Phoebe Robinson

Phoebe Robinson is the author of You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain. From the transcript of her Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross:

GROSS: OK. You also say, in your book, that you made jokes when you were starting that you wouldn't dream of making today. Can I put you on the spot and ask you for an example of a joke you wouldn't dream of making today?

ROBINSON: Yeah. I had this one joke that I used to do pretty early out. And I took all my early, like, stand-up clips off YouTube because who needs to see that train wreck? I don't. I was just Dunkirking (ph) it up. But anyway, so the joke basically is I was watching the slavery documentary with a white friend of mine. And it got like really awkward. And I was, like, oh, don't worry about it. I - because I'm lighter skin, I would've been in the house. And it always got a laugh. And I would, like, go and, like, make jokes about, like, you know, me and Thomas Jefferson. And it always just kind of like - now I'm like, are you kidding me, dog?

GROSS: (Laughter).

ROBINSON: Why would you ever make that? It's so ignorant. And it's so just kind of, like, you know, when you're early, you're like, oh, I got to be provocative. I have to be edgy. I have to, like - if I'm going to talk about race, I have to do it in, like, this crazy way that I think has never been done and make people uncomfortable or make people, like, really just, like, kind of laugh out of, like, shock rather than laughing out of, like, truly, like, enjoying that joke thoroughly.

And that is a joke where I'm like, maybe you, like, just don't need to joke about slavery like that. I'm sure there's a great slavery joke. But I haven't cracked that nut yet. And it's...[read on]

You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain is among Maeve Higgins's favorite funny essay collections.

--Marshal Zeringue