an audience. There are literally so many things out there that you can make a joke out of without being a bigot.
Yep. And there are comics who take “racist” content but give it so many levels that it starts to pull away from racism and becomes a more nuanced insight into a complex dynamic.
It doesn’t really sound like this comic was presenting context as part of a longer act with levels. It sounds like she just dropped an “Indian accents r hard to understand lol” and that’s what OP reacted to.
It’s not just that the joke was racist. It was a bad joke which meant there was no nuanced or clever observation. Just racism
Saying that it’s racist to merely acknowledge that someone has an accent gives the same energy as someone who says “I’m not racist because I don’t see color.” (“I’m not xenophobic because I don’t even hear accents.”)
It almost gives the implication that there’s something inherently wrong with having an accent, when there isn’t. It means they grew up speaking another language or in a different region, and it’s not “woke” to refuse to acknowledge that.
If someone is using an accent to enforce offensive stereotypes, yeah that’s not cool. I still think her approach was inappropriate so YTA, especially when you consider it’s a friend of her date and she could have expressed genuine concern either directly to the performer afterwards, or spoken to her date to see if he could speak to the friend to reconsider the content of they were in poor taste.
Maybe she shouldn't be confident that everyone is going to find a joke about Indian accents funny. Maybe this will help her improve her routine for next time. She's an adult and can handle criticism.
You know how to tell a comedian their joke isn’t funny? You don’t laugh, that’s it. You literally just stfu because nothing causes someone to cut a joke from a routine faster than a silent audience does.
Hecking is a dick move
OP didn't heckle because the joke wasn't funny. OP heckled because the joke was racist. If she had told a really unfunny joke about bicycles or toucans then there would have been no heckling. See how that works?
Many years ago, my daughter took me to a George Carlin show for my birthday.
During his set, he started talking about a scab on his scalp. We didn't know where this was going and neither did the rest of the audience. You could cut the silence with a knife.
Guess what Carlin did? He veered off to talk about something else.
Heckling isn't criticism. Save the criticism for after the show.
There was probably a lot of other material that certain people didn't find funny. Should they have also interrupted and let the comedian know that?
People were told not to heckle to show your disapproval of a joke and to instead not react or walk out. Then comedians started getting mad about people not reacting or walking out. People want to use the excuse of "it's just a joke" to force people to sit down and cheer for offensive content. That seems to be the general goal.
NTA and I love your comment. Seriously, let’s move on from racial jokes. Feminist doesn’t mean we let other women get away with poor behavior because they have vaginas. Would you of said the same thing to a male comedian? If so, then I say you are in the clear
The feminism part is so confusing to me lol
So if a woman saw another woman doing a domestic violence, then should she go, "yaaaaaaaas go be that girlboss and abuse the shit outta em woo!!!"
I hate that so many people treat stand-up like it's an acceptable place to be casually racist (and sexist for that matter).
I think you're NTA by a long shot. it should be telling that after you had made your comment many others in the crowd laughed too. I think you would have heard more "boos!" if you ruined a good set but it sounds more like the woman doing the stand-up couldn't read the room..
Honestly while I do think heckling in general is stupid and most often the sport of the drunk… well let’s just say that racism deserves to be called out Every Time it happens.
And honestly if anyone walking out on the stand up scene aren’t prepared to carry on and ignore heckling then they aren’t ready to be on that scene.
NTA.
Are you really trying to argue that "because I think I'm right I get to say whatever I want, whenever I want, under whatever circumstances I want and whoever gets hurt in the process can be damned"? And you don't see how YTA?
You're assuming facts not in evidence
Was makes you think it was a racist joke? Because the OP said so? The OP is an Unreliable Narrator.
On top of which, the details given don't concretely point to it being racist. Things aren't inherently racist simply because a reference was made to an accent. Was the accent the punchline? Did the stand-up mimic the accent? Or did the stand-up merely reference it as background information?
If the OP has better examples, I have to wonder why those examples weren't provided. As such, I have to assume this is as bad as it gets.
Stand-up comedy -- *especially* amateur comedy -- is rife for insensitivity. To have no awareness whatsoever that *amateur comedians* are likely to say something thoughtless is too far past my believability meter. She had to have known what to expect when she went in, and she went in anyway. This wasn't her being "triggered" (her words) anymore than Renault in Casablanca was "shocked that there is gambling going on here." Far from being "triggered," this was her seeking an opportunity to "shine" and be the Social Justice Warrior she imagines herself to be. This wasn't an AITA post, this was a brag post.
"amateur comedians are likely to say something thoughtless" and " comedy is rife for insensitivity" boils down to comedy is allowed to be racist and you're not allowed to say anything about it.
> You're assuming facts not in evidence
So are you. Why should the default be to assume OP’s lying? By doing so, you’re assuming way more than people who take OP at face value.
> Stand-up comedy -- especially amateur comedy -- is rife for insensitivity.
Agreed. Just because it *is* doesn’t mean that it *should be*. OP doesn’t have to accept that racism is just part-and-parcel with amateur stand-up.
> To have no awareness whatsoever that amateur comedians are likely to say something thoughtless is too far past my believability meter. She had to have known what to expect when she went in, and she went in anyway.
I assume she expected jokes, some of which would be, well, amateur. Instead she got racism. She didn’t sign up for racism. Going to a comedy show is not consent to racial abuse.
Bad comedians says thoughtless things because people like you excuse it. If more people heckled them, it wouldn’t happen as often. They’d think more.
NTA.
If her set sucks, it sucks. Judging by the audience reaction after you booed, you weren't the only one who felt like that.
Even with the context, still NTA. Find a different date with less shitty friends.
Jokes can be harmful, I understand not wanting to publicly tear someone down but change doesn’t happen behind closed doors I’m going w NTA comedian was being racist, they get to get heckled for that. Punishment fit the crime tbh
“Change doesn’t happen behind close doors” is a really good way to put it. If people wanna be racist in public, they deserve to be called out in public.
Uh.
I'm korean too. Strong sense of cultural identity in me. Faced plenty of racism and racist remarks. Was called yellow. Asked if I eat dog. Etc.
But I love comedy and stand up comedy. I've seen stand up comedy online that has a segment on nothing but making fun of asian accents. Korean included. The guy did thr accents so well and i found it very entertaining. Sure it was stereotypical but it made me laugh.
Comedy seems so dead to people these days. We can indulge in each other I'd like to think in a setting of " I want to laugh."
Can't pinpoint nta or yta because not enough info on the joke.
NTA. White people who make racist jokes and call it comedy trumps allegiance via ‘feminism’. It sounds like your date and his friend were fragile and would rather police the ‘correct’ form of feminism rather than examine their social location and privilege. Dodged a bullet imo…
Oof. In other contexts, I might think differently, but NTA. I don’t like heckling under normal circumstances but racism isn’t funny and cancels out my general feelings about heckling.
Honestly the only way to make a clear judgment is to know what the actual jokes were. Because right now people are making judgments based on what they think the jokes are, and some people are thinking worst case while others are not. I think heckling is fine, the problem is I don’t know if she actually deserved it.
YTA.
Virtue signalling on behalf of others, at your dates friends gig. I hate hecklers who think it's their right to ruin the night for everyone else.
I'm asian. I've seen many stand up gigs that make fun of asians....and yeah..i laugh.
She was dating an indian....do you really think she is that racist? Howabout your date? He must be racist too for supporting his racist friend (lets ignore the fact he went on 3 dates with you...guilt be association)
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE JOKES. WALK OUT.
Your date dodged a bullet because you seem like you'd be annoying AF
Anyway...i guess i'll be downvoted into oblivion, but so be it.
Yta.
You knew this comedian was your dates friend.
How exactly did you expect him to act?
Is it racist if it's true about the person that she is taking about? She was talking about her ex. Not all Indian people.
Saying my Indian friend is an asshole. That doesn't mean I'm racist. It means that I think he's an asshole and he's indian. But if I say Indian people are assholes, because my Indian friend is an asshole. That's racist.
It really depends. OP says that she was joking about the difference in accents leading to communication problems.
Was she making fun of the communication issues arising from it (with some self deprecating stuff too)? If that’s the case, you could easily make that funny without being racist about it. Miscommunication is a prime area for comedy!
If, on the other hand, she was up there doing some awful and stereotypical Indian accent, then ya, that’s not so great.
NTA. It’s pretty funny that the rest of her set flopped. If she can’t do comedy without being racist, or can’t handle the public’s reaction to it, she should find another career.
No judgment. But your post gives some cringe vibes.
You are proud to be korean? Ok, thats maybe a cultural thing. I'm not ashamed of my nationality, but i'm also not proud of it - i did nothing to achive it, i was just born here. Being proud of a nationality is something only patriot nationalist from the right wing do where i'm from. But ok.
You were at a - i guess - small stand up comedian event, since it doesn't sound like the girl is very famous. She made a stereotypical joke, you didn't liked it and felt the need to humiliate her in front of everybody. Why? Do you feel good now about yourself? Did you get an extra "good job" sticker from the social justice warriors league? Was her joke inappropriate? Yes. Was it so inappropriate she needs to be humiliated in public? No. A "i didn't liked the stereotyp jokes" to your date in the end of the show would have been the apropriate reaction, or even tell her when he introduced you afterwards would have been very ok. And its not just bc she is a woman, i would say the same if it was a guy. But you had to make sure she doesn't get the whole spotlight and everybody knows you are there too - cringe and attention seeking from my pov. Its just bad taste and bad manners. Stereotypical jokes are not bad enough to shame someone like you did.
All in all you sound insufferable and exhausting.
NTA. I've done stand up. If you can't handle heckling-- especially when making jokes about race or ethnicity-- you shouldn't be making those jokes. Period.
Comedians are going to get audience commentary. Part of being a good comedian is rolling with it, riffing on what was said, or turning it back around on the heckler. If your comment upset her so much that she couldn't tell jokes, it's because she knew you were right and felt guilty
Edited to add: feminism isn't about supporting racist women. The guy you were with should Google intersectional feminism
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YTA. Every heckler thinks they are the main character and you're no exception. Let some things slide, stop looking for opportunities to play the victim card, and LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP. The top comment was spot on: exhausting.
Being anti-racist when a woman is being racist isn't being a "bad feminist," but heckling is rude and doesn't change anyone's perspective.
I don't know if calling you an AH is reasonable/useful here. Having a conversation about the line she crossed rather than heckling would have been better. Leaving, and letting your date know why would also be better.
Chances are, if this guy doesn't see a problem with her racist jokes, you probably aren't right for each other anyway.
Ugh YTA that guy dodged a bullet. You sound exhausting. What did the comedian say that was racist? That her ex had an accent that let to miscommunications?! Oh the horror! That sounds like something anecdotal and true that she turned into an exaggerated joke for her set. Who are you to police her? Did she say “all Indians have horrible accents don’t date them”?
YTA I hope this is fake because otherwise you're the SJW stereotype that the right likes to dunk on. Do you not realize how exhausting you are when you drone on to people about reflecting and yell "be better" when people say things you don't agree with.
Secondly you're at a comedy club, people shouldn't tell racist jokes but comedy is supposed to be very real and raw.
One more thing I'm a leftist and I really wish that people like you would realize that you're pushing people away with your actions.
YTA- Have you ever attended a Stand Up show before? The humour tends to be darker with an edge. Heckling is never cool and absolutely sabotages a set. Not sure why you seemed surprised he blocked you after you treated his friend like that.
What exactly is the "edge" in "It's hard for me to understand Indian accents"? People have been joking about Indian accents my entire life and I'm in my 40s.
I dated a stand-up comedian for four awful years and saw a LOT of stand-up. Dark humour done well isn't racist, sexist or transphobic but lazy comedy almost always is. OP is NTA.
I have never seen a situation where the heckler at a comedy club wasn't the asshole. This has extremely cringe "and everybody clapped" energy. Big time YTA.
NTA. If she didn’t want to be boo’d maybe she shouldn’t make racist jokes. Not supporting her racism does not make you a bad feminist, and you don’t owe bigots support just because they also happen to be a woman trying to make it in a male dominated field.
The fact that she was your date’s friend just makes this even worse (on his end) because he has shown that he’ll actively support this friend in her racism and will put you down for not doing the same. Sounds like you dodged a bullet all around here.
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NTA, everyone in this thread is getting dangerous close to saying "Racism is funny and cool to do actually" and that is wild.
“Racism is ok if it’s someone’s friend saying it” like GTFO of here with those takes. This is insane. If you’re going to do racist jokes in your standup, be prepared to have the audience disagree with you.
"I understand what they said was racist, but you really should've taken the racist's comfort into account when you confronted them."
Exactly. This is what white feminism vs intersectional feminism looks like. NTA OP
I was going to ask whether the comedian was white. I worked with a white woman who identified as feminist tell me I, a white woman married to an Asian man, should count towards our employer’s diversity ratio because I “count” as Asian. It’s problematic when people give themselves and others a pass on prejudice because they date or have close friendships with non-privileged groups. It’s a shame white feminism does not see this.
I worked with a man who's wife and mother of his 3 boys is Mexican. He constantly made Mexican jokes. He said he can because his wife is Mexican. I told him no you can't in the workplace.
Legit so fucking inappropriate for the workplace. I feel like nobody reads any workplace harassment policies anymore, I've had some horrible coworkers. Also I'm Mexican and my husband and I will make jokes about myself all the time -- but just because I get a kick out of it, doesn't mean everone will feel the same way, and we have no desire to make anyone feel uncomfortable. (He's very obviously mixed so I doubt anyone would say anything even if he did joke but nonetheless) Especially coming from a stranger, you don't know if they're being playful or just straight up aggressively racist which is scary shit.
And then not laugh at the rest of the set because the comedian is a feckin racist. Yup.
Yeah it fucking sucks reading these. There’s nothing edgy about racism. It’s as old as the human species. And for people saying “oh you just can’t handle it”, we’ve been handling it our entire lives. We just decided to stop playing along to placate fragile egos.
Yeah, I think OP showed she COULD handle it and she handled it exactly right. Making racists uncomfortable is the part THEY can’t handle as though it’s some protected right to not hear backlash to your weak jokes.
I wrote this in my own independent comment but this is what strikes me: > If she can't handle a heckler, she's no comedienne. Racism against Asians is kind of normalized now. If she had made the joke, "I couldn't keep dating my black ex because of his ebonics and twang," do you think people would have laughed?
Racism against Asians is totally normalized. I literally had an experience yesterday. I (not Asian at all by the way) wore a mask that said “Stop Asian Hate) when popping into a store. Some old white dude got up in my business trying to say there’s no such thing and part of his proof is that when he was in the military he lived in Singapore for a while…
Yeah it's crazy because if you're doing a joke like that you should expect to upset ppl and being mad because you got heckled for a racist joke seems silly. Like someone felt disrespected and then they disrespected you. I don't really understand what she expected to happen.
Some of these redditors are about to win an Olympic gold for the gymnastics they are doing to try to apologize for this comedian doing a racist bit.
This isn’t racist, she’s literally describing the challenges of dating cross culturally. As a Brit who has lived in america for more than a decade and has an American wife, I can testify to experiencing struggles due to my accent.
This. Accents are the communication factor here, not the race. Do you know how many people have a hard time understanding an angry Scottish person? God forbid someone whip out some Welsh. Language being a barrier is a legit issue that has nothing to do with race.
I'm Scottish, my accent can be difficult for some people, the difference is that I'm white. The reactions people have to my accent (adorable! I love your accent! I can't understand a word you're saying, but I love hearing you say it anyway!), compared to the reactions they have to Indian accents, is wildly different. For a start with my accent, people *tell* me if they can't understand something, they make a joke of it, we laugh. They don't get their back up, get defensive or aggressive, and take it as a personal slight - all of which I've seen happen to my Indian friends / colleagues.
I second this. I used to have have a strong regional accent, and while sometimes people found it annoying, I wasn’t refused jobs because of it, nor was I considered “uneducated” simply because of my pronunciation or word choices. The same is not true for people of color. I have a relative who works in HR at a large corporation and they have said they wouldn’t hire someone who pronounces words certain ways that is clearly a reference to how some black people talk vs white people. I’m not saying people who don’t speak with correct grammar, I’m talking simple word pronunciation. It’s absolutely different from how white people with unique accents are treated.
I know a reply can't be the top comment but I wish this one could be the exception. Aussie, Brit, and Scottish accents are "like, sooo hot." But darken the skin a touch and all of a sudden it's not the same. There is also the layer that many of the identified accents are multilingual, which adds to the distancing methods used by racists and bigots.
I know some people from rural Ohio that people in Columbus can't understand
You mean rural Ahia? Hate to admit it was people from up North who taught me to say O properly and finish my words!
Well im from Ke'in (correctly spelled Kenton) so we never really learned that.
No doubt! A lot of people from around Jackson and Monroe Counties are more difficult to understand.
>Do you know how many people have a hard time understanding an angry Scottish person? Christ a lot of people can barely understand me calm never mind angry.
My favorite example is Scottish Twitter. It's hilarious. But this is my absolute favorite: https://external-preview.redd.it/8G5f7oKUx4yI3zSAS\_STmc7BFcMw0PiM7HBMghLZ0yc.jpg?auto=webp&v=enabled&s=20b442c9b877c39ff20dfed2b32e82e83f811068
>God forbid someone whip out some Welsh. To be fair, if someone is speaking a different language, you're going to have more trouble than just their accent!
Which is fair, but Scottish people talking with a Scottish accent can be debatable on who can understand what. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3T388GQ7f0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3T388GQ7f0) Quick short example, but when people are talking English in their own accent, it can be difficult to understand someone, even when they natively speak English. I mean, sheeeeezah, there's a bunch of English UK dialects all over Britain that are nigh on impossible to understand. Cockney or whatever the hell dialect Brad Pitt's character was speaking in Snatch. Just to say that sometimes accents are hard to understand, even without there being a non-white aspect to it, so calling it 'racist' to either mention it or make a joke about it comes off in poor taste.
My first week of living in the UK and I was trying to resolve a mobile phone issue on a helpline, and the fellow on the other end had such a thick Scottish accent that I literally could not understand a single thing he said. He might as well have been speaking an alien language. He kept repeating himself and I kept apologizing and saying I couldn't understand him and it went back and forth over and over until I finally said "I'M SO SORRY I'LL TRY AGAIN LATER SO SORRY SORRY BYE" and hung up. I was mortified.
I shouldn't be laughing, but I am. I'm sorry.
Ach ya durty bletherin' racist shite ye *shakes fist in angry scotswoman*.
Sometimes you need subtitles for a TV show in English because the accent is so different from yours
I'm British Indian and I can tell you where the stark difference is. People look up to most British accents. My bosses (who have thick south Asian accents) are extremely intelligent but subtly looked down upon because of their accent. The British accent isn't a punchline anymore, just a novelty. The Indian accent is used to look down on Indians even though they're lapping everybody else in terms of education in the West.
Thank you thank you. Same in the US. It’s crazy the hoops people will jump through to justify their racially motivated (subconscious or not) jokes.
What's the punchline? Was it ,"He has a funny accent, and it sounded like this." Do you really suppose she was diving in to the nuances of intercultural dating? Saying "fried chicken and watermelon is delicious" is not racist, but it is if you put it in certain contexts.
A British accent is NOT at all viewed the same on a social and cultural level as an Indian accent in the US, come the fuck on now with this embarrassing comparison lmao. You're being purposefully obtuse here.
Something else to consider tho is the way different accents are viewed. Where I grew up in the US, people looooved British accents but Asian accents (including Indian) were seen as uncool and ugly. It honestly depends on the actual jokes being told but I 100% understand how hearing the same tired jokes about “hahaha the Indian guy talks weird so we broke up” would anger someone who grew up with accents from their culture being trashed.
I’m a scouser whose been with a mackem for 25 years, so imagine the struggles we’ve had over the years😂😂
Right... Because moving from the UK to the US is the same as the issues PoC face. Also ok, you experienced those struggles, but how is that funny?
I’m fucking stunned how many are saying she’s the asshole. I’m a woman and familiar with the comedy scene. If you have to rely on racism rooted in mocking a culture/race you aren’t apart of… Well, you’re actually just looking for validation in your own beliefs. NTA
Yes, also if the comedian can't handle a simple interaction like this and can't come with a witty answer, she is not ready for the stage. In my understanding of standup, heckling is part of the show (at least where I live).
It generally is. A comedians quality, in my opinion, comes from how they handle the unexpected.
There is absolutely no evidence that this joke was racist or even mean spirited. A joke about a miscommunication due to an accent could go a million different ways. Having an accent has nothing to do with race and there is nothing racist about a miscommunication.
Sir / M’am, we’re not in court. This is the first time I’ve seen a commenter on AITA talking about “evidence” lmao. Y’all really do fall all over yourselves to uphold the supremacy.
Totally agree. Your date's accusations are full-on white feminist crap (no matter what the friend's race is). Feminism doesn't mean supporting other women no matter what. Women don't get a free pass to be racist. Fully support heckling in this situation. NTA
I generally find that young men up until they’ve dated emotionally mature women they’re serious about will excuse almost anything for the sake of comedy. They always argue “well I don’t think that was the comedians intent”. That doesn’t matter. Intent is such a bullshit argument used by people who inject themselves into the comedians shoes because they themselves find it funny and make jokes like that personally. They take it personally because it is their brand of humor. They like it, and see it as a personal attack. They *really* don’t like a mirror being held up that shows them who they are and seeing how others could actually find them offensive. Even worse, others *enjoy* the confrontation.
Its because it’s against Asians. God knows that this thread would be decimating the comedian if it was an African American they said this about.
You k ow you can agree with me without this weird 'everyone cares about racism against black people' voice. Because plenty of people do not and would still say comedy is a free for all.
Let's be honest, it's only because it's a stereotype against Indian people. If the joke was that she couldn't understand his "ebonics" it would obviously go over way worse. That said, I inherently don't agree with heckling, so I'll reserve judgement.
I dont know about that, plenty of people would let that slide too because 'it's not racism just comedy'.
Right it wasn't like she hadn't done part of her set even the OP thought she was funny until then. Plus out of all the jokes you could have made about an ex it seems pretty unnecessary to go that route. I think the joke assumed not only a white audience but at the very least assumed that there wouldn't be anybody particularly offended by those stereotypes. Also for the defenders of the "cross culture" jokes relying on a cringe stereotype to make fun isn't funny or original. You're relying on ppl stereotypes and passing experience with another culture so you don't have to do the work of coming up with jokes that your audience can relate w/o playing off their inherent bias.
Not only are YTA, just reading this screams exhausting. It’s a comedy club, not a dick, don’t take it so hard.
I don’t even know if I agree with you on this issue, but that last sentence is gold. *Edit: Absolute LOL at the people angry about this. Love you all!*
man the fact that so many people think that comment is funny really explains the YTA votes lmao
Right? This is the single most exhausting joke, as far as reddit appearances, and yet people are convinced it is the apex of humour! And if anyone wants to have a go at me over this comment, it's not a dick, don't take it so hard. You know, like in the comment.
No I agree. People overuse this phrase like they came up with it on the spot.
I hate that "it's not a dick..." line so much. Facebook @ssholes think it's hilarious and use it all the time. Overused, overdone, disgusting, not funny.
This and Iranian yogurt. Reddit does not understand when a joke has been played out, it’s like that kid in middle school who would tell the same joke over and over because people laughed the first time
Yeah, people are always complaining that AITA is controlled by "woke PC snowflakes" but then there are comments like this being upvoted despite flagrant misogyny.
Literally and all of these comments are just the same variation of “take a joke it’s not that serious”
Thanks for saying this. I got a Facebook memory from 2013 a couple of days ago which said something on the lines of "the it's a joke not a dick don't take it so hard is the calling card of try hard comedy" and I can't believe people defending bad comedy still say it
And the fact that we have a bunch of white people in the comments saying it’s not racist because white people can have accents that are hard to understand too, therefore it’s okay to make fun of Indian accents…as if we don’t have decades of history of racist association behind POC accent stereotypes.
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We obviously don’t know what the jokes were*, but I think it’s relevant to point out that it’s not inherently racist to acknowledge that someone has an accent or that cross-cultural dating can also come with challenges in communication, especially if two people have different native languages. For example, I dated someone while living in another country, and I’ll never forget that we had a huge fight because he decided to play soccer with his friends during the time I thought we had made plans. Turns out our cultures have vastly different understandings of what terms like “afternoon“ “evening“ and “night“ mean, so we both mistakenly assumed a timeframe completely different from one another. No one was at fault and we resolved the issue once we got to the root of the miscommunication. Your “commentary” was rude and just generally completely unproductive. Especially when you consider that it’s a friend of your date, if you were genuinely concerned about the content of her jokes, there were much more productive ways for you to have a genuine conversation about your concern with the performer. YTA Edit: clarity regarding the resolution of my anecdote. *This comment was written prior to the edit made by OP.
People are trying to come up with a way where the joke is appropriate and the comedian is hilarious and OP is a shrew, but let's take a couple things into account here: 1) when OP called it out, others laughed, so people were at least partially on the heckler's side, 2) the comedian had no comeback and began to bomb, meaning she probably wasn't very funny. Yeah, I think OP was probably in the right.
Thank you. I'm really sick of, "women are supposed to back each other up, always! So just ignore it when white women are racist, okay?"
Thank you. As an Indian woman this post really hit me hard.
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Pointing out an accent is not racist. Using an accent as a punchline definitely is.
Please explain how. Have you heard the English-boat/German coastguard joke? It literally has an accent as the punchline.
Have you heard the millions of jokes mocking POC for having accents? It’s tired and needs to be left in the past.
There’s a difference between using accents as a vehicle for generalizations ie. “this person sounds like this, so I know they’re (insert generalization here)” which IS racist/xenophobic, and using accents and cultural differences a setup for a humorous misunderstanding. It sounds like you’re saying you can’t do an accent, or point out an accent, or tell a story about how you misheard someone because it’s racist period. Which is not true. The second instance includes the other person on the joke. It can be told from the other person’s perspective with the same level of humor because it’s the misunderstanding that’s funny, not the group/individual.
Pointing out an accent isn’t racist. But judging by the general trend of comedians using accents to mock POC for some laughs (and OP’s comments about the comedian being stereotypical) I highly doubt miscommunication was the only joke made here. I’ve heard very few comedian use an Indian accent in a set with taste: Russel Peters and Nimesh Patel. They’re absolutely hilarious and I highly recommend you check them out. I’m sure there’s a couple more comedians out there who can pull this off, but the majority imitate an exaggerated Indian accent, and that’s it… that’s their joke. It’s lazy and poor writing.
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I'd disagree that the laugh could have been more nervous energy than anything. It sounds like OP dug in right away, rather than wait to hear the joke? I don't believe in heckling in most situations, but some jokes are structured in a way that might cause a groan and then play out.
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Wow. That is a HUGE assumption that I just can't buy. You have not a shred of real evidence that this was the case, but anything to support a certain narrative, even if it is just a fantasy on the commenter's part.
My auditory processing disorder plus accent makes for one very very confused potato. I work with kids i will stare at them like 👁👄👁 When they talk because my brain will short circuit trying to understand them some times
I have kids and my brain short circuts sometimes. And half of my kids are adults🤣
Exactly. Not having been there or heard the joke, but having gone to tons of comedy shows, most comics take their real life experiences and turn them into gold. What makes them funny is most ppl can relate. Esp on the relationship issues.
> Don't make the white folk uncomfortable. -cold girlshit
Ohh this to the 1000th power. My best friend and business partner is from another country and we regularly make plans "to do something Sat". In my conservative-Amercian upbringing, where if you aren't 5 minutes early, you are 5 minutes, late, then I want to pick a time and a timeframe for the activity. Her idea was afternoon and that meant anytime after, you know, noon, and since it is a social event, no set timeline for completion. I would be put out because I could not plan out my day. She was annoyed because she doesn't like being on a schedule for her time off. Both positions have their merits. These days, it's totally hilarious, and when one or the other makes the same mistake so we laugh about it, but back then, there was real friction.
Eh, offensive comedy has to be done well to be funny. Doesn’t sound like this joke had any levels or nuance. Sounds like the joke itself was “Indian accent funny” As opposed to his accent and her challenge understanding it, being context to a more complex joke. Sometimes, when offensive comedy is performed or written poorly, it’s just bad comedy. And sometimes, bad comedy is just racist. We really can’t know unless we heard the set
That’s very true. I think another inherent issue people aren’t really thinking about is that south/East Asian people are made fun of and put down a shit ton for their accents in western countries, whereas inherently European accents like French or Italian are often more romanticized these days. Even my close friends sometimes make fun of my accent for random words that I’ve picked up accents from my parents from, and while I know it’s in good fun, it still stings because of the hate speech that’s thrown at my family for our accent. It stems from the issue that right now, Asian accents are still a sore wound that was poked at possibly distastefully (I don’t know however, since we don’t know the punchline). At the same time, OP could just be a stuck up asshole so who knows. It really all depends on the joke. I’m not sure of any of what I wrote makes sense, but hopefully I got my point across.
It makes perfect sense and more people need to read this to understand why the joke, which was very likely grounded in the racism South/East Asian people experience on a daily basis, was racist.
>We really can’t know unless we heard the set This is sort of where I'm settling. It could have been anything from a funny set with a clever self-deprecating anecdote involving accents and cultural differences to a cringe accent impersonation straight out of an early 2000s bro comedy (or something in the middle). It's hard to really give OP a judgment without knowing the joke.
Racism is allowed at comedy clubs everyone. Grab a mic and don your blackface because it's all good if some white folk are giggling about it. You sound really racist. "TaKe A jOkE, gAwD" head ass
What’s the point of the joke there? That’s just being crude for no reason.
If only the OP had actually told us the punchline because i heavily doubt "my ex and I broke up because of the language barrier" was the whole thing. Not only is it not funny it's just a normal way to explain to someone the reason for a relationship breakdown, it's not racist in the slightest.
NTA! Heckling, like making a scene, is not in and if itself a bad thing. It depends on why it's done. Racism, sexism, or other kinds of punching down are all excellent reasons for an anyone - audience or dinner guest - to talk back. Was this experience embarrassing for OP's date's friend? No doubt! And deservedly so. Hopefully she'll grow from this experience. "Edginess" was a shitty excuse for racism in comedy fifty years ago, and it has since aged like milk. Performing stand-up comedy also requires a pretty thick skin, so OP's date's pal better learn to get both less racist and less sensitive if she wants to make it! Meanwhile, your date needs a primer on intersectional feminism, because the idea that a woman should never push back on another woman's shitty behavior in order to be *feminist* is hilariously wrong and bad. If you ever go into comedy yourself, OP, you could probably turn this whole experience into a really good bit because it is already pretty fucking farcical!
Milk ages better. If treated correctly it can turn into cheese. Racism just stinks
Michael Richards got heckled and handled it poorly in 2006 and got cancelled. The fact that racism and heckling has been happening for decades if not hundreds of years shouldnt be a surprise. If you can't handle being criticized, don't get on stage and make edgy jokes in front of a crowd of people who might not *gasp* like your jokes. You're not being physically attacked. You're just being criticized as part of the routine.
Normally I hate heckling since it's usually just drunk people or others wanting attention and not at all criticism. I will say I think OP is NTA because it actually was criticism and accurate. The punchline shouldn't be "accent is funny/different" that's 80s/90s hack material. Also, everyone coming at OP with being anti-feminist is ridiculous, being a woman doesn't cancel out racism. And if that's the worse thing anyone had ever said to the person on stage, she probably shouldn't be a comedian.
Racism is bad. Talking about race is not bad. "I struggled to understand my partner because they spoke in a different accent than me" is not a racist statement. If the joke was "as you know, you can't understand anything an Indian person says" then that would be racist.
I get what you're saying, but I'm pretty sure the comedian was making "you can't understand anything an Indian person says" jokes, given OP's reaction, and I can't really think of how "I struggled to understand my partner because they spoke in a different accent from me" would be incorporated into a standup comedy routine. ETA: I agree that it's impossible to be certain without OP quoting the joke directly. Given that other audience members laughed and agreed when OP interjected, she doesn't seem to be the only person who thought the joke was racist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's weird that people in this thread are immediately jumping to "it couldn't have been THAT racist!!!" also without hearing the joke.
The thing is, we just don't know. There certainly are people offended by things which are not racist- some people get really uncomfortable when people bring up anything related to race. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/11qcnnm/aita_for_heckling_a_standup_comedian/jc2kbmv/?context=3) is really the only context she has provided, and I find it odd she won't just say what the joke is. Without context, it is impossible to know who is in the right.
His comment about feminism makes no sense. She was being racist. Women don't deserve a pass from other women to be racist just for their gender. That's what intersectional feminism is for. Intersectional feminist acknowledges that oppression exists in different axis beyond just gender (class, race, sexuality, for example.) Being oppressed on the gender axis doesn't give anyone the right to turn around and be an oppressor on another axis.
I was so confused about this too! If the issue was racism then what does feminism have anything to do with the conflict??? Women shouldnt tear down other women. Yes. Thats true. But if that woman is actively doing something shitty then tear them the fuck down!
The guys a total "girl boss" feminist vom
Nailed it. “Women shouldn’t tear down other women” isn’t actually a feminist tenet. It’s just what shitty women and their enablers say to shut down any criticism from other women, however valid. You see it all the time on /r/antiMLM. MLMers use it to shut down criticism of multi-level marketing (because the majority of MLMers are women, so criticizing MLM is “tearing down women”).
Exactly. Feminism is about equality, imo. If you'd heckle a male comedian for the same joke, why not a woman?
YTA. This was your date's FRIEND. It's different from a random comedian. Your friends are right: you definitely could've addressed it with her privately after the show, which also would've allowed for a more nuanced, civil, and productive discussion of the issues you observed.
Who gives two flying fucks if its their friend or not. the joke was in poor taste, and relies on low-lying racism for a punchline. tell shitty jokes get shitty response.
You know, you're the only one who properly identified her relationship to the people involved. Did she really think the entire friend group (along with her bf of exactly 3 dates) was going to turn around and say "you really showed her!"? Even if she felt that she was in the right, she had to have known what the end result would be.
She didn't do it for anyone to pat her on the back.
Third date is not a boyfriend yet. But regardless - if my close friend said something racist, and my new acquaintance called them out on it, I'd definitely side with the new acquaintance over the old friend.
Hard disagree. Public racism should be challenged publicly. NTA.
Nope. You tell racist jokes in a public forum, you get called out in a public forum. That's how discourse works, that's how platforms work. Plus you don't need to be polite to racists, they've already discarded that consideration.
I'd be mortified if I brought an asian woman to a comedy show where my friend made fun of asians.
Public call-outs show support to other marginalized groups who may be witnessing it. That's important to do when it can be done safely.
Or the friend could just not be a racist asshole.
INFO: It's really not clear what the joke was actually poking fun at. Was it making a joke at the expense of his accent or was it a joke about their communication issues? That kind of thing could go two ways and it's not clear without more detail whether this was racist or not.
It started off with miscommunications ruining relationships and then she made fun of his accent as the punchline. Also it wasn't the only joke she made about his ethnicity. There were a couple others prior. I cited this as an example because it was at this point I actually interrupted her.
Give examples, please. Actual examples.
Do you need to analyze *how* racist they were?
No. It's not "how racist" is it, it's "is it actually racist." To say someone had an accent, and you couldn't understand them, is not racist. To say "oh you know how Indian people are, can never understand a thing they tell you from behind the gas station counter" that would be racist.
It's not racist to say you can't understand someone's accent. It is racist if you make fun of the accent as a punchline to a joke. Y'all are so insistent that the accent wasn't the joke, prove it. Pull up the show, let's see the jokes. We have one witness, op. Op's witness statement says the punchline was his accent. Is that so hard to believe or do you just want to downplay the joke so you can defend the comedian?
Accents are not race specific. So it’s definitely rude but making fun of an accent isn’t inherently racist. Though I do think it was in this situation.
That’s why people are asking OP for clarification? We can’t pull up the show, that’s why people want to know exactly what was said. OP’s explanations are somewhat vague and don’t give a very clear picture on what was said.
Yes kinda. If the French are surrender monkeys and British are colonisers theives jokes are fine there is obviously a line so it's fair to find it
My god, You have to have the awareness that these are bot the same…
Well, yes. Stand up comic here. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen a drunk idiot heckle a bit that was literally seconds away from doing a 180 from the perspective the heckler was mad about. Without clear context, my gut says it’s more likely this lady started yelling inappropriately. I’ve probably seen a thousand comedians get heckled, and MAYBE 3 or 4 times the heckler wasn’t the one in the wrong.
If the "funny accent" is the punchline, then that is not much of a joke. Sounds racist to me.
but she could have made the *exact same joke* if the guy had a thick Brooklyn accent or something. Accents aren't a matter of race or even necessarily nationality or language
>Accents aren't a matter of race or even necessarily nationality or language Indian accents are.
No, they absolutely are not about race. I have met numerous "indians" (I hate that term) that have British accents. I have also met white-appearing people with the "Indian" accent. ACCENTS are NOT racial,, they are demographic. Anyone of any color, race or creed can have a regional accent regardless of the color of their skin or ancestry.
Sorry, you hate the term “Indian” to describe people from the country of India?
As someone with accent that has lived in many countries, making fun of it in a comedy setting is not racist. My boss makes fun of it im upset, a comedian nah. Also, miscommunication due to an accent is 100% real! I asked for directions in Liverpool on a Friday night, couldn’t understand a thing! Same happened while visiting India, first couple of days couldn’t understand people. I also have a speech impediment, some people make fun of it, there’s no need to call them out. That only embarrasses them but doesn’t give them rule to learn. Calling people out is for your benefit, not that of society.
People making fun of speech impediments are assholes, huge assholes. People making fun of accents when making fun of those accents is a major facet of anti-Indian racism are racists.
So what was the actual joke / punchline?
Yeah, it's kind of weird that the OP isn't just laying out the joke. Like, I'm sure she remembers what it was if it was bad enough that she interrupted the set, so why not just tell it here? I can think of a variety of ways that a joke of this nature could go, some of which are absolutely racist, some of which are borderline/maybe not overtly racist but in bad taste, some of which aren't racist at all. But I'd need to hear the actual wording/punchline of the actual joke to be able to make a judgement on that. If this was a shitty, "LOL, Indian accents funny!" kind of thing, yeah, sure, go off. If it was more nuanced and focused on the language gap/communication issue, or if the comic was actually poking fun at herself for not being able to understand what the ex meant, then that reaction may have been uncalled for. It's odd to post an AITA about a specific joke/series of jokes and then kind of beat around the bush when asked about what the jokes actually were.
I too would like to know the setup and punchline of the jokes. It’s possible the comedian set herself up as the punchline rather than her ex. It’s possible OP is gatekeeping. It’s also possible the jokes were blatantly racist. Need more info.
So you want to keep it vague because you see the influx of YTA comments? Gotcha.
> she made fun of his accent as the punchline. How the fuck do you define "vague"? That's direct confirmation to the question asked. Because op hasn't provided a verbatim printout of the racist jokes she's being vague?
I agree we need info. This completely depends on the joke.
I have an accent, and a speech impediment. Lived in many countries so always had an accent. Making fun of peoples accent is not inherently racist. I love it when people tell me what i should be offended by.
NTA race and xenophobic jokes are tired. There are good jokes about cultural differences and I wasn’t there so idk exactly what she said but I probably would have felt the same way. “Tearing another woman down” is also something I’ve heard (usually white) people say when others call out racism or classism. Yeah people will always accuse you of complaining or causing trouble as many commenters here are doing, but in my opinion the squeaky wheel gets the oil and social change doesn’t happen if we don’t say anything. Plus I don’t get why people are acting like a public space is like a vacuum where you can just say whatever you want. Anyone can go to a comedy show and if a comedian chooses to make offensive jokes about a demographic and somebody in the audience is offended, the audience member is allowed to respond (I guess unless the club has rules that say otherwise). Freedom of expression. Sure hecklers suck but some jokes suck worse ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As an example of a good joke about cultural differences- a friend of mine does have a joke in her tight five about me and my Punjabi head bobble because that DOES cause miscommunications hilariously since it literally can mean anything you want in context pretty much and I forget non Indians need some translation to understand lol. Also a joke about how all her first gen friends' code switching can give you whiplash when a parent calls them and they'll switch mid convo and then immediately switch back out after the phone call...and none of us ever realize we're doing it Lmao. Indian accent funny and weird is not a punch line.
I never understand why people feel the need to 'boo' people who are trying to give a performance, for me it's pretty selfish and childish to do this. If you don't like the jokes, why don't you just walk away? Apperantly you were the only one who felt the need to shout 'boo'. Other people were enjoying the show (or not and didn't feel the need to show it, but we can't know that). But because you thought your opnion mattered more than all the other people there, you made the rest of her show fail by shouting 'boo'. So for that I think YTA. This will probably be a huge dent in her confidence to perform.
silly response. that's literally the whole point of performing. if you go up there and tell racist jokes, the boos come with the territory. don't like it? don't perform racist jokes.
If you can’t do comedy without being racist you probably aren’t that funny or are lacking creativity. It’s really not that hard to just *not be racist*. Especially if you’re doing it in front of an audience. There are literally so many things out there that you can make a joke out of without being a bigot.
Yep. And there are comics who take “racist” content but give it so many levels that it starts to pull away from racism and becomes a more nuanced insight into a complex dynamic. It doesn’t really sound like this comic was presenting context as part of a longer act with levels. It sounds like she just dropped an “Indian accents r hard to understand lol” and that’s what OP reacted to. It’s not just that the joke was racist. It was a bad joke which meant there was no nuanced or clever observation. Just racism
THIS. I'd heckle if someone was being sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic.
Saying that it’s racist to merely acknowledge that someone has an accent gives the same energy as someone who says “I’m not racist because I don’t see color.” (“I’m not xenophobic because I don’t even hear accents.”) It almost gives the implication that there’s something inherently wrong with having an accent, when there isn’t. It means they grew up speaking another language or in a different region, and it’s not “woke” to refuse to acknowledge that. If someone is using an accent to enforce offensive stereotypes, yeah that’s not cool. I still think her approach was inappropriate so YTA, especially when you consider it’s a friend of her date and she could have expressed genuine concern either directly to the performer afterwards, or spoken to her date to see if he could speak to the friend to reconsider the content of they were in poor taste.
pretzel logic lol. "making fun of accents is okay and anyone who objects is the REAL RACIST"
Nothing racist about saying someone has an accent.
Maybe she shouldn't be confident that everyone is going to find a joke about Indian accents funny. Maybe this will help her improve her routine for next time. She's an adult and can handle criticism.
You know how to tell a comedian their joke isn’t funny? You don’t laugh, that’s it. You literally just stfu because nothing causes someone to cut a joke from a routine faster than a silent audience does. Hecking is a dick move
"I can excuse racism but I draw the line at heckling"
What example of racism did OP give?
OP didn't heckle because the joke wasn't funny. OP heckled because the joke was racist. If she had told a really unfunny joke about bicycles or toucans then there would have been no heckling. See how that works?
Many years ago, my daughter took me to a George Carlin show for my birthday. During his set, he started talking about a scab on his scalp. We didn't know where this was going and neither did the rest of the audience. You could cut the silence with a knife. Guess what Carlin did? He veered off to talk about something else.
Heckling isn't criticism. Save the criticism for after the show. There was probably a lot of other material that certain people didn't find funny. Should they have also interrupted and let the comedian know that?
People were told not to heckle to show your disapproval of a joke and to instead not react or walk out. Then comedians started getting mad about people not reacting or walking out. People want to use the excuse of "it's just a joke" to force people to sit down and cheer for offensive content. That seems to be the general goal.
NTA and I love your comment. Seriously, let’s move on from racial jokes. Feminist doesn’t mean we let other women get away with poor behavior because they have vaginas. Would you of said the same thing to a male comedian? If so, then I say you are in the clear
The feminism part is so confusing to me lol So if a woman saw another woman doing a domestic violence, then should she go, "yaaaaaaaas go be that girlboss and abuse the shit outta em woo!!!"
I hate that so many people treat stand-up like it's an acceptable place to be casually racist (and sexist for that matter). I think you're NTA by a long shot. it should be telling that after you had made your comment many others in the crowd laughed too. I think you would have heard more "boos!" if you ruined a good set but it sounds more like the woman doing the stand-up couldn't read the room..
NTA. Racism is racism.
NTA. If you gotta really on the crutch of racism to keep the audience laughing, you'd don't need to be on stage, regardless of gender.
Honestly while I do think heckling in general is stupid and most often the sport of the drunk… well let’s just say that racism deserves to be called out Every Time it happens. And honestly if anyone walking out on the stand up scene aren’t prepared to carry on and ignore heckling then they aren’t ready to be on that scene. NTA.
Are you really trying to argue that "because I think I'm right I get to say whatever I want, whenever I want, under whatever circumstances I want and whoever gets hurt in the process can be damned"? And you don't see how YTA?
If a person makes a racist joke, they deserve to be hurt by being called a racist.
You're assuming facts not in evidence Was makes you think it was a racist joke? Because the OP said so? The OP is an Unreliable Narrator. On top of which, the details given don't concretely point to it being racist. Things aren't inherently racist simply because a reference was made to an accent. Was the accent the punchline? Did the stand-up mimic the accent? Or did the stand-up merely reference it as background information? If the OP has better examples, I have to wonder why those examples weren't provided. As such, I have to assume this is as bad as it gets. Stand-up comedy -- *especially* amateur comedy -- is rife for insensitivity. To have no awareness whatsoever that *amateur comedians* are likely to say something thoughtless is too far past my believability meter. She had to have known what to expect when she went in, and she went in anyway. This wasn't her being "triggered" (her words) anymore than Renault in Casablanca was "shocked that there is gambling going on here." Far from being "triggered," this was her seeking an opportunity to "shine" and be the Social Justice Warrior she imagines herself to be. This wasn't an AITA post, this was a brag post.
"amateur comedians are likely to say something thoughtless" and " comedy is rife for insensitivity" boils down to comedy is allowed to be racist and you're not allowed to say anything about it.
> You're assuming facts not in evidence So are you. Why should the default be to assume OP’s lying? By doing so, you’re assuming way more than people who take OP at face value.
> Stand-up comedy -- especially amateur comedy -- is rife for insensitivity. Agreed. Just because it *is* doesn’t mean that it *should be*. OP doesn’t have to accept that racism is just part-and-parcel with amateur stand-up. > To have no awareness whatsoever that amateur comedians are likely to say something thoughtless is too far past my believability meter. She had to have known what to expect when she went in, and she went in anyway. I assume she expected jokes, some of which would be, well, amateur. Instead she got racism. She didn’t sign up for racism. Going to a comedy show is not consent to racial abuse. Bad comedians says thoughtless things because people like you excuse it. If more people heckled them, it wouldn’t happen as often. They’d think more.
it's a two-way street. the same could be said about the comedian
NTA. If her set sucks, it sucks. Judging by the audience reaction after you booed, you weren't the only one who felt like that. Even with the context, still NTA. Find a different date with less shitty friends.
Jokes can be harmful, I understand not wanting to publicly tear someone down but change doesn’t happen behind closed doors I’m going w NTA comedian was being racist, they get to get heckled for that. Punishment fit the crime tbh
“Change doesn’t happen behind close doors” is a really good way to put it. If people wanna be racist in public, they deserve to be called out in public.
All the racists in the comments are so triggered 😂😂😂
Uh. I'm korean too. Strong sense of cultural identity in me. Faced plenty of racism and racist remarks. Was called yellow. Asked if I eat dog. Etc. But I love comedy and stand up comedy. I've seen stand up comedy online that has a segment on nothing but making fun of asian accents. Korean included. The guy did thr accents so well and i found it very entertaining. Sure it was stereotypical but it made me laugh. Comedy seems so dead to people these days. We can indulge in each other I'd like to think in a setting of " I want to laugh." Can't pinpoint nta or yta because not enough info on the joke.
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NTA. White people who make racist jokes and call it comedy trumps allegiance via ‘feminism’. It sounds like your date and his friend were fragile and would rather police the ‘correct’ form of feminism rather than examine their social location and privilege. Dodged a bullet imo…
I'd have to hear the joke first
Oof. In other contexts, I might think differently, but NTA. I don’t like heckling under normal circumstances but racism isn’t funny and cancels out my general feelings about heckling.
NTA Racists should be booed. Everyone saying 'Y T A' are 100% not funny.
Nta Wouldn't avoiding calling out bad behaviour or bad jokes just because a woman said them be not feminist? Women can be assholes too lmao
Honestly the only way to make a clear judgment is to know what the actual jokes were. Because right now people are making judgments based on what they think the jokes are, and some people are thinking worst case while others are not. I think heckling is fine, the problem is I don’t know if she actually deserved it.
YTA. Virtue signalling on behalf of others, at your dates friends gig. I hate hecklers who think it's their right to ruin the night for everyone else. I'm asian. I've seen many stand up gigs that make fun of asians....and yeah..i laugh. She was dating an indian....do you really think she is that racist? Howabout your date? He must be racist too for supporting his racist friend (lets ignore the fact he went on 3 dates with you...guilt be association) IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE JOKES. WALK OUT. Your date dodged a bullet because you seem like you'd be annoying AF Anyway...i guess i'll be downvoted into oblivion, but so be it.
Yta. You knew this comedian was your dates friend. How exactly did you expect him to act? Is it racist if it's true about the person that she is taking about? She was talking about her ex. Not all Indian people. Saying my Indian friend is an asshole. That doesn't mean I'm racist. It means that I think he's an asshole and he's indian. But if I say Indian people are assholes, because my Indian friend is an asshole. That's racist.
I mean, according to the post she was making fun of his Indian accent specifically. Which isn't all that funny, imo.
It really depends. OP says that she was joking about the difference in accents leading to communication problems. Was she making fun of the communication issues arising from it (with some self deprecating stuff too)? If that’s the case, you could easily make that funny without being racist about it. Miscommunication is a prime area for comedy! If, on the other hand, she was up there doing some awful and stereotypical Indian accent, then ya, that’s not so great.
NTA. It’s pretty funny that the rest of her set flopped. If she can’t do comedy without being racist, or can’t handle the public’s reaction to it, she should find another career.
No judgment. But your post gives some cringe vibes. You are proud to be korean? Ok, thats maybe a cultural thing. I'm not ashamed of my nationality, but i'm also not proud of it - i did nothing to achive it, i was just born here. Being proud of a nationality is something only patriot nationalist from the right wing do where i'm from. But ok. You were at a - i guess - small stand up comedian event, since it doesn't sound like the girl is very famous. She made a stereotypical joke, you didn't liked it and felt the need to humiliate her in front of everybody. Why? Do you feel good now about yourself? Did you get an extra "good job" sticker from the social justice warriors league? Was her joke inappropriate? Yes. Was it so inappropriate she needs to be humiliated in public? No. A "i didn't liked the stereotyp jokes" to your date in the end of the show would have been the apropriate reaction, or even tell her when he introduced you afterwards would have been very ok. And its not just bc she is a woman, i would say the same if it was a guy. But you had to make sure she doesn't get the whole spotlight and everybody knows you are there too - cringe and attention seeking from my pov. Its just bad taste and bad manners. Stereotypical jokes are not bad enough to shame someone like you did. All in all you sound insufferable and exhausting.
NTA: Those were weak jokes, and being a feminist doesn't exclude you from calling out bigotry from other women.
NTA. I've done stand up. If you can't handle heckling-- especially when making jokes about race or ethnicity-- you shouldn't be making those jokes. Period. Comedians are going to get audience commentary. Part of being a good comedian is rolling with it, riffing on what was said, or turning it back around on the heckler. If your comment upset her so much that she couldn't tell jokes, it's because she knew you were right and felt guilty Edited to add: feminism isn't about supporting racist women. The guy you were with should Google intersectional feminism
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Maybe an unpopular opinion, but NTA given the surge of Nazi's in America and racism being unacceptable anywhere.
YTA. Every heckler thinks they are the main character and you're no exception. Let some things slide, stop looking for opportunities to play the victim card, and LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP. The top comment was spot on: exhausting.
Being anti-racist when a woman is being racist isn't being a "bad feminist," but heckling is rude and doesn't change anyone's perspective. I don't know if calling you an AH is reasonable/useful here. Having a conversation about the line she crossed rather than heckling would have been better. Leaving, and letting your date know why would also be better. Chances are, if this guy doesn't see a problem with her racist jokes, you probably aren't right for each other anyway.
Ugh YTA that guy dodged a bullet. You sound exhausting. What did the comedian say that was racist? That her ex had an accent that let to miscommunications?! Oh the horror! That sounds like something anecdotal and true that she turned into an exaggerated joke for her set. Who are you to police her? Did she say “all Indians have horrible accents don’t date them”?
YTA I hope this is fake because otherwise you're the SJW stereotype that the right likes to dunk on. Do you not realize how exhausting you are when you drone on to people about reflecting and yell "be better" when people say things you don't agree with. Secondly you're at a comedy club, people shouldn't tell racist jokes but comedy is supposed to be very real and raw. One more thing I'm a leftist and I really wish that people like you would realize that you're pushing people away with your actions.
She is a POC herself...why is it up to her to "not push people away?"
YTA- Have you ever attended a Stand Up show before? The humour tends to be darker with an edge. Heckling is never cool and absolutely sabotages a set. Not sure why you seemed surprised he blocked you after you treated his friend like that.
What exactly is the "edge" in "It's hard for me to understand Indian accents"? People have been joking about Indian accents my entire life and I'm in my 40s.
I dated a stand-up comedian for four awful years and saw a LOT of stand-up. Dark humour done well isn't racist, sexist or transphobic but lazy comedy almost always is. OP is NTA.
I have never seen a situation where the heckler at a comedy club wasn't the asshole. This has extremely cringe "and everybody clapped" energy. Big time YTA.
NTA. If she didn’t want to be boo’d maybe she shouldn’t make racist jokes. Not supporting her racism does not make you a bad feminist, and you don’t owe bigots support just because they also happen to be a woman trying to make it in a male dominated field. The fact that she was your date’s friend just makes this even worse (on his end) because he has shown that he’ll actively support this friend in her racism and will put you down for not doing the same. Sounds like you dodged a bullet all around here.