Kevin Hart: Act like a man and denounce racist remarks about George Floyd made at your roast

So-called comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, right, telling a racist and distasteful joke about George Floyd during a roast of Kevin Hart, left.

I’ve been in the room with Kevin Hart one time … it was at the funeral of George Floyd. 

I’ve talked to him on the phone a couple of times, but that was 20 years ago. He wasn’t yet the megastar that he is today, but he was on his way. 

I used to own a comedy club in St. Louis and I was trying to book him for a set of shows. Hart was fresh off filming one of his first movie roles, “Soul Plane.” The movie flopped at the box office, but it went platinum in the hood, meaning it was one of the most widely bootlegged films of all time. By the time of its theatrical release, bootleg DVDs had already been circulating for a good couple of months. When I was negotiating price with Hart for possible shows, he said to me, “You know I need the money because I ain’t gonna make no money off of ‘Soul Plane’ because y’all (insert expletive) keep bootlegging it! Hell, you probably got a copy.”

I laughed hardily because indeed I did. 

Kevin Hart has always been funny. He’s one of the greats. I’m a fan. 

Being one of the greats, he endured the humiliating ritual/tradition of being roasted by fellow entertainers and luminaries. I have not seen the roast. Clips circulating on social media let me know I don’t want to see it. 

I was initially truly excited to view the roast on Netflix. In particular, I was delighted to see his former nemesis, Katt Williams, perform at the roast and to see two of the best to ever do it mend fences. It’s a beautiful thing to see two Black men set aside differences and embrace one another in a show of unity and harmony. I figured if they could do it maybe we’ll line up for the next blockbuster featuring Chris Rock and Will Smith. As a Black man, the hug between Hart and Williams filled me with a source of unexplainable pride. Blackness is under attack and for that brief moment, there was joy. 

Boy, was that moment brief. 

That’s because hours later another clip from the Kevin Hart roast began to surface. A “comedian” named Tony Hinchcliffe, who I had never heard of before this week, somehow made the roast lineup. And maybe I’ve never heard of him because clearly I’m not the target audience for his brand of “humor.” A quick Google search of him told me all I needed to know. He is known to be closely allied with the MAGA movement, thus making his selection as a roaster a head-scratcher at best. 

What Tony Hinchcliffe said was so vile I had to pause typing to regather my emotions. Tony Hinchcliffe, a white man at a roast to honor a Black man, decided he would take the opportunity to disparage Hart by invoking the name of another Black man, brutally murdered by a white former Minneapolis Police officer. Hinchcliffe’s set-up for the “joke” was to imply that the man who suffocated to death due to a knee to the chest and neck was somehow in hell as an afterlife punishment for having the audacity to be an unwilling participant in his murder. Hinchcliffe’s punchline paraphrased the dying words of George Perry Floyd, “I can’t breathe.” 

Tony Hinchcliffe, we fail to find the humor. Kevin Hart, we fail to find the humor. 

I get it in the moment. Someone says something so astonishing that it catches you off guard and you laugh nervously. I’ve been there before. I assumed that’s the position in which Kevin Hart found himself. In watching the clip, it seemed he was uncomfortable. I hoped that was the case. 

But apparently not. 

A day following the airing of the roast and with time to reflect and respond, Kevin Hart did so. Instead of defending the honor of a Black man murdered by a white law enforcement figure, Kevin Hart decided to defend the white man who disparaged the murdered Black man. 

“Tony Hinchcliffe knew the assignment and he did the damn thing … and was funny,” Hart said. 

No, Kevin, it was not. Not at all. No in the least. 

Kevin Hart posing for photos with the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the funeral for George Floyd. Photo: Harry Colbert, Jr.

As I said at the beginning, the only time I was in the same room as Kevin Hart was at the funeral for George Floyd. I had forgotten he was in attendance until someone on social media pointed it out in their rebuke of the joke and Hart’s reaction. I went back through my photos for that day and sure enough, I snapped a few of him.

How can someone be so moved by a person’s death that they fly across the country to attend his funeral, to days before the anniversary of that person's murder finding a joke about it funny?  Like I said, your reaction in the moment is understandable. Your defense of the joke days later is unacceptable. 

You starred in a movie, “Think Like A Man.” It’s time to act like a man and denounce that racist and distasteful statements made by Tony Hinchcliffe about George Floyd.