Chris Hitchens Has More Advice for 'Black Dyke' Wanda Sykes

Author and uber-contrarian Christopher Hitchens couldn't leave well enough alone when it came to his offensive and bigoted assessment of Wanda Sykes' performance at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

While some folks cut him slack by surmising that he was probably drunk when he called Sykes "the black dyke," Hitchens "cleverly" wants us all to know he meant it by referring to her twice as "the sable Sapphist" in an article at Slate. Funny stuff, you fornicating little pink star.

As if that wasn't insulting enough, the premise of Hitchens' piece was to school Wanda, and any other artist of the brick wall backdrop, on the Hitchens method of stand-up comedy.
Hitchens' problem seems to be with the fact that Sykes didn't adhere to the roast-y tradition of the dinner and mock President Obama. He might have a point there, but that has nothing to do with whether or why she was funny, or not.

He also launches into the President, claiming he's not a "natural wit." That may be true, if the definition of "natural wit" is the ability to translate "black dyke" into "sable sapphist." I thought we were calling that "seventh grader."

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot that Hitchens does right in the world. However, his lust for Obama takedowns has clouded his ability to offer a clinic in stand-up comedy, just as his use of the phrase "black dyke" has clouded my ability to say anything good about Hitchens for the moment.

In any case, his premise, "comedians aren't funny when they try to flatter the president," is fatally flawed on its face. As one of the all-time greats was fond of saying, anything can be funny. Maybe just not to someone who comes from a place where the bar is set at time-lapse photography accompanied by "Yakkety Sax."

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