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Comedy is often that teaspoon of sugar that helps the medicine go down. It can speak truth, it can educate, it can convince while making people laugh, often at themselves. It has enormous power of persuasion. This week we feature two amazing women Comediennes discussing the power of comedy as resistance, as a mechanism for change, as a way to speak truth, perhaps with a little sugar to make that truth go down. Noam Shuster is an Israeli who grew up in a unique village that is equally part Israeli and part Palestinian which shaped her as a resister. Mayoon Zayid is Palestinian/American, who spent her summers in Palestine with her grandparents where she nurtured her strong Palestinian identity. This forum was sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East peace. Foundation President, Laura Friedman, and Rebecca Abou Chedid join the conversation.

Locating the source of racist bias and violence in “American communities,” with no mention of powerful politicians or powerful media, is a neat way to sidestep the role of systemic, structural racism, and imply that bias or “hate” is an individual, emotional issue, rather than one we can and should address together, across community, as a society. Add in media’s frequent prescription of law enforcement as the primary response, and you have what a large number of Asian Americans are calling a problem presenting itself as a solution, and not a way forward that actually makes them safer.

Alex Lawson: Senate Nearing Critical Stage of Negotiating Historic Medicare Expansion; James Early: Cuba’s Economic Crisis Provokes Protests and U.S. Threats; Rob Ritchie: Ranked Choice Voting Passes Major Test in New York City Primary; Bob Nixon: This Week’s Under-reported News Summary.