Bogdan, Alina. “Racial Issues in American Stand-up Comedy .” Cultural Intertexts, vol. 1-2, 2014, pp. 268–274., doaj.org/article/f103483ba16946a3908fa4f3a29ce994. 

Summary 

The given article explores the racial issues of American stand-up comedy. First, the author talks about the nature of stand-up comedy and stresses the importance of its differences to other forms of humor. After that, she procedes to emphasize the acuteness of the racial issues even in our times when people constantly raise the issue of racial injustice. She says that when it is brought up in a humorous shell, it is easier to conceive  such a difficult concept. Following that statement, Bogdan procedes to explain the necessity of the use of racism in such type of discourse due to the impact it produces on masses. She then adds that stand-up comedy has more research value than simple funny texts because it utilizes not only the written word, but the personality of the comedian and his or her connection to the audience that strikes the crowd in a more profound way as a result of everyone (including both the performer and the listeners) being "in the moment" and having no distractions from the topic. The author draws the conclusion that stand-up comedy has a true value to the society and it should not be uncomfortable to joke about serious issues. She believes that by doing so, people can move on from their biases, and essentially, it becomes more realistically possible to fix the issues that are being joked about.