Stephen Colbert admits to Margaret Cho he’s probably racist

COMEDY is good for your health. It's even better when comedians make you think too.

For those of you who couldn't stay up late for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, here he was talking about race and political correctness with Margaret Cho last November.

The headline to this post is deliberately misleading to get  your attention. Sorry, about that.  Host Colbert was playing a foil to Margaret Cho and together they were trying to make a point.

"I’m so happy to make racist jokes, because I can,” said Cho. “I grew up in the era where it was all Asian driver jokes, so I would come onstage, and I would say, ‘My name is Margaret Cho, and I drive very well.’ People would be taken aback, because they would realize, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize I was racist this whole time.'”

She loves challenging her audiences. Colbert's audience laughed nervously, know sure what to do - laugh or groan.

"I'm Korean," Cho said, as if to say, it's OK.

Colbert said he couldn't tell that joke. Cho agreed, as it should be.

“Do you think it might just be better if everybody just started with a baseline of, I’m just going to assume I’m racist when I’m talking about a race that isn’t mine?” Colbert asked. “Because I don’t know what that experience is like, and I have presuppositions about what it is like to be someone of another race or the behavior of another race. If I think of a person as part of a race and as not of an individual.”

Yes, Cho agreed.

Then Colbert shook Cho's hand, "Hi, I'm Stephen Colbert, probably a racist."Get it? It's OK to laugh, then file away the message in the back of your consience, let it percolate a bit. Ahhh, yes: Don't presume to know someone or their experiences based on your own racial prejudices.

Margaret Cho tells Steven Colbert's audience, "I'm Korean!"