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Stating the obvious, comedians are supposed to make
us laugh. Ask any comedian and they will tell you that nothing is above commentary, and the choice is purely a personal one.
Nobody is untouchable, and no topic is taboo. There is not any topic that comedians will shy away from if they think they
can get a laugh. Not death, not illness, nor famine. Not racism either.
Jokes about different kinds of people surely
can be funny as it plays to how we unfortunately stereotype groups of people. It isn’t any individual joke or comment that
annoys me; even the ones that I personally feel are too harsh or ugly. For me, the problem is that the playing field is not
a level one.
When a black comedian can tell a joke about white people that a white comedian would not be able to tell
about black people something is terribly wrong. The same exact joke would bring an avalanche of cries about racism and insensitivity,
and you can read about the racist white comedian in the morning newspaper.
When a Jewish comedian pokes fun at those
with an Arab heritage, it’s supposed funny and just a joke, but let a comedian from an Arab descent tell that same joke and
he or she hates Jewish people and Israel, you hear this uproar from all kinds of civic groups, and it makes the 11 o’clock
news.
I have heard the arguments that say that minorities in this country have put up with racism for as long as we
have been a United States and those who feel this way are right beyond any doubt. Because of that fact, however, some say
that extra tolerance is allowed, even required because of that history. Expectative deleted! That does not justify anything.
Racism is racism.
I am not trying to say that racial humor is all bad or even that I don’t laugh at some such jokes
and stories. Of course I do. It makes for some of the best humor around. When, however, the jokes are of the type that could
not be repeated by a comedian of another ethnicity and told about a different group, the humor is lost and all that we have
left is discrimination masked by the format being used, in this case comedy.
Comedian Don Rickles has made a career
of insulting every ethnic group under the sun. He’s funny to me because he at least is even handed and no single group escapes
his scrutiny, especially not his own. I do wonder however, how Jewish people would react if a comic of a different minority
said some of the things Rickles does, if that comic used Jews as the subject.
My favorite comedian is Richard Pryor
and as brilliant a comedian as he is, I wonder whether or not a white comedian could get away with some of the material Pryor
uses if the subject were Blacks and not whites.
Present day comics such as Tommy Davidson make sure that while many
jokes he tells are directed at white folks, much of his act rips Blacks as well. Chris Rock is another who is sure to balance
his comedic attacks. These guys have my respect for that, and while I do not know them personally, their acts have given me
no reason to question their motives.
All that we at FUNOFU are asking for is an even playing field. Beyond the possibility
of using comedy to mask genuine racist feelings, which only the individual comedians themselves know in their heart, fair
play still should remain as one criteria of telling jokes,. If it’s funny, it’s funny. If it’s only funny when it applies
to somebody else but not when it's directed at you, then it isn't funny.
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