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January 9, 2007
Jordan Carlos on Being Steven Colbert's Black Friend
Eat the Press spotted Jordan Carlos' column "My Schtick? Being Black", the most recent article in a series which "explores the lives of black men through their shared experiences and existence" in the Washington Post. In it, Carlos rails against SNL, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report for a lack of diversity--the latter, a show which has hired him on numerous occasions to play "Steven Colbert's Black Friend Alan." He writes:
How did I get to be Colbert's on-air compadre of color? Simple. One day a friend of mine who happened to be a producer for the show called and asked me to come and have my picture taken with Colbert. He explained that it was for a segment they'd be airing that night in which I would play Colbert's black friend. With zero prospects and a gnawing fear that they'd find a replacement, I streaked over to the studios on New York City's West Side, where I was quickly introduced to the man himself, Stephen Colbert. We took the picture and my producer friend showed me out. The joke has since become a running gag. I had hoped to parlay it into a job; instead I got a lot of MySpace "friends." These experiences didn't leave me feeling good, but they did make me think more about being black. [READ MORE]
RELATED
Reactions and Opinions at Metafilter
AST Tackles the Article
Jordan Carlos' Blog
Jordan Carlos on Wikipedia
Alan on Wikiality, The Truthiness Encyclopedia
Posted by The Apiary at January 9, 2007 2:43 PM
Comments
They touch on the black writer subject on "Studio 60" and on "30 Rock" there's a black writer character they call Twofer. It seems to be a chic novelty these days. Jordan should start up the Comedy Panthers. This white boy thinks that would be fly.
Posted by: Billy Reno at January 10, 2007 11:07 AM
Isn't Keenan Thompson a writer for SNL? Aren't all the cast members also writers?
Posted by: umm? at January 11, 2007 1:09 PM
Jordan, I applaud you. As a former employee of The Daily Show (and a guy who benefited from the show's strong tendency to only employee white guys as correspondents), the lack of minorities on staff there -- and on other NYC-based comedy shows -- is shameful. There's no excuse for it. There are plenty of talented minority performers/writers out there looking for the work.
One of these days the people who hire and fire at these shows will hand over the keys to the kingdom but, until then, they are only serving white bread and mayonaise to the masses. Sad.
Posted by: Bob Wiltfong at January 17, 2007 10:34 AM
Nope, sorry, someone needs to cite how many qualified blacks are applying for these positions otherwise you have no case. No blacks in my business (driving school) cause none applied, does that make us racist, no way. And I wonder if blacks in charge of hiring have any preference? hmm... football teams are often predominantly black, maybe the blacks applying for those positions are more qualified, I see no evidence of racism in either case.
Posted by: patrocles at November 30, 2007 1:10 AM