A new genre

[lydy]

So, at work last week, I was treated to a new genre of racist humor with which I was not previously familiar: two white people telling hi-larious racist jokes about white people. The thing that was really funny, though, was the idea that anyone, anywhere, could possibly find a racist joke offensive, and the actual butt of their humor was not white people, but people offended by racists jokes.

An example? I only remember one example. The example I remember is, "We will achieve true racial equality when we teach all white children to call each other crackers." "Oh, god, yes, and we'll say it happened with you, at your house!" "Racial equality is just a cracker away."

There was quite a lot more. I spent a lot of time trying not to listen. I cannot think of any way to object. What I'm objecting to is not the humor, but the meta-joke. And I know from experience that you can't call people on meta-jokes. There's plausible deniability, and they use that. That is, after all, the point of telling the joke like that.

They also spent a fair amount of time being amused by various black comedians, including Dave Chappelle (who is genuinely brilliant although not usually to my taste) and Rick Jones (?) with whom I'm not familiar. They seem to especially like the humor where the comedians (who I think are both black, certainly Dave Chappelle is) make fun of racism. But it very much feels like they like being able to say these terrible things and claim that they are funny. There is a routine, I think a Chappelle routine, in which someone who was adopted and blind from birth is a terrible racist and says the most horrible and racist things. The joke is, of course, that this blind from birth person is black. Now, I'm pretty sure that Chappelle's point is how utterly silly and meaningless our concepts of race are. But I strongly suspect that the two men I'm working with at the moment actually think that the slurs themselves are funny, and that they're childishly delighted to find a context in which these things can be said.

Possibly, I am doing these two a terrible disservice. I don't read minds. But gods was I uncomfortable at work last week.

Comments

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Obviously they weren't serious; otherwise they'd be telling white trash and trailer trash jokes (either that or those jokes are too close to home while "cracker" can be safely compartmentalized as being Not Us). I don't tend to follow comedians these days as most of standup makes me nauseous, but what I've heard of "cracker" jokes reeks of privileged upper class whites playing at poking fun at other whites while remaining safely apart Because We Aren't Those People. Either that or I'm too West Coast for "cracker" to make sense, given that "Cracker" is originally old-Florida in origin.

(and yes, I have my own family collection of rednecks, white trash and trailer trash, close-in family to boot. But we are proudly loggers, farmers, truck drivers and etc and we don't need no freakin' meta jokes to make fun of our own)

If you want to have fun, start repeating the meta-joke with "redneck," "white trash," and "trailer trash" to see how they react (that said, I can understand avoiding the tension at a work site). Or just say "Crackers? You mean rednecks?" (or whatever you feel like). I'd do it, but I also have a tendency to start searching for Big Red Buttons on the Forehead to push around people like this, because they generally tick me off and they usually tend to be uneasily middle class, therefore easy to poke at on these subjects (at the least I tend to think of these types as pompous asses). Bob Boze Bell used his character Honkytonk Sue to deflate a few of the Arizona variants of this ilk back in the late 70s, with a strong (and physical) lead female who could outdrink, outfight, outdance, and outride the puffed up white men of the pretentious class (alas, the comic only went for four issues). I put up a Sue poster in one office to jab at a supervisor of this ilk, and other than an outraged splutter of "sexual discrimination," (the dialog tag read "Remember, girls, if a man has to brag, he'll be the first to sag." Yeah, I was bold in those days) he uneasily ignored it. But then again, I also embrace my liberal hippie redneck cowgirl self.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

The question on the table is how much energy should be devoted into pushing back. I am, hopefully, out of there in a month or two. So actually working hard to improve the situation seems like spending too much time and energy, and potentially creating animosity without there being a long-lasting benefit. But, you know, check back with me at the end of the month. We'll see if I snap.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Understood about the energy equation. For me the seeking of the Big Red Button is an exercise that's less work than being quiet, but that's a difference in temperament. Someone annoys me; I either completely ignore them or I start looking for the button (sadly I do the latter more than the first behavior). I have been accused of being possessed of "a spirit of controversy" by a Pentecostal type, so that's a likely factor. In your situation taking the high road is the better route, for certain, and it's the smarter thing to do.

(but dang, the Big Red Button can be So. Much. Fun. with these types.)

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call this the high road. This is more like the road of least resistance.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting response, Joycemocha. Clearly you are familiar with the type of person who tells these jokes and the underlying uneasiness the jokes represent, and I appreciate your analysis. None of this background is familiar to me, so I would see no difference whatsoever between "cracker" and "redneck/trailer trash." But that doesn't mean there isn't a difference to the right audience. Class uneasiness is a huge humor driver, but you have to be at exactly the right position in the class conflict to appreciate the nuances.

You are probably dead on right about one of the two guys involved in the joke jamboree (the new guy). The other guy, however, the one that is initiating the jokes? Something else entirely. I very much doubt that he has any emotional investment at all in the content of the jokes. He has a pattern of using dubious "humor" to manipulate and control other people in the workplace. See my comments to Lydy below.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Ah. You have more information about the people in question than I did.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I do think that class insecurity is at play, here. The guy I have history with, however, thinks that pushing boundaries is funny. If you draw a clear line, he walks up to it, and advances a toe over it, and mocks you for getting upset. His idea of humor almost always involves someone at a disadvantage. There is a definitely predatory nature to it. He likes to probe for weak spots, and then poke them over and over again. The humor last week probably was deliciously double-edged, to him. Poke the new guy on his class insecurity, poke me on my social sensibilities.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are ways to goose people like the guy you have history with, but I can't describe exactly how to do it. It's very situational, and almost accidental when you can pull it off. Definitely a form of bullying, and you have to have just the right comeback. Plus countering this behavior requires a level of viciousness that, well, isn't pleasant to force oneself into--which is why people like this get away with the behavior. In order to knock them down, you just about have to regress to a middle school level. Blech.

(my most recent experience of this behavior was with an administrator. His failure was pretty spectacular, but it took two years and a lot of misery all around--staff, students, parents--for it to happen, and the people above him had to buy in to getting rid of him.)

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

A strong argument for never telling jokes at work, especially loudly so that everybody has to listen to them.

Is one of the jokers that creepy/stalky guy you were hoping to be away from soon? I don't think I ever heard whether your transfer ever came through.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Yep. In a way, I'm grateful I'm not dealing with two of him. Although, in another way, I am. They hired someone to take my place at the Edina lab, and since my difficult co-worker is the senior tech, he's training in the new guy. For some extremely small values of training, since they spend much of the night showing each other hi-larious videos and telling jokes to each other. They reinforce each other's worst behaviors. It is quite difficult and appalling.

Once the new guy is trained in, then I should get to move to the Abbott lab full time. This cannot happen soon enough. I just check my calendar, though. I have nine days this month with both of them. One of them is annoying. The two, together, is just a shit sandwich.

I never used to think of myself as easily offended or lacking in a sense of humor. You know that joke, "How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" "That is not a funny joke!" Suddenly, I am in great sympathy with the butt of that joke. My issues with the humor are structural and contextual. It's not neat and obvious and easily explained. And I can see how someone who just got really tired of the whole thing might embrace the role of a killjoy and not explain anymore, just insist that they are offended and unamused.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Ah. It sounds like your boundary-pushing little sociopath is training in the new co-worker in more ways than one. This fits perfectly with your earliest descriptions of the guy. Remember how he used "humor" to test boundaries with you, becoming gradually more offensive without ever saying anything clearly inappropriate? And remember how he used Hi-larious (not) jokes to manipulate an earlier co-worker into inappropriate behavior re the supervisor? It's his pattern, and he's really good at it. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by pushing back. If you respond to his button-pushing in any way, he wins. Your job is to ignore him. There is nothing you can do that will irritate him more.

And considering what we know about this guy, the content of the jokes is probably beside the point. He picks something that is borderline acceptable that he thinks will work with his target.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

Nah, the smirk erases the plausibility of the denial.
Actually, the only meta in that direction I've ever run into is "WASP" jokes making fun of the whole genre:
Q: How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb?
A: One
Q: How can you tell the bride at a WASP wedding?
A: She's wearing a white dress
Although, I suppose you could get meta about boring "normal" WASP being the unmarked state, but I don't want to.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Huh. I originally heard those jokes as Canadian jokes, the point of the humor being that Canadians are polite, boring, and predictable. I rather like them better as Canadian jokes, I think. As WASP jokes, they seem to be rather reinforcing the idea that there is one and only one way to behave. But, at the moment, I'm drowning in subtext, so perhaps that's not what's going on.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. THAT. I used to hear it a lot in the 1980s. I never found a good way to push back against it, as a white person hearing the version you describe. (There's a set of sexist jokes I think might be related. It's not making fun of women, or even feminists--it's making fun of the sensitive new-age guys who object to sexist jokes.) I hadn't heard a joke like that in years, and thought the subgenre had faded as explicitly racist name-calling became less socially accepted. There's still plenty of racism. But the racists are all saying "I'm not racist, but..." rather than "Well, sure. Doesn't everybody hate those people?"