Aziz Ansari tackled racism and Islamophobia in his Saturday Night Live opening monologue, telling audiences, “Donald Trump is basically the Chris Brown of politics”.
The 33-year-old American actor, who is of Indian heritage and whose family is Muslim, has been outspoken about racism and Islamophobia in the past.
Ansari is the first person of South Asian descent to host the iconic sketch show, and a day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, he took the opportunity to hit hard.
“Pretty cool to know, though, he’s probably at home right now watching a brown guy make fun of him though, right?” Ansari joked about the newly sworn-in president. “Don’t tweet about me being lame.”
“I’m sure there’s a lot of people [who] voted for Trump the same way a lot of people listen to the music of Chris Brown, where it’s like, ‘Hey, man! I’m just here for the tunes. I’m just here for the tunes! I don’t know about that other stuff. I just like the dancing and the music. I don’t condone the extracurriculars’,” he riffed.
Talking about islamophobia he said:
“A lot of people are Islamophobic, which doesn’t make sense on paper because you know the God in Islam is the same God that was revealed to Abraham. Judaism, Christianity, same God. But people are scared. Why? Because any time they watch movies, and TV shows, and a character is Arabic, or they’re praying or something like that, that scary-ass music from Homeland is underneath it, it’s terrifying!”
“People are like, “Aah! What are they saying?” Just “God is good!” Normal religion stuff! It’s O.K.! You want to end Islamophobia? Honestly, just change that music. Like, if the music was different — if it was just, like, [sings upbeat jingle], people would be like, “Man, Islam is one whimsical religion, isn’t it?”