News Archive 2009-2018

Comedian Aamer Rahman Entertains at Recent Bowdoin Show Archives

Aamer Rahman performs  stand-up comedy at Bowdoin

Aamer Rahman at Bowdoin, Photo by Emma S. Roberts ’17

Australian comedian Aamer Rahman recently performed his show, “The Truth Hurts,” in Pickard Theater, entertaining the audience with one engrossing story after another. Along the way, he cracked jokes about Muslims, Australians, South Asians — almost everyone, actually —as well as made people laugh about some tough topics such as terrorism, racism and the weirdness of social media.

Here are a few highlights from “The Truth Hurts.”

“Anybody watch Walking Dead? You don’t have to. Zombies taking over the world. I watched four seasons of this show and realized there is no South Asian characters in this show! There are some black characters, Latino characters, the main guy is Korean. But there is not even one Indian, Pakistani zombie hunter! I got upset and thought about it for a while — actually it’s quiet realistic. Because in a Zombie apocalypse, South Asians probably will be the first people to die. If you ask why, in a Zombie apocalypse what is the first thing you have to do? Pack up everything in the house, just the essentials, get into the car, and move as quickly as possible. Next time at the airport, just check out how much unnecessary sh*t South Asians travel with! How can you outrun zombies if you are carrying 15 suitcases! They go on a road trip, want to prepare some snacks, and four hours later there’s a 17 course meal that needs to be individually packed in containers. Total disaster!”

“EDL, English Defense League. They march through immigrant neighbors, causing trouble. They were starting a chapter in Australia and they announced their first rally on a Sunday morning. I wanted to check it out. They didn’t get 1500 people to their rally, not 2000. They got 20 people. And on that day, for the first time in my life, I felt proud to be an Australian. ’Cause I realized on that day, if there is one value my country holds above racism, it’s laziness.”

“You guys are on Facebook? Yes? I’m on Facebook a lot. My friends are like, get off Facebook, it’s not even real. Facebook is a virtual world! And I say: I’m not an idiot, I know it’s a virtual world, it’s better than the real world! There are things on Facebook you can never ever do in real life. Like deleting people! I sit and wait for hours and hours for people to say something stupid on Facebook, so I can have the joy of deleting them. [Like] ‘I love Macklemore, he’s so conscious, this guy has future’ Deleeete!!! It’s a great thing! Deleting people on Facebook! If you delete someone on Facebook, if you kill your relationship with someone on Facebook, it kills your relationship with them in the real world! They never talk to you again in the real life, right? It’s like killing somebody in the Matrix!”

“I’m also on Twitter, and I get trolled all the time! Another comedian from Australia wrote, ‘Muslims doing all these crazy violence and Aamer Rahman isn’t saying anything about it!’ I didn’t realize there was a shortage of people on the world condemning ISIS. What would happen if I condemned ISIS? Are there ISIS guys in the middle of the desert, looking at Twitter on their smart phones and saying ‘What? Ohh sh*t! Guys, I don’t know how to tell you this, but emm, Aamer Rahman just condemned us on Twitter! It is crazy ’cause I don’t know who the hell he is actually!’

“Before Tony Abbot, our prime minister was Julia Gillard. During her time, there was a major incident in Afghanistan. Gillard went on television and said, ‘This is a serious incident. But it will not stop Australia from completing its mission in Afghanistan. Australia will complete its mission in Afghanistan!’ Yeah, Australia cannot afford to fail its mission in Afghanistan, whatever the hell that may be! I think they tweeted it once, but I missed it! I looked for it on every government website, I even googled it! I typed, ‘why is Australia in Afghanistan’ into Google, and Google said ‘no idea man’.”

“Guys I’m from Australia, we didn’t have a multicultural center on campus. I was the multicultural center. I was a resource for white kids to come and ask questions. ‘Hi Aamer, is it racist if I say this?’Yes. Here’s a simple trick for you to use; if you think that something you are doing might be racist, I can almost guarantee you, it’s extremely racist. Stop.‘If I say this, is it really racist?’ There is not gonna be a magic day on the calendar when planets align and all the rules change. There is not gonna be one magic day when you come and ask me and I’ll go: Ohh wait, you know what, today is the day, today is the day when it’s totally cool for you to wear this native American hair on your head, only today ok?”

Rahman’s visit was sponsored by the student group Students for Justice in Palestine.

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