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A new genre
Jan. 6th, 2015 04:11 amSo, 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.
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.
