A fat redneck and a skinny redneck jump off a cliff. Who wins? Society.
Why do men want to marry virgins? They can’t stand criticism.
From the late, great George Carlin: “So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he’s at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe doesn’t give a crap. Doesn’t give a crap, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results.”
I love racist jokes. I love religious jokes. I love sexist jokes. Jokes make us laugh; they lighten our mood, they lengthen our lives. Jokes are therapeutic — they can mitigate conflict, help remind us of the absurdity of assumptions and pacify anger. Obviously, not every funny joke targets a specific segment of society, but some of the best ones do.
Think about it. Do you like South Park? Do you watch Family Guy? Do you think Chris Rock is hilarious? How about Dane Cook? Sarah Silverman? Woody Allen? Howard Stern? If the answer is yes to any of the above, then are you racist or misogynist? Are you complicit in stereotyping? Are you reinforcing or ignoring norms that need to be challenged? Are you trivializing real issues and avoiding painful truths by laughing at legitimate problems instead of addressing them?
Some of these accusations have been leveled at those who laugh at the list mentioned above. I disagree. If actions speak louder than words, then my activism and advocacy prove I’m an ally of many causes I mock in jest. I’m a white male, but I laugh at white-male jokes. I have Jewish lineage, but I laugh at anti-Semitic jokes. I’m a feminist, but I laugh at Peter Griffin’s buffoonery constantly.
Some folks don’t think this type of humor is funny. They think it does more harm than good. Sometimes they’re right. A joke belittling women in the workforce may be humorous in the right circumstance (especially between two liberal women). But if an elderly male in the Deep South is telling it, is it really so funny? When the person who’s telling the joke has proven to actually believe what he ridicules, maybe it’s not funny after all.
Besides our actual feelings toward the group, a couple of other prerequisites might include that we have to laugh at ourselves (or our identity group) and that no groups are immune or excluded from the roast. If those three things are fulfilled, I think it’s perfectly permissible.
Additionally, context and intent are crucial. When friends and I hang out over a beer, we tell jokes we would otherwise refrain from telling in public. If you have the wits of a flagpole, odds are you’ve bitten your tongue in certain situations when you had a clever pun to share. It’s called being tactful. All of us can relate stories of a joke gone awry that we wish we could yank back like a fishing rod. It’s that remorseful feeling we get when that happens that illustrates our sensitivity and true sentiments.
One of my friends asserted that the reason I’m able to laugh at these offensive jokes is because I’m insulated and remain unaffected by them. For example, it’s easy for an affluent white male to laugh at jokes and go about his day because of white male privilege. But what about the numerous blacks who laugh at Chris Rock’s jokes ridiculing blacks. What about women who love Family Guy?
Laughing at offensive jokes doesn’t invalidate our true, inner feelings. Sometimes it’s solely a coping mechanism for dealing with the challenges we face in overcoming these issues. It would do us all some good to lighten up and use humor as a tool — not as a means of cloaking prejudice or to deflect taking action. We should know why we’re laughing.
Conor Shapiro is a graduate student in the School of International Service and a liberal columnist.
