When the Joke Is Us, It Is Not Just Comedy

Hey Friend!

The other night, I decided to watch The Roast of Kevin Hart.

I did not make it through.

I stopped before Draymond Green even got to the microphone because by then, I had already had enough. Shane Gillis was hosting, and somewhere between the racial jokes, the energy in the room, and the casualness with which Blackness was being handled, my body said no before my mind even fully processed why.

Not “this is edgy.”

Not “maybe I’m too sensitive.”

Not “that’s just roast culture.”

No.

This is not for me.

The next day, I was talking to a friend who had watched the whole thing. I asked them if they really sat through all of it, and they said yes. Then later, I watched a video from Lurie Daniel Favors, and she had the same reaction I did — except she actually made it to the parts I could not stomach long enough to see.

That part included jokes about George Floyd.

And that is where people need to stop pretending this is harmless.

Because what exactly are we laughing at?

A Black man murdered in public?

A Black man calling for his mother while dying under the knee of a police officer?

A Black man whose death sparked global protests because millions of people watched the humanity leave his body in real time?

That is not comedy.

That is racial violence repackaged as entertainment.

And I know there are Black people who will say, “It’s just jokes.” There are Black people who will say, “That’s what roasts are.” There are Black people who will say, “Everybody gets made fun of.”

But everybody is not carrying the same history into the room.

That matters.

A joke does not stop being oppressive because somebody says it with a microphone and a smile.

A joke can normalize cruelty.

A joke can reveal contempt.

A joke can desensitize people to suffering.

A joke can remind you exactly where this country still places Black humanity in its hierarchy.

And right now, in this political climate, none of this feels disconnected.

We are living in a moment where conversations around the Reconstruction Amendments — the constitutional amendments created after slavery to establish Black freedom and citizenship — feel politically vulnerable in ways they should not.

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, though it left behind the prison labor loophole that has haunted this country ever since.

The 14th Amendment recognized formerly enslaved Black people as citizens and guaranteed equal protection under the law.

Those amendments were not symbolic gestures. They were written because America literally had to be forced, constitutionally, to recognize Black people as human beings deserving of rights and legal protection.

Think about that.

There had to be amendments added to the Constitution after slavery because the country had not recognized us as fully human under the law.

So when political figures, legal commentators, and extremist thinkers start speaking casually about dismantling protections tied to those amendments, Black people are not overreacting by paying attention.

We understand what sits underneath that conversation.

And that is why these jokes are not funny to me.

Not now.

Not in an America where there are still people openly romanticizing the past.

Not in an America where voter suppression is still happening.

Not in an America where books about Black history are being banned.

Not in an America where DEI became a political slur overnight.

Not in an America where people still debate whether systemic racism even exists while Black people continue experiencing its consequences in real time.

People keep acting like politics, entertainment, education, media, and law are all separate conversations.

They are not.

They feed each other.

The jokes matter because culture matters.

What people are taught to laugh at matters.

Who gets dehumanized publicly matters.

Who gets protected matters.

Who gets mocked matters.

Who is allowed dignity matters.

And watching that roast felt less like comedy and more like a reminder of how comfortable this country still is consuming Black pain as spectacle.

A lot of people noticed Regina Hall’s face during parts of the roast. She looked uncomfortable. Not fake uncomfortable. Not performative uncomfortable. She looked like somebody sitting in the middle of something that no longer felt entertaining.

And honestly, I understood it.

Because there comes a point where your spirit rejects something before your intellect finishes explaining it.

That is where I was.

And maybe that is what this moment really is for a lot of Black people: an awakening of the senses.

Some Black people are waking up to the reality that the “post-racial America” story was always a fantasy.

Some Black people are beginning to understand that the attacks on Black history, Black thought, Black identity, Black advancement, and Black protections are not isolated incidents.

They are connected.

The backlash against DEI is connected.

The attempts to erase Black history are connected.

The demonization of Black political thought is connected.

The attacks on affirmative action are connected.

The criminalization of protest is connected.

The jokes are connected too.

Because all of it exists inside the same cultural atmosphere: one that becomes increasingly hostile whenever Black people attempt to move beyond survival and into power, clarity, ownership, education, and self-definition.

But here is the part that worries me.

There are still many Black people who do not want to know any of this.

And I understand why.

Knowledge can feel heavy.

Reality can feel exhausting.

But distraction has become its own kind of prison.

Some people are more invested in perfume, shoes, celebrity gossip, TikTok, and television than they are in understanding what kind of country is being built around their children.

And before somebody twists my words, I am not saying Black people do not deserve joy.

We absolutely do.

We deserve beauty.

We deserve softness.

We deserve luxury.

We deserve rest.

We deserve laughter.

But distraction cannot become our entire existence while other people are organizing politically, legally, educationally, and economically around us.

Because while some people are scrolling, other people are writing policy.

While some people are laughing things off, other people are reshaping courts.

While some people are calling everything “just comedy,” other people are deciding what rights, protections, histories, and opportunities future generations will have access to.

And that terrifies me.

I am over 50 years old.

There is a very real possibility that I may have already experienced a freer version of America than the one many younger Black people are inheriting.

I did not grow up in Jim Crow the way my parents did.

But I can recognize the architecture of regression when I see it.

It may not come with “Whites Only” signs this time.

Now it comes dressed in legislation.

Now it comes disguised as patriotism.

Now it comes hidden behind phrases like “anti-woke.”

Now it comes through curriculum bans and political talking points.

Now it comes through media narratives.

And yes, sometimes now it comes through jokes.

That is why Black study matters.

That is why knowing our history matters.

That is why people like Dr. Greg Carr matter.

Dr. Carr speaks often about Africana Studies not simply as education, but as consciousness. As memory. As a responsibility to know ourselves beyond what America has told us we are.

That kind of knowledge changes people.

Because once you understand the pattern, you stop mistaking oppression for coincidence.

You stop believing every setback is random.

You stop confusing visibility with progress.

And you stop laughing at things that are designed to slowly numb you to your own dehumanization.

But despite all of this, I am not hopeless.

Not even close.

Because Black people have survived too much to believe this is the end of our story.

We survived slavery.

We survived Reconstruction collapsing.

We survived lynching.

We survived segregation.

We survived redlining.

We survived mass incarceration.

We survived educational exclusion.

We survived every attempt to erase us, distort us, criminalize us, and exhaust us.

And somehow, even after all of that, we still created beauty.

We still created culture.

We still created movement.

We still created brilliance.

We still created family.

We still created joy.

That is why I believe what Dr. Greg Carr often reminds people of in different ways: they can do what they know how to do, but they still will not destroy us.

What we are witnessing right now may actually become an awakening for Black people willing to see clearly.

Not everybody wants to wake up.

Some people never will.

But the people who do?

Those are the people who will study harder, organize deeper, build stronger communities, teach their children more intentionally, and reconnect themselves to the long Black tradition of resistance, education, and self-determination.

So no, I do not think The Roast of Kevin Hart was “just comedy.”

I think it was a mirror.

And what it reflected back was ugly.

But sometimes ugly tells the truth.

Sometimes ugly reveals where a country actually is.

Sometimes ugly exposes who is comfortable, who is silent, who is performing, and who has finally had enough.

I had enough before the worst part even arrived.

And honestly, I am glad I turned it off.

Because not everything deserves our attention.

Not everything deserves our laughter.

And not every stage deserves our silence.

This is The Reconstructioning.

And part of reconstruction is learning to recognize when the joke is not really a joke at all.

Sometimes the joke is the warning.

And this time, the joke was us.

x, Aja

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