The racism epidemic: A conversation between Riz Ahmed and American comedian Hari Kondabolu

Riz and Hari talk about cultural misinterpretation

Queens-born comedian Hari Kondabolu says he would rather do anything else than explain racism to white people. "Telling me that I’m obsessed with talking about racism in America is like telling me that I’m obsessed with swimming when I’m drowning,” he told Interview Magazine .

Nonetheless, Hari continues to address the issue out of pure necessity. Often called a "political comedian," he feels that the term negates his stance and dedication to activism.

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This year, Hari is releasing a new documentary called The Problem with Apu - Apu being Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Indian convenience store owner from the American TV series The Simpsons. The documentary delves into the issue with Apu's characters and how the South Asian history is represented in the media.

PHOTO: THE LAUGH BUTTON

In a phone conversation, Hari discussed Apu with the Pakistani-British Star Wars actor Riz Ahmed and how even satirical cartoons play a role in the game of power.

The conversation started off with a little humour, with Hari saying to Riz, "How strange is it that we're two brown men who have agreed to have a phone call where white people are listening silently and writing down what they're saying? And we agreed to this!"

PHOTO: THE WRAP

To this, Riz snapped, "It's not that different to every day, right?" Followed by some dialogue on the kind of comic content Hari covers in his standups, Riz highlighted how The Problem with Apu is so important. Here's how the conversation flowed...

Riz: In terms of your documentary, is the dream to get to a point where there’re so many different portrayals of people of colour, and they’re so frequently depicted as being intelligent or heroic and on equal footing with white characters that you can, quite happily, have an Apu character? And Apu stops being an archetypal, 'Hey, isn’t this what all South-Asians are like?' and starts just being like, 'Oh, yeah, this is just a funny dude who works at the store.' Is that a dream?

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Hari: I think it’s even more specific than that. You don’t have immigrant characters with a great deal of depth generally, especially if they’re South-Asian. I don’t see many characters where you get a sense of the immigrant experience: of hardship and humour...One that’s derived not from mockery, but actual precedent.

You don’t see that with immigrant character portrayals and it’s not only South-Asians. When they made that character, Apu, it’s not about us; it’s about our families, man; about that generation.

So to me, it’s about having a fuller voice. When I made The Problem with Apu, it wasn’t even about Apu. That’s the trigger: the thing that many of us had growing up that would be the immediate example, and it’s The Simpsons so everybody understands that; it’s under everyone’s nose.

But to me, this is part of a larger legacy of minstrelsy. You’re representing our faces, features, stories, voices, families and you’re doing it wrong! That’s what it’s about.


Riz: But there are two different points you’re making there. One is, 'Is it your story to tell?' And then the second point you’re making is, 'You’re doing it wrong.'

So if someone goes and does their research, puts all their time and energy into depicting things with nuance accurately, then is it cool? Or is it still a problem of it being not your story to tell? Because if that is the case, then are the only screenplays you can write about brown people? Is that a kind of creative ghetto-isation?

Hari: I don’t think it’s that because it goes back to power. It’s not equal footing, so it’s not saying, 'You can only write this and you can only write that.' Our stories haven’t been told by us historically, right? Like you can only write stories about your experience. When you’re a person of colour in white America, you know white people. You know why you know white people? Because you can’t enjoy any kind of entertainment if you are not able to humanise white people. If you watch a film and are like, 'Oh, this has white people in it? Then I’m not interested,' you can’t enjoy anything in America!

As a person of colour, you are forced to humanise white people: you’re forced to understand their lives, stories, complications and culture. You have to! Not only for survival but also to just enjoy anything. Meanwhile, if there’s a person of colour in a movie and it was originally thought to be a white character and it’s now a person of colour, everyone flips out. 'This isn’t supposed to be a person of colour!' or 'I can’t relate to this!' or 'This is a black movie because there are black actors!'

Meanwhile, we don’t call these 'white movies' because we have to humanise white people. That’s why I think it’s different. We can tell our authentic stories because we know our stories. And we know your stories, because we grew up reading your stories. We have seen your stories. You’re the majority: we know you. That’s different, man. There’s a big difference when you’re talking about cultural things, where we have a double lens and we can do both.

Riz: Historically, certain people and certain voices have been silenced: certain stories have been marginalised. I think it’s about access: certain people haven’t had the mic. If we live in a world where there is an equal chance of your show getting green-lit or your wife-counterpart getting a show green-lit, or a woman of colour, or a trans artist getting their story told, and it being celebrated, then cool! You go write a Korean story. I’ll go write a Jewish story. Woody Allen can write about being a Sikh guy. Cool!

But the reality is that we don’t all have equal access to the tools of storytelling, and the platform of storytelling. I think being mindful of who has the opportunity to tell these stories is a big part of the conversation. If it was a level playing field societally, but also historically and in terms of who has access to tell stories, then it would be a different conversation. Given that it isn’t, I get [people’s] sensitivities. And, in a way, I don’t even think they’re sensitivities but corrections. We need to kind of make some systemic corrections, you know?

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Hari: Definitely historical corrections. How about this? Give 50 years where only people of colour are allowed to make films, TV shows and art, where we’re the only ones who are allowed to profit from art, and then you can do whoever you want. In fact, I’ll buy you the paint. Whatever you want. Just give us 50 years. 50 years. That’s it!

Think about it, after the 50 years are done, you have all these white people talking about how awful those 50 years were. They’ll make tons of Oscar-winning films about those 50 years and the depression of art. Then they’ll make a ton of money afterwards! Think of it, it’s like our story. Like this Apu thing, man, for me, I’m happy I made this film but it’s so corny, because we’ve been talking about this for 30 years!

There are so many other things I want to talk about but I’m telling people because they’ve never thought about it. I wouldn’t mind naming the film 'I have to explain this to you?!' Like, this seems so obvious... You have to tell your stories because they didn’t let us tell it before!


The Problem of Apu premieres on November 19.

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