Amy Schumer Accused Of Racism By Someone Who’s Never Seen Her Show
Amy Schumer tends to have a naughty brand of comedy, whether it’s in her standup routine or on her raunchy, brilliant Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer. She’s not afraid to take on serious topics, like misogyny and rape, and spin them so that her fans can see the humor in how society deals with those issues. But recently, David Leonard and Dr. Stacy Patton published an op-ed piece in the Washington Post about Schumer’s brand of comedy that raised some eyebrows, and now, according to the Interrobang, Patton had never seen Amy’s standup or her show before writing the piece.
Patton and Leonard allegedly based their article on a Guardian piece, which accused Schumer of having a “shockingly large blind spot around race,” by making “lazy jokes about Latina women being ‘crazy’ “, to which Schumer responded with a lengthy post on Twitter.
“I am a comic. I am so glad more people are laughing at me and with me all of a sudden. I will joke about things you like, and I will joke about things you aren’t comfortable with. And that’s OK. Stick with me and trust I am joking. I go in and out of playing an irreverent idiot. That includes making dumb jokes involving race. I enjoy playing the girl who time to time says the dumbest thing possible, and playing with race is a thing we are not supposed to do, which is what makes it so fun for comics. You can call it a ‘blind spot for racism’ or ‘lazy,’ but you are wrong. It is a joke and it is funny. I know that because people laugh at it,” Schumer wrote.
The article by Patton and Leonard calls out Schumer for making jokes at the expense of the Mexican people (“I used to date Hispanic guys. Now I prefer consensual”), suggesting she shares the same views as Donald Trump, who recently received quite a bit of backlash for comments he made during his announcement for a presidential campaign.
“A blind spot is not finding humor in the systemic exploitation of Mexican workers. A blind spot is not making jokes that depict Latina women as crazy. Nor is it a laughing matter for a white woman to suggest that Mexicans, or other men of color, are natural-born rapists,” the article reads. But according to statements made by Patton, she wrote the article because it was assigned to her and not because she had an opinion one way or the other about Schumer.
“The Outlook editor actually wrote to me last week and asked if I’d be willing to write about this. And I hadn’t actually heard about the incident,” Patton said. “And you know, I’m not a fan or foe of Amy Schumer. Hadn’t really paid attention to her. She’s not a comedian whose work I follow so I was not really that familiar with her. And I was still quite frankly reeling from Charleston. Because I was in Charleston three days before the shooting and I was staying two blocks away from the church so, yeah, I was still dealing with a lot of the backlash from my Washington Post piece on that. And so when I kind of looked at some of the coverage on Schumer, I initially thought meh. This woman is joking. You know, myself and a lot of people are still grieving the lives of those people in Charleston.”
[Photo courtesy YouTube/CBS]
