Racist jokes get laughs by putting down people because of their race. They are mainly based on stereotypes. Some dehumanize, like comparing Black people to monkeys. Racist jokes help to strengthen and spread racism.
Are people who tell racist jokes or laugh at them racist? Yes, at least somewhat. To laugh you need to know the stereotype and believe it to some degree. As David Pilgrim of the Jim Crow Museum points out, few Americans would laugh at Russian jokes about Chukchis.
Some racist jokes are worse than others, like those that assume that people of a certain race are not fully human or should be dead. There is a name for that: hate speech.
The race of the joke teller and the audience matters:
- Intra-racial jokes: jokes told about a race within that race are not necessarily racist. But some are. They depend on, strengthen and spread internalized racism.
- Inter-racial jokes are generally worse. They are told about another race or to another race. The most damaging are those where the joke teller belongs to the race being laughed at. Like Leslie Jones on “Saturday Night Live” acting out stereotypes in front of a heavily White audience.
The self-serving White racist guide to racist jokes:
- Black comedians: Whatever they say that is bad or stereotypical about Black people must be true. Why else would they say it? After all, no Black comedian has ever been known to kiss up to White people and their racist stereotypes to become rich and famous. At least not since the days of minstrel shows.
- Whites are Basically Good: Most White people laugh at or tell racist jokes, so there is no way it could be racist.
- Backstage humour: Telling a joke about other races to fellow Whites is harmless. It does nothing to strengthen their feeling that they are better.
- Frontstage humour: If you tell a joke about another race with people of that race present:
- If they laugh, it could not possibly be racist.
- If they say nothing, it could not possibly be racist.
- If they get upset, they have no sense of humour. They need to “lighten up” and stop being “oversensitive”. Remember, only White feelings matter!
- If they beat you up, you were “misinterpreted”.
- If they try to get you fired, it was “satire”, or at least a “slip”.
- “Just joking”: If you say something that turns out to be racist, just say:
- “It was just a joke.”
- “I have black friends.”
- “I am not racist.”
- Hipster humour: Making fun of stereotypes – while using the very same stereotypes to get laughs, ha ha – is never racist. Those who get upset clearly do not understand satire.
- “If I offended anyone…” – for your White fauxpology.
In the US, racist jokes by or for Whites are by far the worst:
- Many Whites base their self-worth in part on putting down other races.
- Many lack empathy for people of colour, especially Blacks and Muslims, to a frightening degree.
- They have way more power to act on racism thus confirmed.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- External links
- Rules of Racial Standing
- Basically Good
- internalized racism
- examples of racist humour:
- Bill Di Blasio’s and Hillary Clinton’s CP time skit
- Chris Rock
- At the 2016 Oscars
- “Niggas vs Black People”
- Charlie Hebdo
- Steve Colbert – making jokes at the expense of Asian Americans
- University of Minnesota blackface video
- Clitoridectomy Cake – not meant as a joke, but taken as one.
- The New York Post – Obama as a dead monkey
- The New Yorker magazine – the cover with Militant Michelle
- Shirley Q. Liquor
- Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
- alligator bait
- minstrel show
- some elements of racist humour:
- White fauxpology
658
Well I have a few jokes to break the ice. Here’s few for a nice chuckle.lol
What do you call a white boy screaming as dragged down the highway behind a black man’s pickup truck?
A white lane marker.
Why shouldn’t white people go swimming?
Because crackers get soggy when wet.
Why can’t white people jump?
Because inbreeding prohibits it.
What do you call a white woman shaking her ass?
An ironing board with massage features.
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Would jokes about somebody’s country of origin, or their ethnicity count as a “racist” joke. Or does it have to be specifically about their race?
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Goodness, I thought I was the only one annoyed by Leslie Jones on SNL.
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Hmmm…….I remember a lot of white people love doing the old Richard Pryor jokes back in the day yes they were funny but i can’t help feeling awkward listening to them tell the joke and using the N-word. I feel when the white folks are laughing it gives them license to laugh at black people. I remember reading why Dave Chappelle turned down all that money because he said the white folks were laughing to hard. That gave me pause. White folks love to laugh at black people but when the tables get turned on them they get butt hurt.
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Leslie Jones bothers me too i can’t stand to watch her doing her c**n act.
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I wonder if some of the hate Leslie Jones gets is because of the way she looks? She isn’t society’s idea of feminine so some black people see her as a stereotype. Does respectability influence people’s view of her comdey?
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I have only seen two of Leslie Jones skits. In bothshe plays the angry black women/crazy stereotype.
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OK, but then there are ones like:
Whatcha call a white theatre owner Down South, with the following signs on his enterprise”, {ART for ALL} and [No Jews allowed]?
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everyone gets butt hurt. topic.
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I tend to have a dry, dark and ironic sense of humor and in the past have absolutely laughed at what this post would label as racist comedy. Pryor, Murphy, Schumer, Mencia, Colbert, Fox, #GrowingUpBlack, Card Against Humanity, whatever… The reality is that ANY humorous or ironic device that references race is not funny… at all.
I do think Abagond’s statement, “To laugh you need to know the stereotype and believe it to some degree.” is only partially correct. Obviously, you need to be aware of it but I know I used to be able to laugh at the absurdity of people actually believing in the stereotypes rather than believing in them myself. I get that I was still laughing AT the “others” I felt were inferior… I actually felt I was laughing WITH the “others” that were the target of the joke. The irony of that is not lost on me.
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I don’t think white people get offended by “racist” jokes aimed at them. If you Google red neck jokes hundreds of them pop up and those were thought up by white people.
The default white person is middle class, intelligent, rational, runs on time and can’t jump.
The skit i saw with Leslie Jones was called “my inner white b****” ” or something like that. She plays the angry Black women who appears crazy to everybody else. Her inner “guide” is the calm rational white women whose negative “stereotype” is having to wait.
In writing the skit SNL tries to not be racist by attempting to poke fun at both Black and white in the same skit. Like racism is OK if you make fun of both equally. But what the skit ended up doing was strengthening the idea that Blacks aren’t rational and that white people are.
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There is a scene in “Raising Arizona” that deconstructs racist jokes perfectly. The Nicolas Cage character is suffering through an awkward backyard barbecue at the home of his boss. The boss tries to tell a racist (“Pollak”) joke, as Nicolas Cage grimaces in an effort to force the appearance of a smile:
“How many Pollaks does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
“I don’t know, how many?”
“Uh, er, wait, I told it wrong. Why does it take so many Pollaks to screw in a light bulb?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“‘Cause they’re so damn stupid!”
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Hmmm… Brought this discussion home. So cpt is up there i guess there’s a range of insult? So is there not certain things ‘white people’ or ‘black people’ ‘engender culturally’… Take for instance camping. And i am not tryin to mess with anybody here!
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@ Benjamin
Strictly speaking, racist jokes have to be about race, but they are bound to have much in common with jokes about out-groups in general.
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@v8driver
Which culture engenders that? Maybe that’s a regional question more than a race question because around here, we’ve camped among some White majority crowds (like Klan rally White… bad weekend… left early), Black majority crowds and Middle Eastern majority crowds (including traditional attire) but mostly, camping around here offers diverse crowds that are probably proportional to the overall racial make-up of the state.
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I am confused by the choice of photo with respect to the content of the post.
It looks like a picture of Chris Rock from the Academy Awards ceremony earlier this year. I would surmise that the headline photo (together with the title of this post) was chosen to refer to the racist jokes that occurred at that event, functioning as an illustration of this post.
Viewers of that show may recall 3 specific racist jokes (among others that might have been expressed), 2 of which were voiced by Chris Rock (black comedian) to a largely white audience about another race.
However, the post itself does not really explain the nature of the racist jokes implied by the photo.
2 of those jokes were told by a black comedian (1 by a white actor) to a largely white audience where the object of the racism was deemed not present (or at least not in any capacity to react to the action/behaviour).
So how does that fit into the context of this post?
– NOT hate speech (no one was wished dead, although one might argue that minions are not really human, and being compared to non-human aliens may be a form of dehumanization).
– Jokes about a “race” that engages in child labour is a dehumanizing topic (not too unlike joking about a “race” deemed to be terrorists). Could that be a form of hate speech?
– They were interracial, but the object of the jokes was neither the speaker nor the audience of the racist jokes. What category do they fall in?
However, none of the rest of the post has anything to do with the subject implied by the post title and the photo. How are the events suggested by the post title and photo an illustration of the content of this post? Is it racist if a black person tells racist jokes about non-black non-white people to a white audience? Is it racist only if white people tell such jokes? Who lacks empathy for whom here?
We have something to learn from that experience which many have already written about (such as the following):
http://www.themarysue.com/asian-jokes-2016-oscars/
But where did that learning enter into this post?
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@ v8driver
It seems that Asian Americans eat way more watermelon per head than either Black or White Americans. But making watermelon jokes about Asians instead of Blacks would hardly be much better. Because they would still be putting down people just for being different. The jokes would still normalize and centre Whiteness and put down non-Whiteness.
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@ michaeljonbarker
I don’t think white people get offended by “racist” jokes aimed at them.
I think you’re probably right. However, in the perception of those unoffended Whites, do you think it can validate racist views by confirming their belief in fundamental racial differences?
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@ jefe
Rock’s Asian jokes would count as interracial since the audience is mainly White. If he were Asian, it would still be interracial but far more damaging since it would seem to have Asian “approval”.
The post is not about any particular joke. Rock is the poster child both for the Asian jokes at the Oscars and his “Niggas vs Black People” skit, which is better known. Both show that you do not have to be White to tell a racist joke.
The Mary Sue made a good point about representation, though that is the trouble with stereotypes in general, the stock in trade of racist jokes. As to “punching up” and “punching down”, I do not buy that line of thinking, but do agree that it is worse when Whites tell racist jokes, for the reasons I gave.
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@ michaeljonbarker
It stands to reason Whites would be less offended – they do not have to deal with the stereotypes that these jokes push. The culture fully humanizes them.
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The main “positive” thing that Rock’s and Cohen’s jokes did do was start a national conversation that was really needed.
But, in classic fashion, the apology issued by the Academy was a “white” one, ie, apologizing if anyone got offended (not that they did anything wrong).
Geez oh pleez.
Is there a post already on “white apologies”?
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/16/oscars-academy-apology-racist-asian-stereotypes-chris-rock
Thanks for pointing that out.
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Yes. Whites assumed superiority gives a “natural” teflon coatimg.
Back when Polish jokes were popular it was never assumed that Pollack were stupid. Whites don’t view Black racist jokes the same way.
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@ jefe
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I must admit I’ve laughed at some racist jokes, but then again, I’m not sure if this is racist or not.
I can remember the white over-weight comedian (now dead) John Candy said it or was it John Goodman that it said. Not sure. Well here goes he said
“I came second in a Robert Redford lookalike contest”
“Wesley Snipes….f&ucking won it”
Well I thought that was funny anyway (lol)
But there is this women comedian Lisa Lampanelli
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st49UflCFQc)
To me. I don’t find this joke funny or her for that matter. She’s always making jokes about black people. She tries to do that “O, but I’ve banged black guys” to try and get her off the hook.
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I can remember Chris Rock’s comedy routine where he said joked about how there are black people and n*ggas. It seemed that as soon as he made jokes about that, racist white people used what he said to try to not sound racist.
For example, you have have heard a white person say or seen a comment by a white person on social media where he uses the n-word and say something along the lines of “I like black people, but I hate n**gers.”. All the while, this person thinks or claims that it’s not racist and neither is he/she.
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@abagond thank you for this article
@open minded yes you destroyed my argument.
It must be really hard to write politically correct standup
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To me, putting other people down through humor is particularly devastating to the object(s) of the joke. Humor is very powerful because when people hear a joke or read/listen/see satire they are generally relaxed and receptive to whatever is being communicated.
Humor has a way of “liquifying”information so that it passes through into the brain like water through a screen. For example, an angry rant might cause some people to reject the stereotypes the ranter uses to describe the “Other”, because they are uncomfortable with the tone and delivery of the speech or writing.
The same stereotypes blended into a joke or humorous skit are more likely to be accepted uncritically by the same audience. The stereotypes seep into the minds of the audience as fact. Jokes and other forms of humor are very effective in reinforcing existing stereotypes and creating new ones.
Jokes can also be an effective way of expressing anger and dismay. African Americans have used jokes, satire and humor as a release valve for centuries.
Some of the jokes or humorous skits, like cakewalks, where Whites were mocked were later used by Whites to form the basis of the minstrel shows. (White Supremacy seems to make White people oblivious to mockery.)
This is an example of a “comedy cakewalk”:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQVLuR7jj8Q)
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seems like somehow tied to comedy in general — cake walks, minstrel shows all that ‘entertainment’ stuff, probably why violent movies etc are so vicariously successful too
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@V8
“It must be really hard to write politically correct standup”
I was thinking that same thing. But there’s plenty to work with, you just have to work a little harder… Slapstick, self-deprecating humor, politicians are fair game right? Or are they a class? I dunno, that’s why I’m not a comic 🙂
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@Abagond,
Thanks for the link to white apologies. I remember seeing it, but forgot where.
Maybe we could have a link somewhere here too showing how “white” people tend to apologize for their racist jokes.
To tell the truth, I am a bit alarmed that there was no comment from Chris Rock himself. I also might wonder if “black apologies” would simply copy the script of white apologies, or if it would be something completely different.
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Further to the last sentence above, I ran across a tweet from Jeffrey Wright that I found in this link:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11142390/chris-rock-asian-joke-oscars
*****************
I fully acknowledge that there have been many examples in the past century where Asians have tried to curry privilege from whites by “throwing blacks under the bus”. This kind of behaviour became more common after the US mainstream started to promote the Model Minority stereotype in the 1980s, and unfortunately, some Asians got lulled (if not brainwashed) into this kind of thinking. But we can find a few examples even before that, eg, in Jim Crow Mississippi.
However, I also have witnessed countless examples where blacks will throw others in the bus, seemingly in an attempt to curry privilege from whites. The Chris Rock incident is only one of thousands that I have seen where blacks copy or mimic white racist behaviour at the expense of someone else, while keeping the white supremacist paradigm intact.
Now, I really would like to see how Chris Rock would respond to Jeffrey Wright. He has been eerily silent.
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@ jefe
Yeah, as far as I know Chris Rock did NOT apologize. Not cool. My opinion of him sinks yet lower.
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Added to the White racist guide to racist jokes:
I also added a link to the White fauxpology post and, at the end of this post, a picture of George Takei on the danger of the sort of stereotypes pushed by Chris Rock’s Asian jokes at the Oscars. It is not only a counterpoint to the Chris Rock picture at top but makes the point of the last line of the post (that Whites have way more power to act on their stereotypes).
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@ Open Minded Observer
It may not be 100% correct. I have not thought of every possible case. But it should be a working hypothesis.
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@Abagond
Yeah, I wouldn’t even want to guess at the proportions of people that believe the stereotype vs people that believe that other people believe the stereotype. I just knew which category I fell into, so I dropped a “not ALL” argument… I did that intentionally to point out that even the people like me were still laughing at the expense of others and therefore no better than those we thought we were laughing at.
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I do not believe that racist jokes are funny.
The closest thing that comes near a ‘racist joke’ and was funny, was when a Somalian immigrant kept on repeating that “We eat camel in Somalia”
In the end, a Dutch guy who was fed up the (apparently) only noteworthy fun-fact on Somalia, replied with “And in Holland we smoke them.”
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This youtube Chinese American duo, in the aftermath of the 2016 Oscars, talks about this enduring problem in the USA.
6 Reasons Why People Think it’s OK To Be Racist Towards Asians
Double Chen
(https://youtu.be/5p1xRo8lrOM)
I feel strongly that, as they mentioned here, one of the main problems is a total lack of Asian American history taught in US history classes (although I don’t think Native American history or Latino American (as opposed to Latin American) history is much better). Black US history was (and still is, of course), skewed and largely swept under the carpet, but I do think more Americans have access to it. With the lack of history taught, Americans fill the knowledge and awareness gap with stereotypes.
They discussed another reason could be that their grandparents witnessed violence and torture in Asia, such as during the Cultural Revolution, and have taught their kids not to make waves lest one gets into trouble. However, I would argue that it is not only due to those events in Asia, but even goes further back in US history. Japanese Americans heard their parents and grandparents talk about the Internment camps, and taught them to avoid making trouble. Chinese Americans have parents or grandparents who were either killed / lynched in the USA or had families split up by the Exclusion Acts. Filipino Americans may have grandparents killed during the Riots or even earlier in the Philippine American war.
They have been taught NOT to make trouble as there are consequences. I suppose that we could call this the “race” talk that Asian Americans have with their kids, and differs from the “race talk” that blacks have to have with theirs. This is understandable as they are targeted in different ways and have to learn different coping mechanisms.
But maybe, another problem in the USA was that prior to the 1960s, the numbers were too small to make national impact. Maybe that will change. At the same time, I hope that neither Blacks nor Asians would succumb to the “divide and conquer” strategy used to keep the white supremacist model intact, nor view each other as surrogate targets.
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@jefe
Like.
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How can you tell if a black man is well hung? If you can’t fit a finger between his neck and the rope. What was missing from the million man March? An auctioneer. What’s long and hard on blacks? Third grade. Why do black people stink? So the blind can hate them to. How many pallbearers is their at a black funeral? 2. Their is only two Handel’s on a garbage can. I know a lot more.
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Chris Rock is an offender he would tell that joke about hiding your money from burglars if the broke in your house hide the money in books because everyone knows N-words don’t read. This was quite cringeworthy and it cracks white people and sadly some black people up.
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@Jim cr9
I’m sure you know more racist jokes. I’m also sure that your usual White Supremacist pals at reddit, 4chan, and Stormfront will get more of a laugh out of them than the intelligent BLACK people who frequent this site.
Your comment here shows that the joke is on you. It is obvious you strayed here without reading or comprehending the blog post or the comments that followed.
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It would be nice to see a post about comedians like Chris Rock, who have made money from whites by making fun of blacks (and now Asians, it appears).
Is there a name for that? Or does that pretty much describe most Black comedians?
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@Jefe: Quite a few black comic throw in elements of racism and misogyny in their material.
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At what point does it become wrong or bad taste?
Canadian Russell Peters makes a living as a stand-up comedian, and often invokes racist stereotypes against Asian Indians and Chinese. But for some reason, his jokes did not feel distasteful like Chris Rock’s.
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This racist Jim cr9 is not funny.
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