Keisha Zollar: Six Jokes About Police Reform
These days, it can feel impossible to bring up hard issues without coming off like a hard-ass. But there are ways, and actor/comedian/podcast host/writer Keisha Zollar can attest to that. That should come as no surprise: coming off of a guest spot on Orange Is the New Black, the UCB and PIT alum is in the process of producing a documentary named, appropriately, An Uncomfortable Conversation about Race, in addition to performing alongside four other comedians in a benefit for police reform. We had a chat with Keisha to hear her thoughts on where comedy fits into uncomfortable conversations—from your local club, to SNL, to Twitter, to your office and back again—and asked for a demonstration. (By which we mean jokes. Not a die-in.)
Paste: Do you find that a lot of comedians are, like you, motivated to support social justice with their comedy?
Keisha Zollar: I find there are more and more comedians who are similarly motivated; the selfish part of me always wishes there were more. I wish there was a glut. I wish it was a glut that was a problem—that so many comedians felt the need to be able to stand up, say something, take action and do something very powerful. Because the more voices that can be lent to causes they believe in—it would be amazing. I think comedians are doing it more than I thought. However, I still want more.
Paste: You were the UCB’s diversity coordinator for a while; what was your goal there?
Zollar: I wanted to make myself as open and available to students of color and other diverse students, like the LGBTQ community. I want people to feel like their voices are valid. And just to stick around, is the easy way to say it—I want so many comedic voices to be around. And I wish I had more time than I actually do to talk and engage with them.
Paste: How do you negotiate creating a space for minorities to talk amongst themselves creatively, and making them heard amongst the mainstream?
Zollar: A lot of what I look at in comedy is based on my personal experience, and the people who talk to me about their own personal experience. And I try not to share those experiences that might be uncomfortable—because I really value when students share them, because I really think growth can happen there. Part of it is giving them room to fail. There’s a lot of pressure within minority communities—it’s like, “psh, you get one shot at tackling this, and it better be damn good.” And, well, that’s anxiety-inducing. It’s important for someone to say to these students, “I value what you’re doing. I’m appreciative that it exists.”
I think paying attention to the mainstream—there’s an importance there. And I know some people, they say, “fuck the mainstream. We don’t need it. Let’s stay in these smaller communities and figure shit out.” And I wanna ask: how can we do both? How can we do it all?
Paste: How do you feel about the way mainstream comedy, like SNL or The Daily Show, has tackled recent issues?
Zollar: Not to dodge the question, but it’s easy to pick apart any one show who’s trying to tackle these issues because not enough shows are tackling these issues. I’d rather the few shows that are trying to tackle those issues go ahead and tackle those issues—when the reality is that there’s not a fair and accurate representation around issues of race and diversity being tackled, period. The numbers from real life to entertainment life aren’t equivalent.
So I get upset because it’s like, SNL is at least trying. There’s a lot more other shows that should be trying. I don’t enjoy that SNL is being held up to an unfair standard, because they’re not the end-all be-all; there just should be such a diversity of representation of these issues that SNL is just one of many voices instead of being the voice. At that point we’re tokenizing how much diversity we can talk about. “Well, SNL did it, so the rest of us don’t have to do it.” We end up tokenizing Key & Peele, or SNL, or Black-ish, because in reality there just should be more shows. If there were more shows, we wouldn’t have to have this conversation, because it would be just a show in the sea of diversity, versus, “Oh boy, Key & Peele better get it right,” or “SNL better get it right,” or “Black-ish better get it right.” That’s just an unfair expectation of all of those shows, because those shows are just going to be whatever they’re going to be, and I love the fact that they’re just trying to be. So why do we have to limit those shows to represent everything?