“The Ku Klux Klan ran into me and said, ‘Go back to, uh … wherever you’re from,'” opened biracial stand-up comic Dan Nainan at the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association’s third-annual performance event last night. “Then they burned a question mark on my front lawn.”
The comedian headlined a program that also included poetry, a capella singing and percussion – all with a multicultural emphasis – in the MBSA’s effort to increase awareness about the presence of mixed racial students on the campus.
Nainan, who has appeared on the television show Last Comic Standing, focused much of his material on his half-Indian, half-Japanese background, providing family stories that delighted the crowd of slightly fewer than 100 in the Grand Colony Ballroom in the Stamp Student Union.
“My whole life, I’ve only met one person that is the same mix as me – and that’s my sister,” Nainan joked.
Nainan went on to ridicule Indian weddings (“I’ve been to Hindu weddings that last a full week; some American marriages don’t last that long.”) and a variety of other ethnic groups.
His determination to mock all groups equally was appealing to freshman art major Marjorie Walker, who sat near the stage.
“[Nainan] just makes fun of everybody. He doesn’t exclude people,” said Walker, who had seen clips of Nainan perform before last night’s event.
The comedian struck a chord with the audience when he talked about American computer companies outsourcing their technical support to India, where he said workers are trained to act American.
“Thank you for calling AOL. This is Brad Pitt,” Nainan mimicked in a thick Indian accent.
Natalie Salaets, the vice president of programming for the MBSA, attended and also coordinated the event. One main goal of the night was to attract more group members, she said
“We want people to remember that some people identify [themselves] as multiracial,” said Salaets, a sophomore electrical engineering major. “We’re trying to get our name out there.”
Salaets said the group, which is in its fourth year at the university, has 11 or 12 executive board members. The group also has 139 members on Facebook, but many of them are not active, she added.
Before Nainan took the stage, a student read a poem he wrote about the struggle of being biracial; an Indian a capella group merged Indian and American influences and a Brazilian drum group with members from all across the world played rhythms that were African-influenced.
When Nainan appeared onstage after the drum group, he immediately joked about how the group’s African-Brazilian style was performed only by white girls.
While that factually incorrect statement was greeted with little reaction, Nainan did receive a big laugh with a slide-show presentation of humorous pictures.
“This is a picture of something I thought I’d never see: It’s an Asian guy teaching an African-American how to break dance,” Nainan said.
