‘Comedy is not for everybody’

Walker, 67, still pops up on television and in bit parts in movies, but he spends most of his time touring comedy clubs — 300 dates per year, by his estimation. Last week he performed a New Year’s Eve show at the Comedy Zone in Charlotte. He declined a face-to-face interview. so we talked by phone. He opened up about the controversy surrounding renewed rape allegations against Bill Cosby and how comedy is playing a crucial role in the country’s fractured state of race relations.

(Note: Walker assumed he was talking to a white, straight person, and some of his answers were geared accordingly.)

What do you think about what’s going on with Bill Cosby?

It’s a difficult situation. I’m a huge fan. He’s a great guy, (but) minority comics got tired of the Cos proselytizing, (telling them) “You should be clean.” That’s just not the way people are now.

You look at guys that have done bad things — Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, even Bill Clinton — they don’t hold themselves up as this great savior. That’s what (Cosby) did. I think the guys just got tired of it. The majority of minority comics are dirty, and they just didn’t want to hear it anymore.

It seems like you’re drawing a line between minority comics and regular comics. Do you feel that line?

Very much so. It used to be in the old days comedy is comedy. And it’s not anymore. There’s (clean) comedy. There’s dirty comedy. And there’s minority comedy. There’s people that are big in the Hispanic community that white people have never heard of, like Gabriel Iglesias. Mike Epps, Katt Williams, they’re for the black crowd. Lea DeLaria, she’s for the gay crowd. We didn’t have that when I started. We used to have a universality. It isn’t that way anymore.

But don‘t you think that’s beneficial, that it’s allowing niche comedians to get heard?

I don’t think Mike Epps or Katt Williams want any white people in their crowd. Same thing with the Hispanic crowd — they’re doing half their act in Spanish. It’s part of society. You see it manifest in the Ferguson thing or the New York thing. We’re more racially divided than ever before.

As comedians or in society?

I think comedy leads the way. Comedy is a forerunner of what’s happening in America. As we go on, we’ll become even more polarized.

Is that a good thing?

That’s the way it is and it’s not going to change. It’s going to actually get much worse. Me, Sinbad, Cosby — we’re in the universality side of it, and there’s not many of us left. People have to take a niche.

If you look at Andy Kindler or Sarah Silverman, they’re in what I call the Jack Kerouac Beat Comedy. It doesn’t always have to be funny, it’s just you have to get it. If you don’t get it, you’re not smart enough, not hip enough. And that’s too bad for you. Louis C.K., not for everybody. Paul Mooney, not for everybody.

There’s no universality anymore, and I think that’s led to our racial problems. (And) I see it getting more polarized.

Is it ever appropriate for a white person to do black humor?

You’ve got a couple guys. Ralphie May. There’s’ always guys doing that. Conversely, there’s black guys doing white comedy, or very generic stuff.

Do you ever feel it’s appropriate for a white person to use the n-word?

No. Never. You can’t explain it. It’s just the way it is and you just have to get over it. There’s no explanation.

Do you see any way to reverse it or to use it to get out of this?

The major cable networks play right into it. The (Shaquille O’Neal All-Star Comedy Jam) is just a black crowd. Suzanne Westerhoefter is just for the gay people. Watch it. See who it’s for. It’s not for you, it’s for that crowd.

Larry the Cable Guy. Amy Schumer. Louis C.K. They’re for the white people.

That’s too bad. I always thought comedy was for everyone.

No, comedy is not for everybody. And comedy is a young person’s game. There’s very few older people like myself around in the comedy racket.