Boycott Helium Comedy Club; Michael Rapaport is a Racist
MICHAEL RAPAPORT IS A RACIST.
For weeks we have boosted a call to action, in an attempt to cancel the upcoming shows of one man named Michael Rapaport at the Helium Comedy Club on the 12th-14th of January. The emails and calls were meant to urge the Helium Comedy Club to listen to the Portland community, and not platform someone that has become a mouthpiece for the IOF. Otherwise, we intended to protest the comedy club and call for a boycott.
These calls have been completely ignored. Emails, calls, and comments on social media were not acknowledged. Now we have come to find out, they are not just being ignored. Management has become aware of the situation and is now silencing any dissent.
Michael Rapaport labels himself as a “comedian” despite his not being one, as comedians are supposed to make jokes and jokes are supposed to be funny. He spreads lies and propaganda that even the Biden administration has had to walk back, working directly with members of the Israeli Occupation Forces. And, it shouldn’t have to be stated, genocide and making fun of dead children isn’t funny.
Rapaport has garnered completely fair condemnations for his cruelty and lack of comedic entertainment in his recent descent on social media. Michael had come to some notoriety during the Trump years, for being a loud New Yorker who yelled about the “idiot” president and the horrible policies that his administration pursued. (Being a loud New Yorker who yells is apparently all it takes to be a white male comedian). Yet this was the extent of the man’s political education, as he accepted whatever Joe Biden did, even if in the same vein as the former fascist. In essence, this man has no morals, which became evident in the last year.
Since October 7th and the subsequent mass retaliation against innocent families and civilians in Gaza by Israel, Rapaport fell down a rabbit hole. He began posting daily updates, marking “X days, Bring the Hostages Home”. The videos followed the same trend of content creators who were being paid by the IOF to post pro-Israel content. These ties have been proven, where the Israeli military and government reaches out to social media influencers, offering payouts for posts that promote the apartheid state,
The IOF is losing the information war, considering how social media has allowed independent researchers and journalists to report on the atrocities committed by the Israeli regime. Since 2020, more and more Americans have begun to call out the sheer inequity in the State of Israel. Israel has codified apartheid, the racist separation of peoples, a fact shared by President Jimmy Carter in a now resurfaced interview with Democracy Now!. It has occupied Palestinian land for 75 years, enforced a total blockade of Gaza, helped to build Hamas; and now acts the victim of the resistance of people that they have forced to live in an open-air prison, under a brutal military occupation.
Rapaport, however, has crossed a dark line. His videos are not merely in support of the Israeli’s onslaught in Gaza. They cheer on and justify the murder of innocent families in Gaza, as well as advocating for violence against anyone that supports the Palestinian cause.
Michael has since followed an ignorant trend of claiming that anyone who disagrees with him is an antisemite. This ignores the millions of American Jews who do not support the Palestinian genocide and organize against it, such as groups like Jewish Voice for Peace. It also is completely ignorant of the fact that Palestinians and Arab people are semitic, from the same region. It also paints a false narrative of those who support the State of Israel, considering the massive rally in D.C. which he attended, featured a known white supremacist.
He paints himself and other Westerners as somehow “indigenous” to Palestine, despite the Israelis moving in from Russia, Germany, and the States. On several occasions he has labeled Palestinians, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial as a “fake people”. Despite using a several thousand year old religious view as the notion that the Israelis deserve the land, he doesn’t support that same claim for people like the Native Americans, who were forcibly removed from their land the victims of genocide. Why does he hold the view that some people deserve their “land back” versus others? Because the Israelis are white and the natives are brown, plain and simple.
To spit in the face of Palestinians, Michael has recently led a trend of an attempt to steal the watermelon symbol, in support of the Zionist regime. He changed his profile photo to a watermelon, adorned with black seeds in the shape of the Star of David. As a part of that, he shared a photo posted by the deeply racist “Joan of Judea” account, which claimed a “fake people” named the Palestinians “stole the watermelon” symbol.
Nothing has done more to highlight the Zionists trend of stealing people’s symbols, lands, foods, and acting the victim. He knows why Palestinians have used the watermelon as a symbol of resistance. For years, the violent Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza banned the display of the Palestinian flags. To resist, Palestinian arts began to paint the watermelon, which shares the colors of red, black, white and green. The move to appropriate the watermelon was an inhumane attempt to erase the true history of the fruit. And the accounts that use this watermelon, lined with the blue of Israel should be reminded that blue in food means mold.
Michael, despite claiming that his hatred is free speech, is outright celebrating the silencing of anyone he does not like, simply because they call for a ceasefire and the end to bombing families in their homes. This can be seen in videos where he laughs maniacally at the banning of activist Shaun King, for sharing footage from Gaza, and the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay, targeted by white supremacists and zionists for refusing to deny Palestinian groups the right to protest.
The thing is he is not just celebrating the silencing of dissent; Michael doxxes anyone in the States who does something to criticize or condemn the State of Israel, such as burning the flag of the regime. Recently he has begun to target our Portland community for having called out his hatred and bigotry. He knows what he is doing.
His videos have been highlighted in the email template I released a few weeks ago. He posts videos of himself laughing at the death of men, women, and especially children, murdered by the bombing of Gaza by the IOF. He also makes videos painting all Palestinians as deserving of “eradication”, a term that he has used without remorse, as it has roots in Nazism.
On Christmas Eve Michael posted a video celebrating the onslaught in Gaza and the fact that the place of Jesus’ birth (Bethlehem in the West Bank) canceled Christmas due to deaths of entire families and children: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1QCGobrCUF/?igsh=MmszcnVsbG1heTV2
Here he is offering a paid trip for his political enemies so he can see them murdered (despite the lies about Palestine and LGBTQ rights): https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1KhEr3rkAw/?igsh=MXE2Ym85OWhwaXczOA==
Here he is using queer people to justify genocide (in a country that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage and sees an increase of violence against LGBTQ+ folks every year). In tis video he also sexualizes all LGBTQ people, painting the existence of a sex store as signs of gay people in society: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1N4OfsxOho/?igsh=ZDMwaWl1NHo0dXo1
Here he calls Gaza a hellhole, and calls all Palestinian Jihadists, pure Islamophobic racism, and claims there is no media, despite the 100 plus journalists killed by Israel in airstrikes: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1AmTbSyGAv/?igsh=MTllM2ZxdTBibmNsMA==
And here is the worst video of all. Michael calls for Israel to “eradicate” every hostage that they hold from Gaza and the West Bank. Despite the fact that many of these “hostages” are prisoners arrested for showing support of Palestinian self-determination. He claims that all people living in Gaza must be stripped to their underwear. “And if there’s kids around”, he states. “They should be stripped to their underwear also”. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1Z23seLsCD/?igsh=MjQ5aWY3a3A2eHI2
BOYCOTT HELIUM COMEDY CLUB
With all of this evidence of his evil, we began to call and email the Helium Comedy Club en masse, to demand the show be canceled. It began with calls, where I was told that in order to express our concerns, we were urged to email mgmtpdx@heliumcomedy.com. Then we learned that the booking was through their location in Philadelphia, and contacted them and general management.
I had believed that since the call to action was released in the last week of the year, the messages were not seen. Instead, as I have come to discover, the ownership of the Helium Comedy Club has been fully aware of the situation and has chosen to support Rapaport and the State of Israel.
On the 28th of December, I awoke to my account bombarded with messages. I went through my notifications and found that Michael Rapaport had followed my account and liked the poster calling him out. He then shared the flier, and the various calls to action, using it to promote his shows in Portland.
He shared a screenshot of my account on his story, with a link to buy tickets for his show. In the paragraph of the reel he tagged both EntifadaPDX and Coy & Co, knowing full well that they would be targeted by his goons.
That same day, the owner of Coy & Company commented, making a sarcastic remark about how hateful comedians are not welcome in Portland. Immediately he posted a photo of the owner and her business, doxxing this woman and her business.
He knew that this doxxing would be fuel for his racist trolls to threaten people, and this happened within the hours afterwards. Half of his followers are Israeli bot accounts, and they commented on the most recent post of Helium Comedy Club, to encourage them to platform the genocidal IDF propagandist, claiming they bought tickets for his show. They were outweighed by the amount of real Portlanders and local comedians that condemned the comedy club and called for them to cancel the show.
Michael Rapaport doxxed and threatened a Portland business owner simply for supporting Palestinians.
Another target was the owner of Erica’s PDX, a food cart attached to the Worker’s Tap, and one which expressed support for another business owner being made a target. As a result of her views against genocide, she has been the target of a racist troll. The person made a fake account with her business name, and used past mugshots to spew racist hate. Because she’s a black woman and a business owner, Michael’s followers began to threaten her livelihood once again with reviews that were a rant of pure racism.
We all began to receive a series of threats and hateful messages in the aftermath. I received a number of messages, calling me a faggot, a queer, a Nazi, and a terrorist. I was told to go back to my country of birth. They accused me of being antisemitic, despite my support of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestinians, and my fight against Nazis since 2020.
One person commented that if I cared so much about their cause, I should give my home to an indigenous person. This was laughable, as I am half Zacateca, and if they believed in their notion that they were indigenous and thus deserved to steal Palestinian’s homes, I should be granted the land of Turtle Island, alongside the tribes that inhabited the land for millennia. They also unknowingly admitted that white colonizers are not indigenous to the region. Of course, as I must reiterate, they don’t hold this same view because they are racists.
I blocked account after account. As a journalist and an antifascist, who covers protest movements, threats and hateful messages are par for the course. However, I recognized that the messages were the direct result of Michael Rapaport. Despite his supposedly progressive views, Rapaport has become a right-wing troll and capitalized off of the hatred that stems from fascist politics.
I had tried to give Helium the benefit of the doubt. I commented on the page of the comedy club, that thanks to them refusing to cancel the show, I was now the target of threats. I commented alongside several thousand people, most of them urging them to reconsider and not invite Rapaport to perform.
Then, the views of the comedy club were laid out clearly. We began to comment on their Google reviews, with similar messaging. Within hours, the ownership began to delete comment after comment. The only negative review they allowed to stay was mine, in which I asked why they were deleting reviews. The purpose of this was evident, to give their racist supporters someone to target, and to act like there were not scores of reviews deleted that day.
Then, I received a message from a local comedian. She urged me to check my stories, and see if I saw the same account she was seeing. The co-owner of the Helium Comedy Club was stalking my account, alongside others.
Brad Grossman, Chief Operating Officer, had been stalking my account for several days, as I came to discover by checking the views of my stories. His private account appeared, as having seen story after story discussing the Helium Comedy Club and the coming show. This meant that Helium was aware of the calls to protest, and most likely worked to inform and boost Michael Rapaport.
In the aftermath of this all, I have come to learn about the years of concerns expressed from comedians in the city of Portland. They have witnessed how the comedy club consistently features white racist comedians, against the wishes of members of the public. Several people of color have expressed how they feel unsafe at the comedy club.
Comedians of color in the city have called out the Helium club for years, for its treatment of POC and queer comedians. It took this incident for the racist views of its ownership to come to light. In the wake of this vitriol and hatred, supported by Helium, we call for a full-scale boycott of the comedy club.
As such, we are now set on protesting the shows, starting this next Friday, January 12th. Helium has chosen to ignore all community comments, and deserves to be called out. While we intend to protest the 12th-14th shows, it is now evident that we must call for a boycott against the comedy club, going forward.
Laughs PDX, a new resource for Portland comedians, has released a statement criticizing Helium Comedy Club choosing to platform Michael Rapaport. The group began as a drive-in project during the height of the pandemic, to provide avenues to feature comedians in dark times. Since then, the co-founders have created a website that highlights comedic voices and shows. It also provides support for comedians getting started in the Rose City.
One of the co-founders is Jewish, and their statement expressed support for the Palestinian people, urging an end to the genocide. The statement is still viewable on their website:
“As a comedy resource here in Portland, LaughsPDX aims to provide up-to-date information about mics and shows run by our community that take place around the city, where the general policy is zero-tolerance for hate-speech, racism, sexism, ableism or otherwise bigoted content.
Providing a platform for performers who violate that standard is not an action we take lightly. One such instance is the scheduled shows for Michael Rapaport at Helium Comedy Club from 1/12–14/24. Given recent commentary from Mr. Rapaport about the ongoing violence in Gaza, we do not support the platform being provided for him.”
LaughsPDX is a welcome addition to the city, and highlights shows with no tolerance for bigotry. Rapaport spews hatred, and they stated “while it is not our place to police the scene or individual clubs, we find it necessary to voice our stance and solidarity with the Palestinian people”.
There are numerous other groups that have sprung up across Portland. A lot of the organizing stemmed from their unfair treatment by the Helium Comedy Club, which has come to hold a death-grip on the comedy scene.
We have the opportunity to feature comedians who have called out the Helium Comedy Club for years. We have the chance to validate other venues, where queer and POC comedians can feel safe and supported. It is high-time that Helium’s control of the comedy community be brought to an end.
Because genocide isn’t funny, and because Helium has chosen to support the platforming of Michael Rapaport, BOYCOTT HELIUM COMEDY CLUB.
