Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by James Adomian

In preparation for tonight's debate...

Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Lee Camp

Last night was crazy in New York City. Drinking Liberally ended up hosting three events in Manhattan just to make sure we had enough space, and our venues still were packed.

Laughing Liberally comedian Elon James White captured the spirit of the night and repackaged it fast into today's episode of This Week in Blackness. Elon interviewed two groups of debate-watchers for their views: people of color, and white women.

Of course, white or black, man or woman, everyone shared one thing: they were drinking...liberally...

Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Katie Halper

Everyone in the office Living Liberally office is already excited/petrified/ambivalent/crouched over in empathy pain about tonight's debate. Though we wonder if it'll be as Jim Lehrer-y as last Friday's - to provide a quick recap, Katie Halper has kindly offered a flashback at the top ten debate moments thus far.

Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Lee Camp

You gotta give it to Laughing Liberally regular and Tank comedy programmer Elon James White -- when he gets rolling, he makes the most of his momentum.

He's up to episode 6 already of his new series "This Week in Blackness." In this episode, he reveals to all of us what a new scientific poll has discovered: race "matters" in this election.

Enjoy.

You'd think we'd be talking about race a lot. It's incredible that an African American is in the lead for the presidency, and a sad commentary that it's such an unlikelihood in this country. Obama's candidacy could be sparking thoughtful conversations about race in every corner of America.

Ok, ok...the Presidential race too rarely sparks thoughtful conversations on anything -- why should race be any different?

And I think we'd collectively fall out of our seats if Senator Obama started an earnest dialogue unpacking white privilege.

But since he won't (or can't), other surrogates have to:

This video is the 5th installment of "This Week in Blackness," a new project from Laughing Liberally regular and Brooklyn Comedy Company founder Elon James White.

It's more upfront about race than most mainstream commentary (just because it's funny doesn't mean it isn't honest). And Elon can say things that Senator Obama and those around him could never say -- both because Elon's not connected to the campaign, and because he has the Shakespearean fool's privilege granted to comedians to speak truths and taboos.

It's a reminder of the importance of outside surrogates who can inject ideas into the discourse that the campaigns may not touch. And one more example of comedians talking about topics far more interesting than much of the "top-tier" coverage.

I have no idea if it's good or bad political strategy to be as subdued about race as the Obama campaign is...but in the long term it's better for our country to talk, debate, learn, argue -- and laugh, when we can -- about it.

Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Katie Halper

Sarah Palin was ambushed by Charlie Gibson with a gotcha question about the Bush Doctrine. Well, maybe Palin isn't an expert on the current president's doctrine, but, as her hero Virginia Woolf would have it, the governator has a doctrine of one's own, the Palin Doctrine, which strikes a balance between governmental largess and governmental neglect.

Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Lee Camp

It's always really cool to get the chance to plug popular culture that aims, implicitly or explicitly, to promote progressive values, but it's particularly cool when said popular culture comes from one of our Laughing Liberally comics. Elon James White, the brilliant LL-associated mind behind the Black Comedy Experiment has started a new video-blog series: This Week In Blackness, a biting examination of the latest political news directly affecting black communities - it's more than worth checking out, and given the rate with which they've been produced in the past few days, it looks like 'weekly' will be a minimum level of regularity.