Comedian Hari Kondabolu, will be coming to Main Lounge at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 17. Kondabolu, who has a B.A. in Comparative Politics from Bowdoin College and Masters in Human Rights from London School of Economics, covers topics of oppression, gentrification and race in a miraculous manner that people of all backgrounds can find the humor in. Originally from Queens, N.Y., but now living in Seattle, Wash., Kondabolu has performed on Comedy Central, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and HBO.
One notable bit finds Hari exposing the Smithsonian for its ability to euphemize the exploitation by the East Indian Company as a display about the Koh-i-Noor diamond claimed it was “found in Indian in the mid 1800s.”
“Right, it was just found in India, it wasn’t taken from India, it was just found because there we didn’t know what they were, we didn’t know what the fuck diamonds were,” Kondabolu sarcastically remarks. “Luckily the British showed up!”
Kondabolu is the perfect comedian for a Grinnell audience because so much of his subject matter is relevant to many of Grinnellian’s studies. He will make jokes about race without being racist, he will talk about different cultures as much as pop culture, but mostly, he is guaranteed to make you laugh.