How Racial Humor Facilitates Racial Interaction
Berger has once said that, “since the first men and women noticed they were different from the second, and ethnocentrism and a sense of ethnic identity appeared, ethnic jokes have been popular” (53). Ethnic humor has been one of the most frequently used comedic techniques. It not only appears in all kinds of comedic forms but also regularly pops up in daily life, especially in countries that are racially and ethnically diverse like the United States. There are negative remarks toward racial humor from academia. David Benatar, for example, has said that, “Stereotyping involves viewing, judging, or regarding individuals not in their own right but in terms of a set of attributes they are presumed …show more content…
First of all, humor cannot mask racism. Humor cannot excuse one’s blunt attack and disparagement toward another race. Racist jokes are those which are intended to inflict harms on racial grounds. The term “racist” denotes moral defectiveness, whereas “racial” does not have such denotation (Benatar 196). Steve Harvey’s clip on Asian men is an example of using humor as an excuse for racism. In the beginning of the clip, he showed a book called How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men and then he just started laughing. He continues: “Excuse me, do you like Asian men?” He asks rhetorically. “No. Thank you.” Then he asks again, rhetorically “You like Asian men? I don’t even like Chinese food, boy. It don’t stay with you no time. I don’t eat what I can’t pronounce.” (Harvey) There is nothing in the clip other than intentional disparaging and emasculating Asian men. After the clip was aired and caused Asian communities to protest through social media, Steve Harvey still tries to use humor as an excuse, claiming Asians can’t take a joke: “I ain’t been laughing that much over the past few days. They’re kinda beating me up on the internet right now for no
Berger has once said that, “since the first men and women noticed they were different from the second, and ethnocentrism and a sense of ethnic identity appeared, ethnic jokes have been popular” (53). Ethnic humor has been one of the most frequently used comedic techniques. It not only appears in all kinds of comedic forms but also regularly pops up in daily life, especially in countries that are racially and ethnically diverse like the United States. There are negative remarks toward racial humor from academia. David Benatar, for example, has said that, “Stereotyping involves viewing, judging, or regarding individuals not in their own right but in terms of a set of attributes they are presumed …show more content…
First of all, humor cannot mask racism. Humor cannot excuse one’s blunt attack and disparagement toward another race. Racist jokes are those which are intended to inflict harms on racial grounds. The term “racist” denotes moral defectiveness, whereas “racial” does not have such denotation (Benatar 196). Steve Harvey’s clip on Asian men is an example of using humor as an excuse for racism. In the beginning of the clip, he showed a book called How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men and then he just started laughing. He continues: “Excuse me, do you like Asian men?” He asks rhetorically. “No. Thank you.” Then he asks again, rhetorically “You like Asian men? I don’t even like Chinese food, boy. It don’t stay with you no time. I don’t eat what I can’t pronounce.” (Harvey) There is nothing in the clip other than intentional disparaging and emasculating Asian men. After the clip was aired and caused Asian communities to protest through social media, Steve Harvey still tries to use humor as an excuse, claiming Asians can’t take a joke: “I ain’t been laughing that much over the past few days. They’re kinda beating me up on the internet right now for no