Hari Kondabolu on Russell Howard's Good News

ladies and gentleman it's Saturday art which of course means it's time for my stand-up guests now this guy's fantastic he's all the way from America so please make him welcome please let me taste the one for mr. Hari Kondabolu hello a little absolute pleasure to be here it's very strange to be an American in the UK because in America I'm not always an American when people come up to me they usually say hey man where are you from and tell them I'm from New York City and then they're like no I mean where are you really from which of course is code for no I mean why aren't you white which is offensive right I'm being judged based on the color of my skin and not by my most important qualities which of course are the softness and smoothness of my skin traits I have carefully cultivated with the extensive use of cocoa butter yes friends Hari Kondabolu uses cocoa butter I use cocoa butter because it makes me smell like chocolate and I love chocolates for political reasons no because you see in America and Americans is assumed to be white unless otherwise specified and that's why I like chocolate because when you first think of chocolate you think of something Brown and if you think of white chocolate first well then you're a racist honestly who who thinks of white chocolate in that situation and that brings up the bigger issue why did we need white chocolate to begin with what was wrong with chocolate exactly it's chocolate it's great why would you need to make white chocolate do you love the taste of chocolate but can't stand looking at it well then try some white chocolates it's one of the people that brought you white Jesus um so I was telling that joke recently in the States and this man came up to me after the show and he was really frustrated he said I don't really like that white Jesus joke and I knew we had an issue because I've always considered that my white chocolate joke so different perspectives I asked him okay what issue did you have with my joke and he's like well I don't agree with you I think Jesus was white well that's fine you can believe whatever you want to believe look I don't believe in gravity but you don't see me flying you can believe whatever you want to believe but the facts are the facts both Jesus's parents are from the Middle East for all intents and purposes they were brown and to brown people cannot create a Swedish tennis player looks like Bjorn Borg for no reason it's impossible and then he said look I'm not an idiot which was debatable at that point the converse say I'm not an idiot I understand what you're saying but here's the thing his mom Mary right she was from the Middle East she could be brown but his father as we all know God was white now I really should have walked out of the room at that point but I didn't because I wanted to know how this future joke was going to end look what you're saying is crazy you do realize this right mixing brown with white does not create white any child or racist could tell you that that's not the way it works I was in India recently with a friend we went to this museum in Hyderabad and we saw this exhibit about ivory now one of the shelves I saw elephants carved out of ivory you miss it elephants carved out of ivory and the name of the exhibit wasn't world's most ironic deaths I was stunned my friend turned to me he's like this is crazy elephants carved out of ivory that's like if I cut down a tree and carved a bunch of little trees out of it I said no man it's more like if I killed you and pulled out your teeth and carved little versions of you out of them he said well you don't need to kill me to pull out my teeth and I said yeah I know and he didn't find that funny and fair enough I threatened to break the first rule of friendship which is do not kill your friends arguably this is the most important rule of friendship do not kill your friends even if they have resale value so after a show recently was late and I was hungry so I went to the supermarket I bought myself a sandwich I walked outside I'm about to devour the sandwich in front of the supermarket when I saw this homeless man out of the corner of my eye and I started feeling guilty so I went up to him and I said excuse me sir can I buy you something to eat and he honestly said no buy me a vitamin water wow that is the best advertisement for vitamin water ever to hell with basic needs what is water without sugar and electrolytes I realize some of you are thinking hurry we're in the UK right now you set vitamin water surely you met vitamin water no I live by the water that story happened in America and that homeless person was not British okay there are no homeless British people in America for two reasons first of all there would be visa issues secondly as a result of the colonial legacy there is an inferiority complex Americans have about the British and therefore your accents are highly employable that man would have a job one thing I've noticed of late is that Nazis and white supremacists they like to take films like this is England in American history acts and they take clips of those films and put them online out of context the rest of the films they take clips with hate violence against minorities and crazy violent speeches and things like that they put them up without the context of rest of the film and underneath you have comments from Nazis and white supremacist white nationalists saying things like yes white power white revolution these films speak to our needs no they don't the films do the exact opposite of what you want them to do they're about how terrible racism is you can't take clips from these films out of context and put them up and pretend they mean what you want them to mean that's like if I like the movie Jurassic Park and put up a bunch of clips of dinosaurs being awesome and underneath there were a bunch of comments that said dinosaurs are awesome they should totally be brought back no this is not the enduring lesson of Jurassic Park the lesson of Jurassic Park was do not bring dinosaurs back they'll kill people that is the only lesson of Jurassic Park actually it's more like if I was a dinosaur I put up a bunch of clips of dinosaurs killing people and underneath a bunch of dinosaurs commented yes dinosaurs are awesome people what I think I'm trying to say is that racists like dinosaurs should be extinct if they're brought back this should only be brought back once because Jurassic park's 2 and 3 sucked some of you thought that was a joke about racism it was about dinosaurs actually I lived in the UK once before I lived in London a couple of years ago and this is part of the strangest thing that happened during my time there I was hanging out on Liverpool Street in East London looking for Brick Lane which is right near there but I couldn't find it I kept going around in circles and I saw this woman and I asked her if she knew what Brick Lane was and she didn't know not a big deal right I'm about to walk away when this woman grabbed me and she looked me in the eye and she said excuse me do you go to church and I thought she meant do I go to her church and I said no I'm sorry I don't go to your church then she's like okay because I go to church and I believe in Jesus Christ and I think you should believe in Jesus as well Wow how did you get from this part of the conversation to that part of the conversation so quickly it's like she thought to herself ah he does not know where Brick Lane is clearly he is lost in all aspects of his life I will help him Jesus perhaps you've heard the name before yeah perhaps that name has gotten around mostly through word-of-mouth and pamphlets and bullets were used at some point I believe yes I'm familiar with this Jesus figure he looks like Bjorn Borg we discussed this earlier with each tennis player no I think she meant well but you know it was kind of annoying and I wanted to end the conversation but I want to be polite she was she was being nice enough and I said excuse me miss thank you very much but I'm a Hindu all right I'm taken all right I have a box to check and it didn't matter and I know it didn't matter because she said it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what you are or who you are jesus loves you jesus loves me Jesus gives me strength Jesus gives me direction okay well then can you ask Jesus what brick lane is you know and I was frustrated and not because she was Christian right she has the right to her faith that's never gonna be my issue what frustrated me was her salesmanship piss-poor salesmanship she had one option Jesus no well then how about Jesus have you tried Christ no that's the same guy don't be Brandon with the same guy now Hindus aren't supposed to convert people but if we were at least we'd have some options at least we know how to sell God Amen let me ask you a question you like elephants oh you do like an elephant got right here Ganesha I got a big guy was it amazing into difficult times oh cool maybe maybe elephants are not for you maybe they're scary but you like monkeys I got monkey guy right monkey guy right here he can fly you change size that no you can carry mountains no not enough for you okay that's cool that's cool let me uh you like the color blue you do like the color blue well I have a special disk up three for one Vishnu Rama Krishna three for one just for you today okay I'm not gonna push it on you I want you to think about this you like warranties you like lifetime warranties reincarnation infinite lifetimes warranty no well how about some weed you want some weed weed wins again as she always does before I leave tonight I want to talk about the Islamic community center that's being built a few blocks from Ground Zero or as it's being referred to in tabloids around the world the Ground Zero mosque the first issue is that it's not a mosque it's actually a community center open to the general public right it is not a mosque it's open to everybody and just like any community center it's when I have basketball courts and swimming pools and ping pong tables so it's weird to hear people say things like they're building a terrorist Haven right next to Ground Zero a terrorist Haven what kind of terrorist play ping pong what are you imagining happening at this community center yes yes Sears Tower good idea yes his Empire State Building should I thought of that sooner yes yeah wait one more game one more game yes yes what do you wanna play - I will play - sudden death haha I mean what do you think it's a community center what do you think is happening so I went to this party recently people have been drinking and you know when people get drunk they've become a bit more honest and sometimes honesty sounds racist sexist homophobic etc and so the party is going along and we're getting drunker and I hear this man say that grounds your master building it's the the terrorizing Americans it's just awful right so I go up to this man I say hey man I just want to say it's it's not a mosque it's actually an Islamic community center and even if it was a mosque you know what that would be okay - and then he turned to me and he said well you just saying that cuz you're a Muslim and I said actually I'm not a Muslim I'm a Hindu and he's like well that's like the same thing and it's not the same thing the first clue is that there are two different words also Hindus and Muslims have been killing each other for hundreds of years so I explained that to him and he said well I'm sorry but you have to admit do you look like a Muslim fair fair enough I was wearing a Weezer t-shirt and converse sneakers at the time which all Muslims word all times regardless of context what I actually told them was here's the thing man uh Islam is perhaps the most racially diverse religion in the world so technically white man you also look like a Muslim I thought that was really clever he did not but he said I'm a Christian idiot and I said yes you are a Christian idiot and then he said what what is that supposed to mean and that's where I lost my temper is the religious intolerance I know how that works in the world right but that was a basic grammar joke man I move the comma to the right if you do not understand a basic grammar joke then we have nothing in common thank you so much

Channel: Avalon Television

Views: 938,543

Keywords: Hari Kondabolu, Russell Howard's Good News, russell howard, bbc three, comedy, funny

Id: W-KSI5Z0I90

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 04 2011