“White people done took over now… First thing white people took over was rioting. Yes. Riots used to be some black shit… White people done took it over… Y’all are terrible at it, white people.” (Katt Williams 2020)
In this comedy routine, the comedian makes multiple hasty generalizations about both white and Black people. He says that white people “took over” rioting, that rioting “used to be some black shit,” and that white people are terrible at rioting. Obviously, these statements don’t describe every white or Black person. Instead, he takes observations about certain protests and riots and applies them to entire racial groups. The exaggeration is part of what makes the joke work.
The reason I consider this a hasty generalization is because he repeatedly takes the actions of some people and makes a much larger claim about an entire group. For example, he describes white protesters as obeying crosswalks, passing out orange slices, and not causing any damage. Even if some of the protesters he is talking about actually did those things, that doesn’t mean all white people protest or riot that way. He does the same thing when he says that riots “used to be some black shit.” Rioting isn’t something that belongs to one race, and the actions of some Black people during particular riots don’t represent all Black people.
This example also shows how hasty generalizations can be used for comedy. A comedian can take a stereotype or observation, exaggerate it, and apply it to an entire group to create a joke. In an argument, though, doing the same thing can cause problems. Seeing five people from one group behave a certain way doesn’t give you enough evidence to say that everyone in that group behaves that way. A few examples aren’t necessarily representative of millions of different people. He could have said that some white peole follow the law while rioting but that would be a lot less funny. In this case he is playing to peoples emotions as he is a comedian. He could have been more specific but he was making jokes.
Hasty generalizations show up outside of comedy all the time. Someone might have a bad experience with one employee at a restaurant and say, “Everyone who works there is terrible.” You might play against a few bad players from one gaming community and decide that everyone who plays that game is bad. In both cases, you are using a small amount of evidence to make a much larger claim than the evidence actually supports.
When you hear a generalization like this, ask yourself: How many people is this claim based on, and is that enough evidence to represent the entire group? Just because something is true about a few people doesn’t mean it is true about everyone who shares something in common with them.
At this point, you should already know enough about logical fallacies to recognize what comes next. I get it, you might be dumb, but you should click on the ad hominem logical fallacy anyway!