In comedy, timing is everything. Just ask Bryant ‘Preacher’ Moss, an American-Muslim comic who spent the summer spreading his tongue-in-cheek message across North America in an effort to ease growing tensions in the Muslim community. Moss is a man in the right place at the right time, using his unique brand of irreverence to tackle the lingering stereotypes that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq have fuelled about Islam and ethnicity.
“Humour is the best vehicle for tackling social and political issues because it disarms people,” says Moss, a former TV writer who has taken his End of Racism Show to some 500 college and university campuses across the US. “At a protest, you are immediately dealing with two sides of an issue — either for or against,” he says. “I like to flip the issue so many ways it’ll get the audience thinking instead of making them emotional and angry.”
Moss often performs with comedians Azhar Usman, and Azeem Muhammad, hoping to reflect the diversity Islam. They put aside their own ego as performers to showcase a kind of co-operative teamwork rare in comedy, particularly on the North American stage. They say they have developed “a project built not on competition, but a coalition.”
Moss cut his comedy teeth writing for shows such as the Damon Wayans Show and Politically Incorrect, and has also written for comedian-turned-actor George Lopez and Saturday Night Live’s Darrell Hammond. He spent last summer touring the US and Canada as one of the headliners of “Allah Made Me Funny — The Official Muslim Comedy Tour.” He’s performed in places as diverse as comedy clubs, campus auditoriums and even as part of an Islamic conference in Toronto. That alone is testament to the universal appeal to his message: That the West has given Muslim a new meaning, with connotations of fear attached to it. This is a meaning that makes no sense because Muslims are as intelligent, witty, sophisticated as the next person. Perhaps more so. And he goes on to prove it with his routine, using pungent observations about Muslims and other members of the global village we live in to make people laugh and question their own ideas and opinions about race and religion. Currently, he is participating in a series of shows in Connecticut to raise funds for the tsunami relief.
Moss culls his comedy from the everyday experience of being an American-Muslim. From “Muslim hypocrites to rednecks,” US foreign policy and the horror of secret trials, everything gets thrown into the mix. He has always had an irreverent side, earning the nickname ‘Preacher’ as a boy when he imitated the “bad sermons” delivered every Sunday by the minister in his mother’s church. Now he finds himself defending a person’s right to identify with a religion without being branded a terrorist.
“The Patriot Act and similar anti-terror legislation has had the effect of a siege on the underclass,” he says. “Officials don’t need a reason to detain you under these draconian policies and of course that has an effect on Muslim-Americans, other minorities and the poor. Many Muslims are afraid to take pride in their beliefs, to express themselves fully because they don’t want to be associated with terrorists.”
The unprecedented scrutiny Muslims have to endure is no joke, but that doesn’t keep Moss from poking fun.
“Some Muslims are so scared you can’t even tell a ‘knock-knock’ joke around them,” he says during one routine. “You say ‘knock, knock,’ they yell, ‘Don’t answer that!’”
While comedy is largely unfamiliar terrain for Muslims, ethnic comedy has for decades been a mainstay of performers such as Woody Allen who began exploiting his Jewish heritage for laughs in the 1960s, and black civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who entertained audiences with pithy snipes at segregation. These days, there are several Muslim comedians, both men and women, emerging from obscurity with self-deprecating humour that leaves audiences holding their sides. The backlash against Muslims in the wake of 9/11 left many Muslims reeling, but not Moss. It merely strengthened his resolve to help explode pre-conceived notions about the community. “I am a Muslim, and Muslims like me have been a part of this society for a long time, and I will not apologize for the actions of individuals who blow up buildings; they do not represent my beliefs,” says Moss.
There are two types of Muslims according to Moss: African-American Muslims, many of whom embrace the notion of civil activism, and immigrant Muslims, who often come from oppressive regimes where challenging the status quo is dangerous. “They just want to fit in and be accepted, but I tell them, ‘You can be accepted or you can be respected,”’ he says. “It takes longer to become respected but then you own that respect. Right now, there is too much emphasis on being accepted.”
Moss graduated from college with a journalism degree, but soon learned first-hand about the media’s tendency to polarize issues, so he opted instead to tell modern-day stories by using his sense of humour.
“We want to take humour and empower the individual to deal with today’s reality, spark a revolution in thinking that will bring change,” he says. “I am not trying to improve the situation (just) for Muslims. I am hoping society as a whole will benefit.”
