Minority Retort, Portland's new stand-up showcase featuring comedians of color, started off strong on January 23 with a huge audience at Curious Comedy Theater—we're talking no empty seats, and a line snaking out the door. For good reason: The lineup for that show featured the reliably wonderful Nathan Brannon, Katie Nguyen, Anthony Lopez, and more stand-ups on a crowded bill. It was a memorably funny show, and the audience was noticeably more diverse than many of the comedy audiences I've sat with since I started covering Portland's comedy scene.

This, Minority Retort co-founders Jeremy Eli and Jason Lamb told me, is precisely the point of the showcase. "We're really trying to appeal to a diverse audience that can include a lot of people who I don't see at comedy shows as much as I'd like to," explained Eli, Minority Retort's host, when I met up with him and Lamb the day before that first show. Both expressed frustration at constantly hearing that Portland is the "whitest city in America," when, says Eli, "I've lived here for two years and I've not really seen that."

Lamb, who hosts Funemployment Radio's Karl Show! (starring Jason) and the Hollywood Theatre's Movies in Black and White series, added, "I hear a lot of people on social media or wherever saying, with a lot of the turmoil that’s gone on in terms of race recently, people ask me, what can they do. White people ask me what can they do and that’s a really hard question. I don’t really know what you can do—"

"Listen," interjected Eli.

"Right," said Lamb. "And I think part of that is one of my goals with this show… to get people from different backgrounds in the same room to share an experience together. I think that’s part of how conversation starts and understanding starts between people who are of different places and different backgrounds. But the other thing is also to show that—it’s almost a cliche at this point but also doesn’t come across—that black aren't a monolith in thought or ideas."

Earlier, Eli had emphasized that comedy has often been a way for underrepresented groups to speak up. "Since the comedy boom of the ’80s, comedy’s appealed to so many people, it’s been so broad, and it's always had these really outspoken, strong voices of people representing underlooked groups," he explained. We should be listening.

The third-ever Minority Retort is tonight, Fri Feb 27, at Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NW MLK, 9:30 pm, $7-10. More info here.