Comedy Central’s progressive content apparently doesn’t beget a diverse company culture.
In a new report by Business Insider, the publication spoke to current and former employees of Comedy Central’s creative team who alleged that they faced numerous microaggressions and “discriminatory behavior from co-workers from within the company.”
According to the insiders, top executives at the New York head office “sometimes tokenized employees of color” and fostered a toxic culture. Insider spoke to 17 employees and, 15 said they “either witnessed or experienced inappropriate behavior they believe was influenced by colleagues’ race.” All of the employees asked to remain anonymous.
One former project manager said that “there is a toxic family environment there, where people can act out of line, be disrespectful, and do racist things, but still be protected.”
Part of Comedy Central’s wide appeal is the channel’s devotion to producing diverse content that comes across as unrestrained by traditional social and political mores, and therefore often reveals the uncomfortable truth about how our society handles issues of race, gender, etc. Programs such as “The Daily Show with Trevor Now,” “South Park,” “Chappelle’s Show,” and “Reno 911” are among the channel’s most provocative, and critically lauded, shows.
However, according to prior staff, Comedy Central’s main headquarters was greatly lacking in diversity, as a mainly white, and male, organization. As a result, Black employees often felt sidelined, until they were needed in order to flout the company’s diversity, such as in the case of a former project manager, who was occasionally recruited for meetings in order to “create the illusion of diversity” in front of comedians of color. She also said she was often asked to give what she called a “Black perspective.”
In another case, the vice president of brand creative corralled the project manager into a meeting she wasn’t even supposed to be in, whose focus turned out to be reviewing research from a primarily Black, and female, demographics test. “I guess they needed a Black person to help explain things,” she said. “At one point I even had to explain what the three-fifths clause in the Constitution was, because a participant brought it up.”
In one instance, the Black project manager had met with the senior VP and another white employee concerning the show “South Side,” which features two Black comedians. They were discussing which person was going out to L.A. to pitch the program, she said. The senior VP claimed that the white designer who was working on the project shouldn’t go “because then it will just be a room full of white people,” and sent a Black writer unaffiliated with the project in his place.
“I’m sitting in the room like, hold the f— up. Did I hear what I just heard?” said the former project manager.
“That’s the thing about being Black,” the manager continued. She asserted that “people either treat you like a token or they pretend like you’re invisible.”
A Black design coordinator noted that she often felt utilized as a “taste tester for racism,” where coworkers would ask her if certain things were offensive. One Black freelancer who frequently faced these questions said his suggestions were only given serious deliberation “about 25% of the time.”
Because of Comedy Central’s nonexistent diversity, former Black staffers said they were habitually confronted with prejudice and ignorance from their fellow employees.
Two former employees felt they were stereotyped as the “angry Black woman” at work and were described by others as “scary.”
“If I said anything and it wasn’t in a chipper tone, then I was automatically angry and aggressive,” one of the employees said. “But the same didn’t go for white employees.”
Another incident involved the brand-creative VP laughing when she saw Juneteenth circled on the project manager’s calendar, not even realizing what it was.
The insiders told Business Insider that Comedy Central’s corporate culture needs to start reflecting diversity of the material that they create.
“On the outside, Comedy Central has built this image of diversity by including more Black and POC talent,” said the former design coordinator. “But internally they’ve neglected to do exactly that. And that’s where the real change needs to start.”
A Comedy Central representative released a statement to Insider, saying, “We take these allegations very seriously and are investigating them. Our commitment is to ensure an inclusive, respectful and supportive work environment for all employees.”
