Joke from Tony Hinchcliffe apparently bombed when he told it on Saturday night, a day before New York rally

The podcaster who provoked an angry backlash against Donald Trump’s campaign with a racist joke about Puerto Rico reportedly tested out the gags at a comedy club the night before delivering them at Sunday’s televised rally at Madison Square Garden.

Tony Hinchcliffe, whose 11-minute set has thrown Trump’s team into damage limitation mode a week before the presidential election, made the same quip, calling the territory “a floating island of garbage”, at the Stand club in New York on Saturday, according to NBC.

The joke bombed, drawing just a few awkward chuckles, NBC said, citing one of its own producers and three audience members.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    wrong. the reason that joke is made about Puerto Rico and not Kansas is racism. if you can’t see that you’re either naive or wilfully trying to obfuscate. the frequency with which you’d like the word to be used doesn’t change the fact that it is a racist joke. the joke is not about the nationality.

    by the way, their nationality is american.

    • oxomoxo@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      I actually think the joke is about tearing people down, and could be applied to anyone. I mean that is this whole comedians shtick. Many people from Kansas and the south are called ‘white trash’, as a joke. You can certainly place whatever judgement you want on people but I still think it’s ignorant and missing the point.

      You don’t know anything about the people you are offended for. Case in point, don’t ever tell a Borinqueños that their nationality is American. While they are legally American citizens they most often identify as Puerto Rican first. They had no choice in their American assimilation just like the Hawaiians, Samoans or the Chamorros. They were all colonized and still mistreated by the US today.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        26 days ago

        you’re being willfully obtuse or ignorant. no one said jokes couldn’t apply to anyone. the point is these jokes didn’t. they only applied to minorities. fucks sake if you didn’t watch the thing just don’t comment will you? the dude made a black people/watermelon jokes and you’re out here like 🤓 emm actually everyone likes watermelons so this can’t be racist. just stop. this is embarrassing.

        • oxomoxo@lemmy.world
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          26 days ago

          Not at all what I am saying. I am saying that this guy does this for a living. Look up the guys comedy, it’s literally his whole career, not something that just popped up yesterday. It’s not the first time he’s been called out for it, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that he says stuff like this. He says it about literally everyone, to include minorities. He tears people down and makes fun of people for a profession. Why is what this guy said at some bullshit rally important? He says this stuff all over the world, most days of the week. Stop giving this guy attention, he only gets more fans and more tickets sold. Going on the internet and being offended is making the problem worse. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

      • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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        26 days ago

        So you think you could just walk outside, call someone “white trash” and nothing would happen? Because it’s a “just a joke bro”? You need to step off the Internet and touch some grass.

        • oxomoxo@lemmy.world
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          26 days ago

          Again, not the point, and not what I think. I am not saying there aren’t repercussions to saying words. I am saying giving this whole thing attention does nothing but just feed into the game. The more people talk about this the more these people are relevant. The engine of the right wing conservative party in the US is about the fear that they are becoming irrelevant and they are losing power. By paying attention your giving them power. Stop contributing to it.

          If you care about the people of PR then vote for people who support PR, which is the best you can do other than attempt to educate people on the mistreatment of their people and what colonization does to the disenfranchised. It’s a national problem, not a party problem, and especially not some irrelevant shock comedians problem.

            • oxomoxo@lemmy.world
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              26 days ago

              What seems like trolling to me is pretending to care about racism when all you’re really doing is jumping into a human centipede of unoriginal ideas that make the problem worse. Why does anyone actually care what a comedian says at a political rally. This is the 10th worst thing these people have said this week.

              This country doesn’t give a fuck about the Puerto Ricans, they show it with the policies, their business practices, their racist subjugation and disregard for their culture. But yeah the dude who makes joke to tear people down is the problem. Do I need to also tell you that white supremacists are also invited to proud boys rally, that’s waters wet and fires hot. Big fucking shock this whole thing is.

              This whole thread is people just saying stuff so that the other people will agree with them and wait for validation. It’s a travesty of modern human adaptation and it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.