Russel Peters - Racism isn't always that bad, what do you think?

Russell Peters - Russell Dominic Peters[1] (born 1970) is a Canadian stand-up comic of Indian descent, specifically Anglo-Indian, from Brampton, Ontario. His parents are originally from Bombay and Calcutta, India. [2] Russell Peters focuses primarily on his cultural background, Arab, Caribbean, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, and other South and Southeast Asian communities that remain invisible to the mainstream media.

Peters began performing in Toronto in 1989[1] and has performed in the UK, Australia, China, Singapore, Denmark, South Africa, the Caribbean, Vietnam, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, India, Dubai and the United States. He has been nominated for four Gemini Awards,[3] the Canadian television awards. He has also been nominated for Best Male Comic at the Canadian Comedy Awards.[citation needed] Peters has been featured at such shows as Montreal's Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, and the Edinburgh Festival. He hosted the Canada Day Comedy Festival 2006.

Peters' comedy focuses largely around his Indian upbringing and racial stereotypes, as he often parodies his parents and South Asian culture. Much of his material explores the cultural divides between many different ethnicities and upbringings in a way that includes many impressions. One reason for his popularity is that he engages the audience at his shows, by talking to individuals and making some sort of remark at or about them.

His most recent comedy special Russell Peters: Outsourced, aired on Comedy Central on August 26, 2006. Outsourced was also made available on DVD and CD in stores on August 29, 2006. The DVD version features his uncensored "Outsourced" performance. The DVD was extremely popular, especially in Canada, selling over 50,000 copies. Peters confirmed that "Outsourced" is his first comedy DVD released. The DVD "Two Concerts, One Ticket" never had Peters involved or made deals about the DVD release. Peters and his management team never endorsed the DVD.

He currently resides in Hollywood, California.


Outsourced
Outsourced, which was a stage act dedicated to his father, which showed people lots of new material, ranging from different types of Asians, the English accent, terrorists, rapists, Africans, Jews, and his adventures with Chinese people in Beijing's KFC. Two of his most popular catchphrases are "be a man" and "somebody gonna get a hurt real bad", and " were used in the stage act (from previous shows) and were greeted warmly by cheers and applauses, as these are seen as his "trademark" jokes.

However, Russell told the audience that he will retire the "somebody gonna get a hurt real bad" line after the DVD. Many viewers misunderstood this message and believed that Russell Peters was retiring his career as a comedian although it was the trademark joke to which he was referring.

His popularity overseas is enormous. In Dubai the Virgin Megastore has been flooded with fans trying to get tickets to Russell Peters show. 200 tickets were sold out in twenty minutes. Online, 1600 tickets of Russell's second show in Dubai were sold out in under forty minutes[4]
March 24, 2007 6:31am CST
For more info about Russel Peters, click on the image. I just saw Russel Peters' - Outsourced last night and I could've died out from laughing! He joked about Arabs,Indians,Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Asians, koreans, Afircans, and he did it in such a funny HARMELSS way that made me thinkof theose who really get annoyed of being picked on, joked on ie racist jokes nad wanted to KILL those who do. sensitive PEOPLE, why don't we lighten up a little? You know what? He is RIGHT! We come from a multi-cultural, Multi-linguel world and we dare NOT "speak" of eachother's religion, race customs etc face to face. We wait 'till the other group turns it's back and we joke about them. So our pretending doesn't get blown off. We have to be either be Europeanized, Americanized, modernized, any other -ized for the so called "first world" to accapt us. WHY IS THAT? Why can't we just be ourselves and be accepted as we are? This man, jokingly and humorly may be, has won my respect. And we must underatand that racism isn't always that BAD. Don't you agree? I come from a racist based community and I tell you racism isn't always bad as you think.
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1 response
@dazediva (166)
26 Mar 07
No need to be racist - There's no need to be racist. I saw this t-shirt on www.boffensive.com and had bought one.

What do you think ? Agree or disagree ? In this modern day and age, what's the need to be rasict ?
I couldn't have put it better myself. Russel Peters' is absolutely hillarious and he does it in complete style. It's true - there are some people out there who are just overly sensitive. I mean there's nothing wrong with that, but in this day and age, we all need to lighten up a little. We do live in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual world, and what's the point in living in this kind of an environment if we can't all joke, tease, take the mick out of each other without the term 'rasicm' coming into effect. I'm an Indian, who is British born, lived in the Middle East and went to uni in Canada. I have my 'british' friends, teasing me about my 'canadian/american' accent, and surprisingly, when I was out in Canada, they teased me about my 'brit accent'. Instead of speaking behind a person's back to make a joke, just say it while they're infront of you - you'd be surprised at how much they would probably agree with you and appreciate the joke itself. I don't get offended that people call me 'brown' or 'pak*i' or 'asian' .. why should I be? After all, I am 'brown and an asian' .. and as for being called 'pak*i' - I just laugh at the ignorance of the people who don't know the difference between an Indian and a Pakistani. We have the same skin colour, we just follow different religions that's all. So why take offence, we're both brown!*lol*(ok so maybe I can't joke like Russel Peters here, but I'm trying lol)
27 Mar 07
Thank you for your response. It seems you and I and one other guy who really know who Russel Peters is. lol!
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