On Thursday, March 27, Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report tweeted something it shouldn’t have — the punchline to a joke from the night before. That tweet sparked the trending #CancelColbert hashtag, and a debate that quickly erupted into an explosive argument about race, satire, and who is allowed to be offended by what. Latino USA producers Michael Simon Johnson and Daisy Rosario, along with sportswriter Tomas Ríos, sat down to talk about what happened, how it happened, and what, if anything, can be learned from the experience.
Tomas Ríos is a paid-lance writer who has contributed to Deadspin, Sports on Earth, Slate, Pacific Standard and The Classical. He tweets @TheTomasRios
Michael Simon Johnson is a Pittsburgh native who spent most of his childhood making music and groaning when his parents put on NPR in the car. So naturally he graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Sound Design, moved to New York and made his way into public radio. As an engineer, he has worked for Afropop Worldwide, WNYC’s Radio Rookies, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He commits much of his time to working on radio and multimedia projects but can often be found playing the bass, rock climbing, and traveling.
Daisy Rosario is a comedian, writer and producer of things from radio stories to live events. Recently graduated from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, she also works with The Moth and the Upright CitizensBrigade Theatre. Daisy has interned at Radiolab, taken a play she directed to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and is an obsessive baseball fan. Her story “Child of Trouble,” was featured on the Peabody award-winning Moth Radio Hour. She holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images
Once you create more terms that segment society even more, you have lost, again. I am not a white liberal, nor am I a liberal of color. I am raging liberal who is tired of the media consuming issues that are totally irrelevant to the marginalization of our civil rights, increased poverty, US foreign policy that makes the world more dangerous, drug violence in Mexico, etc.
Once you create more terms that segment society even more, you have lost, again. I am not a white liberal, nor am I a liberal of color. I am raging liberal who is tired of the media consuming issues that are totally irrelevant to the marginalization of our civil rights, increased poverty, US foreign policy that makes the world more dangerous, drug violence in Mexico, etc.