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relax,
we're all racists here, part four:
heh-heh, just a little joke
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(present)
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by
jonathan schildbach
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"Do
you know why black people are black?" I wasn't sure I was hearing
what I was hearing.
Without
waiting for anyone to ask why, the eight-year-old blurted out "because
their moms drink too much coffee when they're pregnant!" She giggled
spastically.
I thought
about the vast number of ways I could respond to that. What surfaced
first was a snide "Where did you hear that?"
"My
dad told me."
Not
to be too judgmental, but I hadn't really thought highly of her
dad before. "Y'know, I don't think you should repeat that."
My wife
began asking a few more questions. 'Aren't there black kids in
your school? In your classroom? Do you think they would think that's
funny? Do you think it would be funny if they said you were yellow
because your parents drank too much Mountain Dew or Lemonade' The
girl tried to diffuse the situation by saying "I wouldn't care,"
with much less enthusiasm than she had a minute before.
I try
to put such incidents in context. Is this any worse than the kinds
of things my friends and I say from time to time when the conversation
drifts that way? I don't know. Occasionally, a distasteful remark
will be made, but usually presented in such a way that it's understood
that it's the kind of joke only ignorant people would make, and
we aren't ignorant--right?!?
There
are different shades of all of this. But what really constitutes
a joke playing off the notion of stereotypes, compared to a joke
that is actively engaging stereotypes?
And
are there other lines to be drawn? I try not to get too bent out
of shape about any jokes, even vulgar ones, unless the person telling
them is chronically offensive in the same way. There's such a fine
line between being appropriately aware and hypersensitive. I'm
of the general opinion that the culture as a whole has gotten far
too willing to attack many of the wrong things. Stupid remarks
get far too much attention. And like I suggested in an earlier
article, that attention builds in a destructive way, to where we
all get off the hook because there's always someone worse.
Of course,
I can't pretend that knowingly offensive jokes are not a part of
my vocabulary.
Why
do Mexicans and Blacks hate lawn sprinklers? Why is the Black sign
of power a clenched fist? How do you get a hundred Vietnamese people
in a phone booth? How do you get a hundred Ethiopians in a phone
booth? Recognize any of these gems?
Are
there those small nuggets of truth in them that are supposed to
make comedy transcendent?
I grew
up hearing similar jokes frequently around school and the neighborhood.
I'm not sure why they were so prevalent, or if they were that much
more prevalent than other types of jokes. I know that unless a conscientious
adult happened to overhear one, there were few consequences to telling
them. I think we were more likely to get busted for swearing or
referring to sex or genitalia.
Not
long ago, I found an old audio-tape of myself and some friends hanging
out in my room, probably about 9th grade, recording what we thought
were hilarious, improvised comedy routines. I'll spare you the
gory details, but we sound like a bunch of moronic rednecks, spewing
out racist, homophobic jokes almost faster than the magnets could
handle. I like to write that off to immaturity, and being in a
nearly all-white environment where we couldn't have known better,
but that hardly seems justification. I know I didn't learn any
of that from my parents, from my church, teachers, or books I read.
Of course, I have to admit that growing up in suburban America in
the seventies wasn't the kind of experience that was likely to gain
one a deep understanding of issues of race.
Later
in life, attending college in Eugene, Oregon, the PC atmosphere
removed most of those kinds of jokes from my immediate surroundings,
and eventually from my thought processes. But on the first day
of my first post-college, almost-real job, the (Jewish--for what
it's worth) owner of the company walked into the room where most
of the salespeople were housed, where I did filing, and told a joke
employing many of the epithets I had been distanced from for years.
Many of the salespeople laughed heartily, I hope only to show their
support/fear of the boss, and not because they thought what he said
was actually funny. Being the new guy, I just kept my mouth shut.
Now
I wonder if that's the right tactic--keeping our mouths shut. Do
we need to attack these jokes, or just ignore them? If we laugh,
are we evil? If we laugh at the jokes that only make fun of our
own ethnic group, is that appropriate? What if a black guy tells
a funny joke about black guys--can white guys laugh at it? People
go back and forth about these questions quite a bit. And I don't
think there's an answer, except maybe in the most obvious cases.
When
my wife challenged the young girl for telling a racist "joke" it
struck me as appropriate for multiple reasons. One is that they
are both lumped together in the same general ethnic group, and so
probably have to deal with the same basic stereotypes themselves.
The other is that my wife was genuinely concerned about what might
happen to that girl if she repeated the joke at a time when it could
have more severe consequences. Based on this quick formulation,
maybe we should all look out for "our own," and ourselves, and make
sure we don't say things that are going to potentially generate
hostility. But I've already admitted I'm not sure how that works.
Maybe
the simplest advice is best. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Do not
do that which you would not have known." Of course that would only
work in a world where people were more concerned about how they
got attention. Maybe the simplest advice is too simple.
Copyright
© 2000 Jonathan Schildbach. All Rights Reserved.
Jonathan
Schildbach is proud of his German heritage--and as such, pays
$8 for a haircut--$2 per side.
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