A former Saturday Night Live writer and comedian was booted mid-set while performing stand-up comedy at an event hosted by Columbia University’s Asian American Alliance because his jokes were deemed “racist” and “homophobic,” The Columbia Daily Spectator reported.
Nimesh Patel, an Emmy Award nominee and the first Indian-American writer for SNL, has in the past opened for comedian Chris Rock and performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers. But those credentials apparently weren’t enough to win over the mostly-college crowd at last Friday’s “cultureSHOCK: Reclaim.”
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During Patel’s set, the 32-year-old comedian joked that being a gay, black man can’t be a choice because, “no one looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘this black thing is too easy, let me just add another thing to it,’” the report said.
Halfway through the set, AAA members reportedly jumped on stage, stole Patel's mic, and asked him to wrap it up. Patel denounced the move, telling the audience he was discussing things “in the real world,” but the coordinators cut his mic before he could finish.
Audience reactions to Patel’s booting were mixed.
Adam Warren, a student cited by The Daily Spectator who was in the audience, said AAA made the right call because Patel’s jokes contradicted with “the message” of the event.
“He definitely wasn’t the most crass comedian I’ve ever heard but for the event it was inappropriate,” Warren said.
Another student, Elle Ferguson, however, said Patel’s jokes didn’t faze her.
“While what some of the things that he said might have been a bit provoking to some of the audience, as someone who watches comedy a lot, none of them were jokes that I hadn’t heard before and none of them were jokes that elicited such a response in my experience,” Ferguson said.
"cultureSHOCK" is annual charity event hosted by AAA. According to its Facebook page, the event aims to provide “a platform for a diversity of Asian American artistic expression, but it also seeks to break through the stereotypes and challenges that our community faces.”
Patel did not respond to the paper's or Fox News' request for comment.