The prevailing wisdom is that Portland is “the whitest city in America”. Well, there’s a few local comedians that have something to say about that and a lot more. And to do it, they take to the stage of Minority Retort, a stand-up comedy showcase featuring people of color. Minority Retort occurs monthly at Portland’s Curious Comedy Theater and is hosted and produced by comedian Jeremy Eli, who created the show as a way of addressing the lack of diversity not just in Portland’s comedy audiences, but the city itself.

The first MR show was held subsequent to this episode’s taping and featured frequent KSSJ guest Anthony Lopez, headliner Nathan Brannon, as well as Crystal Davis, Katie Nguyen and David Mascorro.

Jeremy, Nathan and Anthony joined us to talk about whether or not a people of color showcase ghettoizes them, how the Darren Wilson decision impacted their desire to entertain white audiences and what similarities exist between Jimi Hendrix’s approach to playing guitar and a comedian’s approach to riffing on stage.

Also, Anthony explains how he’s able to double-dip (racially speaking) for Jason’s shows and expecting father Nathan tells us what he plans to do once his Black/Norwegian baby enters the world.

The next Minority Retort show is Friday, February 27th at 9:30pm at Curious Comedy Theater. For advance tickets, check out the Curious Comedy website. You can follow all of these gents on Twitter: @IMinorityRetort, @ImJeremyEli, @nathanbrannon and @anthonylopezpt2. For Nathan’s upcoming dates and to buy his great comedy album, I Black Out, check out his website.