
Jul 8 • 1HR 12M
Episode 172: The Crass-Examination Of Jad Sleiman
WHYY attempts to cancel one of its own. Things do not go well.
Journalists Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal scour the internet for its craziest, silliest, most sociopathic content, part of an obsessive and ill-conceived attempt to extract kernels of meaning and humanity from a landscape of endless raging dumpster fires.
This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse tells Katie the story of Jad Sleiman, a Muslim/Catholic/Lebanese/American/veteran/reporter/comic who was fired from public radio station WHYY over his jokes.
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The Philadelpia Inquirer: “A WHYY journalist was fired for his stand-up comedy videos”
Episode 172: The Crass-Examination Of Jad Sleiman
Jad here. Re: Raghead, yeah, not performative/ironic. I cant help it, I get pissed. WIth raghead and shit it's hard to explain, like you hear it and your gut instantly flips and you think oh, somebody once called my mom that. People cant help that shit, it's why I dont use any actual slurs in my act.
It also just seemed unnecessary in the moment, like there's a tape, we all just heard it, what are you proving even? Would you haul a black dude up and chastise him for saying the n word? It was all so pointless.
To Katie's point, yeah I dunno how the law works or like if he had to say it for legal reasons, that may be the case. Didnt seem like it tho in the moment. And of course yeah I'm not gonna fly off the handle if someone I know says towel head or whatever, but that's different from a lawyer dropping it after yelling at you for however long.
Big fan of the show, very grateful for ya'lls time and interest. Most everyone else just ignored this.
Sorry but Jad should immediately go full time with his comedy. His talents are wasted in public radio and he’s legitimately funny.