Race and gender have nothing to do with how funny someone is, it's true. But race and gender are absolutely factors in who Jerry has on his show because race and gender play a big part in who is considered funny and who gets opportunities. In other words, he's drawing from a talent pool that is shaped in large part by racism and sexism. Unless you think the fact that the vast majority of stand ups being white men is simply because they are actually funnier, then you have to concede there's something else going on.
It could be that there's sexism or racism in the stand up industry. The problem is how do we show evidence that this is the case, and to what extent is this the case? Your evidence is that a large # of white men are stand-up comedians. That's not good enough evidence. That's like saying the NBA is racist and sexist because most players are black men, or universities are sexist because the majority of graduates are women.
This question extends to a lot of industries. There are all sorts of racial and gender disparities in a large number of industries/fields in society. If a given population of employed people do not match the proportions of the general population, does that mean sexism, racism etc is occurring? The assumption today is "yes", but this is just not always the case, though i'm sure sometimes it is. So how do we figure out when it is and isn't happening, and to what extent?
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