Michael Che Calls Out Racist Jokes at Kevin Hart Roast, Here’s Why It’s Well Deserved

While Kevin Hart’s celebrity “G.O.A.T. Roast” may have garnered laughs from some folks, for fellow comedian Michael Che—it was no laughing matter. In fact, there were plenty of jokes that he took issue with, and if we’re honest, he’s got a big point.

If you missed the nearly three-hour-long Netflix show that aired live on Sunday, then you missed more than a handful of Hart’s close friends and comedians coming together for a live comedy roasting session of the man who gave us movies like “Jumanji,” “Ride Along,” “Central Intelligence,” and more. However, what fans didn’t expect Hart to give us was a platform for several comedians to lob high-key racist jokes targeted towards him and other Black comedians present.

Chief among the perpetrators was host Shane Gillis (who is white), who let off more than his fair share of racist comments, which included but weren’t limited to: likening Hart to the monkey Abu off “Aladdin”; talking about Hart’s absentee father; and perhaps most egregiously, joking that Hart was so short, he’d have to “get lynched from a bonsai tree.”

Gillis was then followed up by comedian and “roast master” Jeff Ross (also a white man), who called Hart a “crack baby that could,” called fellow comedian Sheryl Underwood the donkey from “Shrek,” and likened Hart’s absentee father to a street hustler who dealt crack cocaine.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe would later fall in line with the same racist-tinged jokes, remarking that the Black community was so proud of Hart that George Floyd was “looking up at us all and smiling.” (This in turn prompted Floyd’s family to speak out against him.)

Even Hart’s friend Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson, decided to join in on the fun, calling his “Jumanji” costar a “burnt Oompa Loompa.”

So, given the fact that most of the aforementioned jokes were delivered by white comics and Hart did nothing but sit on the side and laugh at them all night with no interjections—it’s no wonder why Che decided to call him and all the tasteless jokes out in a recent post to social media.

Per Variety, Che was actually supposed to be one of the comics present at the event, but ran into some scheduling issues due to his gig on “Saturday Night Live.” Yet and still, that didn’t keep him from eventually watching how Hart’s roast went down and subsequently airing out his thoughts on the matter in a post to Instagram.

“White guys and Black people joke different,” Che wrote. “Black guy roast like, ‘look at this n—- shoes!’ White roasts are like, ‘Slavery, math, slain teens, sex crimes, slurs, family secrets.’ White guys don’t give a fuck about they shoes.”

And while Che’s critique may be short and funny in itself, it does a good job at highlighting the stark contrast in the type of jokes that were present during Hart’s event. When it came to comedians like Sheryl Underwood, Regina Hall, and even music stars like Usher and Lizzo, who stopped by to get a few jokes off—they opted not to lean into any racist stereotypes while still getting major laughs out of Hart and the audience.

And it’s within that observation that lie the million-dollar questions: why do white comedians have to pull out all the race jokes when it comes to their Black friends? Why can’t they just be funny using anything else other than race? And should they choose to mention race at all, why lean into outdated stereotypes that do more to alienate folks than bring them together? What happened to just being funny?

Look, we get it, roasts are set up to go below the belt and cross lines. But there’s a line for a reason, and it’s pretty safe to say that numerous comics and Hart’s ordeal crossed it in the most non-comical way.

What’s more, is that Hart himself failed to step in at any point and say that things were going a bit too far. We don’t know why he did that and chose to laugh in complicity, but what we do know is that it wasn’t a good look for him. And now his fans will be giving him more side eyes than he bargained for moving forward.