Hasan Minhaj: ‘New brown America wouldn’t be possible without black America’

Hasan Minhaj is having a moment. The 31-year-old Daily Show Correspondent skyrocketed to fame when he was tasked with hosting this years’ White House Correspondents’ Dinner — a Trump-less one at that.

“I was initially very shocked,” Minhaj told Dean Obeidallah Thursday about receiving the call to host. “It was one of those things where it was only three weeks before the actual event.”

Minhaj enlisted the comedic help and guidance from past hosts like Larry Wilmore and spoke to Samantha Bee, who was hosting her own alternative programming, aptly called Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

They advised him, saying, “There’s two forms of protest — there’s one where you can throw bricks from outside the building, or you can do it within the building.” Minhaj rose to the occasion to roast the press and current administration. But most of all, his message reflected the message and importance of the free press.

Minhaj rose to the occasion to roast the press and current administration. But most of all, his message reflected the message and importance of the free press.

“So, that’s why you gotta be on your A-game,” Minhaj told the press during the annual dinner. “You gotta be twice as good. You can’t make any mistakes. Because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group. And now you know what it feels like to be a minority.”

His stand up show, Homecoming King, is currently airing on Netflix and touches on issues of race and identity.

“New brown America wouldn’t be possible without black America,” Minhaj explained. “The struggle that black America had to endure, we should take an incredible amount of inspiration and we should be indebted to them. They’ve been through this stuff before.”

Minhaj concluded, “This idea of being apologetic, I’m off that.”

The Dean Obeidallah Show airs weekdays at 6 pm ET on SiriusXM Progress (Ch. 127)