I’m trying to write an essay about why we can’t lose our sense of humor. I’m trying to write an essay about why we can’t lose our sense of humor, but all I can think about are the men being shipped off to a super-prison in a foreign country. All I can think about is the Secretary of Homeland Security standing in front of these men—caged—and warning anybody with the gall to flee persecution with red, white, and blue dreams of a job, a house, a school for their children that they are not welcome. Behind her, the shirtless men stand silently, occasionally shifting weight from one foot to the other. Some have said that they may never leave. Their crime? Having tattoos? Looking Hispanic? Daring to breathe? I don’t know.
I’m trying to write an essay about why we can’t lose our sense of humor, but I keep replaying the video of a graduate student getting kidnapped off the street in Somerville, Massachusetts, a city so close to home, one that never had any reason to feel dangerous, by officers in plain-clothes. The theory is that she was chosen for abduction because she co-wrote an op-ed1. The thesis: Tufts University’s response to pro-Palestine protests is hypocritical given the University’s proclaimed commitment to free speech. I’m trying to figure out why this is contentious. If this is seditious, a crime, an imprisonable offense, I’m trying to figure out how long it will take before they come for me.
I’m trying to write an essay about why we can’t lose our sense of humor, but in a group chat, the leaders of our great nation, indivisible, under God, say prayers that their bombs will take out their targets. No thoughts and prayers that people will be safe. Thoughts and prayers that people will be killed by American weaponry.
Fire emoji.
Fist-pumping emoji.
American flag emoji.
‘Merica.
‘Murica.
In his recent stand-up special, J.B. Ball suggests that the only time anyone says “‘Murica” is right before they’re about to do something stupid, say light a firework off the top of their head2. Of course, dropping bombs in the Middle East shouldn’t be equated to lighting fireworks after one-too-many Bud Lights, though, I would argue, they are both, at their heart, absurd. Does laughing make up for the destruction? No, but maybe it’s a way to cope.
Comedian Malik Elassal copes with his fear for his mother’s safety when she wears her hijab in public with an ingenious business proposal: hijabs patterned like the Confederate flag or shaped like KKK robes3. When the audience laughs, they’re laughing at the absurdity of the image, sure, but also at the people his mother has to fear, which is to say that Elassal effectively reduces these aggressors to caricatures.
Steve Way informs his audience that it would have taken years for Medicaid to approve his new wheelchair, but he was able to get it delivered next-day after he became a card-carrying member of the NRA4. In this hypothetical, the package arrived with an AR and a man to do his shooting for him since his disability would prevent him from holding the gun. The implicit thesis is two-fold: both that the NRA has a concerningly large influence over U.S. policy but also that the threat of violence, even when made by someone physically unable to enact said violence, is effective.
To posit this idea on its own has the potential to be either off-putting or overdone, perhaps cliche. Regarding the former, I will explain using a metaphor: the person trying to argue a sociopolitical point is fishing, and anyone in the audience is a fish. Now, casting the line on its own isn’t very likely to attract any fish. The hook needs to be disguised as something else, something that the fish would like to consume, which is of course to say a worm. Comedy, then, can be the worm used to attract the fish before it realizes that the fisher will pull it out of the water and, subtextually, say something about Islamophobia or ableism, for example. Comedy is a way to expose an audience to an argument that they otherwise might dismiss or reject.
Regarding the latter point, good comedy is original. If it is original enough, it has the potential to alter the way its audience approaches/views/understands some facet of the world. How better to build empathy, to cross cultural divides, than to deepen our understanding of people we might otherwise other?
I’m trying to write an essay about why we can’t lose our sense of humor, and I think what I’m trying to say is that laughing is an act of resistance. It is easy to give into the urge to sulk in a dark room and mourn the world that might have been, to protect ourselves from the danger of being outspoken and aware and alive, but I think this itself is a capitulation. This is an acceptance of the world based on fear, on violence, on bloodlust that the powers that be want us to accept. A populace without hope is one that has already surrendered.
In humor there is hope. In humor there is a reason to reject the impulse to isolate. In humor there is the possibility of reaching a larger audience.
We cannot isolate ourselves. We do not have time to sulk. We are nothing individually, of course, but together we cannot be ignored. Together we can make it clear that we will not support abductions of human beings or bombings in our national name.
Keith Lowell Jensen’s special What I Was Arrested For, a sort of modern-day Civil Disobedience, explains each time he was arrested, including while biking to a comedy show, and has a clear thesis: privileged people should be causing trouble so that the police have less time to harass marginalized people5. I think this, generally speaking, is what I’m trying to get at too as I write this essay about why we can’t lose our sense of humor.
Here’s my advice: make some noise. Get in trouble. Use your privilege to speak up. Crack some jokes at the expense of those in power, who are oftentimes people with egos fragile enough, with a need for validation so great, that words, which is to say jokes, really can hurt. I will be blunt: giving in to their demands is not going to save you. If the MS U.S. of A. is sinking in choppy waters anyway, what is there left to do but laugh as you buckle your life vest and try to help others buckle theirs?
I’m trying to write an essay about why we can’t lose our sense of humor, and I’m learning that it might be the comedians, absurdists, and satirists who are best-equipped to deal with our new reality. It might be the comedians, absurdists, and satirists who can most effectively inspire others to resist.
I vehemently reject the notion that laughing at a time like this is frivolous or even counterproductive, and I hope to god you will too. We need as many people as we can get.
Notes
1. Rumeysa Ozturk, Fatima Rahman, Genesis Perez, & Nicholas Ambeliotis, “Try Again, President Kumar: Renewing Calls for Tufts to Adopt March 4 TCU Senate Resolutions,” Tufts Daily, March 26, 2025, https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2024/03/4ftk27sm6jkj
2. J.B. Ball, “Jesus in the Crackhouse,” posted March 2025 by 800 Pound Gorilla, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER2o99OA-CE.
3. Malik Elassal, “Woke Flat Earthers,” Posted November 2023, by Don’t Tell Comedy, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy96iuq94Ko.
4. Steve Way, “Disabled John Wick,” Posted March 2025, by Don’t Tell Comedy, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpTjATNrQ-w.
5. Keith Lowell Jensen, “What I Was Arrested For,” Posted July 2023, by 800 Pound Gorilla, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_0uaWH7vHU.
