#63 On collectively bottoming out

"The climate disaster equals the culture gap

In September, The New Yorker published a piece on Hasan Minhaj’s comedy special, which implied he’d made up most of his comedy special (the subtitle of the article reads in part: …the former “Patriot Act” host often recounts harrowing experiences he’s faced as an Asian American and Muslim American. Does it matter that much of it never happened to him?).

I saw—and remember seeing—the New Yorker headline when it came out, and I vaguely recall the story appearing in multiple outlets, and I recall the gist of what happened (Hasan Minhaj lied/was unethical/is unethical).

Now, I’ve never watched Hasan Minhaj’s comedy (I mean I did one time for less than five minutes), I don’t really know much about him, and before two days ago he was 100% not on my radar. But: I did see those headlines, and without question, believed ‘Oh this guy totally lied/what a fraud’.

To be 100% clear I did not jump to that conclusion because he’s brown (he’s South Asian) or Muslim (which I imagine influenced plenty of…