Indian-American stand-up comedian and
Saturday Night Live writer Nimesh Patel was “angry” and “in shock” when he was forced off stage at Columbia University last November by students from the Asian American Alliance. In an op-ed he wrote for the
New York Times after the incident, he explained he was asked to leave because event organizers decided his “material was offensive.” He then paraphrased the joke he believed was the reason for his early exit, a joke about how being gay can’t be a choice, especially if you’re also black. (“No one is doubling down on hardship. No black dude wakes up and thinks that being a black man in America is too easy.”)
Former AAA president Isabelle Lee, however, explained that Patel wasn’t removed because of that particular joke, but because he had started “badgering a woman in the audience” by asking her “multiple inappropriate questions.” Whatever the truth behind Patel’s banishment from Columbia, we’re fairly certain his mic won’t be cut off at Laugh Out Loud — unless, of course, Patel, a self-described Lakers fan, says something disparaging about the Spurs right before the playoffs.
$20-$30, 8pm Thu April 11, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, 618 NW Loop 410, (210) 541-8805, lolsanantonio.com.
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