Book World: Native American comedians get their due
Donald Liebenson, The Washington Post
Feb. 22, 2021
FacebookTwitterEmail
By Kliph Nesteroff
- - -
"I know a lot of you white people have never seen an Indian do stand-up comedy before," joked Charlie Hill on "The Richard Pryor Show" in 1977. "Like, for so long you probably thought that Indians never had a sense of humor. We never thought you were too funny either."
Hill's TV debut, making him the first indigenous comedian in prime time, is one of the milestones that Kliph Nesteroff chronicles in "We Had a Little Real Estate Problem," an illuminating and stereotype-busting history of Native Americans and comedy.