Speaker Series: Luvell Anderson (Syracuse)

Title: Navigating Racial Satire

What is racial satire and what purpose does it serve? In 2014, Stephen Colbert came under fire for a tweet sent out on behalf of his show The Colbert Report. The tweet in question, “I am willing to show @Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong-Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever,” sparked a Twitter response from writer and hashtag activist Suey Park. The tweet was a brief recap of a joke Colbert told on the show as a satirical response to Daniel Snyder’s creation of a charitable organization for Native Americans while continuing to maintain a racial slur for the same group as the name of his football team. Colbert’s racial satire works on a palliative model, injecting a bit of racism into the performance to fight against the racist hypocrisy of Snyder’s stance. But is this necessary? In this talk, I explore how racial satire works, the challenges it faces as a form of social critique, and suggestions for navigating these challenges.

This talk will be hosted on Zoom. If you would like to attend this talk, please register by the end of Thursday, March 4 by following this link. In order to register you will need a Zoom account. You can sign up for free by following this link.