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Minhaj Does Kresge

MIT students turned up in droves to see Hasan Minhaj perform.
December 19, 2017
jc woodard ’18

Comedian Hasan Minhaj, a senior correspondent on The Daily Show, performed to a sold-out crowd in Kresge in September. Known for his fearlessness at the 2017 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he poked fun at the commander in chief and his administration with abandon, Minhaj spent much of his 30-minute set at MIT talking about how Americans treat immigrants and refugees. According to the Tech, he recalled fellow plane passengers becoming uncomfortable when they heard his mother talking to him in Urdu on speakerphone. But he figured the presence of a Galaxy Note 7 on the same flight didn’t bother anyone since “just because one Samsung Galaxy Note 7 blows up, it doesn’t mean they’re all going to blow up.” He also countered media portrayals of refugees as a safety threat by sharing cause-of-death statistics in America, observing that the chances of being buried alive dwarf those of being killed by a refugee. When students asked questions at the end of the show, one wanted to know what he’d like to ask an MIT student. Minhaj replied, “How does it feel to know that you’ve made it?”

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