Willie D addresses comedian David Lucas' ill-humored George Floyd joke

The 2020 police killing of George Floyd is no laughing matter, but comedian David Lucas is convinced that his being an “equal opportunity offender” and free speech advocate is justification for his ill-humored joke about the tragedy. His logic behind the issue was laid out in a new “Willie D Live” interview on Saturday (Feb. 17).

During a recent set at the Kansas City Funny Bone Comedy Club, Lucas countered a heckler with an exchange of insults. “And you want to show them the reason why George Floyd got his neck kneeled on,” said Lucas. The crowd groaned at the remark. “Don’t ‘Ooh’ at that joke. It’s just a joke, man. I would’ve never kneeled on George Floyd’s neck. I would’ve shot that n**ga.” Online, he was met with backlash but remained unmoved. Instead, in a subsequent Instagram post, he wrote, “Being canceled ain’t that bad.”

However, on Saturday, a video of him addressing the outrage surfaced. In it, he claimed to have spoken with members of Floyd’s family as well as close friend Stephen Jackson and rapper-activist Trae tha Truth. He apologized for the pain they may have felt but never for the joke, a sentiment that was echoed when his discussion with Willie D was uploaded.

“I’m an advocate for free speech, right. The great Patrice O’Neal said that a funny joke and a bad joke come from the same place, so that was my attempt at comedy,” said Lucas in the 18-minute chat. “It was to get shock value. I’m a troll. You heckle me, now I heckle you.”

He added, “I don’t apologize for doing the joke… Who are we as the gatekeepers to say when a joke goes too far? I joke about beating on white women, I joke about killing white women, I joke about gay people, I joke about the transexual community. So, the moment I apologize for a George Floyd joke, now I gotta apologize for every other joke. So, who in this situation is the gatekeeper to tell me ‘You went too far’ or ‘You didn’t go far enough’? Is it because I’m not famous? If Dave Chappelle would have told that joke, what would have happened?”

The comic further claimed that his audience is predominantly white because his comedy is “very cerebral.” To which the Geto Boys emcee responded, “Comedy is subjective; what’s offensive to one person may not be offensive to another person. So, having said that, when you start talking about telling jokes about Black folks’ pain in front of white folks, it hit different because white folks are the dominant group in this society that we occupy.”

Between Lucas’ defensive interjections, Willie said that the “Yo Momma” jokester did not necessarily have to relate to Floyd’s circumstances, rather, he noted that “anybody can relate to having empathy, all of us should have a capacity to have empathy.”

“So, when you think about making a joke about George Floyd, somebody who died, and it sparked an entire movement all around the world because Black people, Black men specifically, are being gunned down in the streets like dogs by the police, and there’s no accountability for it. And so… the point is… what happened to George Floyd could happen to you. It’s more likely to happen to you than anybody in your white fanbase,” said the host.

Check out the rest of the game that Willie D attempted to kick to David Lucas about the costs of exploiting Black pain in the video below.

]]>