Moving from the reservation where he grew up playing ‘Indians and Indians’ in the yard to the big state of Texas, comedian Spirit Walker recalls the moment in his life when he realized he was different. Walker, an Apache Indian with a Caucasian stepfather, has mahogany-colored eyes, long black hair peppered with grey and is the darkest-skinned member of his family. As a young teenager in his new town, Walker began to notice how differently those around him treated him. It was an exchange with his own father, though, that Walker counts as the most profound racial experience of his life.

Sitting backstage at a small community theatre near Suisun City where he now resides, Walker leans back in his chair and removes his phone’s earpiece, which is often perched atop his left ear. Dressed casually in jeans and a black collared shirt striped with red and white, Walker blends into the hard black walls and red stage curtains surrounding him. Walker’s voice breaks and he breathes out sharply as he begins to relay the day in eighth-grade when he was caught stealing at the mall with his best friend. Learning from his friend, whose claim to fame was pick pocketing, Walker motions with his two fingers how he slipped a pen and pencil set quickly up his sleeve.

“I grew up when corporal punishment was quite popular,” says Walker, laughing awkwardly. “They called my parents, and this was back when you would rather they call the police because you just knew you were going to get a beating.”

Sent to his room to wait for his father, Walker remembers sitting on his bed all day dreading what would happen when his father came home. Finally, Walker heard his footsteps down the hall. The door swung open and his father, a large man, stood looming over young Walker. Noticing he still wore his belt and wasn’t carrying a paddle, Walker wondered whether his father would beat him with his bare hands, which he had never done before.

“He just pointed his finger at me and said: ‘You are not white.’ I was taken aback,” Walker recalls. “He said: ‘You are an Indian. People expect you to be lazy. They expect you to be a thief. They expect you to be a cheat and a liar, and you just confirmed everything they thought about you.’ And then he turned around and walked out…never mentioning it again. That was the worst beating I ever got, and I took that lesson the rest of my life.”

As a comedian, Walker, 52, has been poking fun of those same racial stereotypes for the last 27 years. Viewing the experience with his father as a positive turning point in his life, Walker set out to convince his audience that despite common beliefs and slurs, people of different backgrounds are essentially the same.

Claiming to be one of the happiest people he knows, Walker’s tone is indeed warm and full of laughter, which helps gain his audience’s trust. With that, Walker can bring the crowd together to celebrate their differences through laughter - educating people without condemning them.

“I believe the best way to take the sting out of a stereotype is to make fun of it. It takes the power away from it,” comments Walker. “We get to go up there and make fun of things that normally would offend us. It’s like therapy on stage.”

According to Chad Stalzer, owner of Chad Stalzer productions, Walker is a successful comedian because he plays the middle line. Having hired Walker at several of his venues, Stalzer notes that by making fun of all sides, Walker creates an environment where the audience believes it’s okay to laugh about racial stereotypes.

“That’s basically what comedy is about, bringing forth things that make you uncomfortable and shedding light on them so you can laugh about it,” says Stalzer. “The humor comes from human vulnerability and everyone has felt that regardless of their race.”

Knowing that the audience’s reaction to his comedy is vital, Walker views his profession as a battle. People have to like you first if they are going to listen to what you have to say, and it is imperative that the comedian adjusts to his audience.

“The audience is the deciding factor,” Walker remarks. “Comedy is the only profession that allows people that know nothing about what you do decide if it’s working. It’s an odd career to sit there and let them judge you.”

Although he feels that being a comedian can be a difficult and lonely job, Walker presses on because of the incredible feeling he gets from making people laugh.
“It’s the biggest high in the world,” shares Walker. “Or it’s the most naked you will ever feel if you don’t get that laughter. But when it works, it’s magical.”

In contrast to the one-man show analogy Walker uses to describe his act, the challenges of his profession create a strong sense of unity – a brotherhood – among fellow comedians.

At a recent San Francisco Comedy Competition, Walker judged the show in support of many of his friends involved. Afterwards he joined the dozen or so comedians in the narrow hallway backstage to rehash the night’s performances.

Tapan Trivedi, an East-Indian comic, shares jokes with Walker while seated in a brightly lit dressing room, critiquing his performance. Trivedi also uses racial humor and observations in his act because he believes it is the best way to address this important issue in America.

“Race is a loaded subject, but almost every hairy subject needs to be tackled,” Trivedi comments. “That’s the precise reason why standup or laughter has such great power, because once you laugh at something you have acknowledged its existence in your life. That’s the comedian’s job to bring it out in the open…how you deal with it is your own thing.”

Asian American comedian Paul Ogata is also seated in the small, communal dressing room. He agrees with his fellow comics that audiences are often afraid to laugh at racial humor.

“The problem is that we are all racist but we’re all in denial,” says Ogata. “The hope is that by touching on these subjects onstage, the light goes on in people’s head and they say ‘he’s right I do think those things. I do, do those things’ and it then creates an awareness in people.”

Back in the community theatre, Walker explains with arms crossed that the worst insult you could ever call a comedian is a “hack,” which means their material is old and unoriginal. Certain racial jokes, such as the n word, are becoming “hack,” and this is an area that Walker prefers to stay away from.

Because he’s a minority comedian, there is a lot of material that Walker feels he can get away with but won’t simply because it’s not his style. Instead, Walker keeps to a formula he has used since he was first starting out -- writing what he knows.

Using laughter, Walker shares with his audience the lesson he learned back when he was a fearful boy sitting on his bed waiting for his father – don’t play into people’s stereotypes.

“He reminded me that you’ve got to step up,” Walker says. “You got to make other people see that your race is not what they stereotypically think it is. And this is the greatest gift he ever could have given me.”