CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Black People Like Watermelons and Chicken. Get it?

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

this entry brought to you by modest mouse, "florida"


Ever since Barack Obama got elected as President of the United States, some of my coworkers have been entertaining one another with racist jokes. There's been a bunch of times where somebody's been forwarded a racist joke to their email, they check it on their cell phones, and just have to share, because gosh darnnit, these jokes are a hoot.

Now, here's the thing. I find these jokes to be offensive, but I've discovered that I find them offensive not as a half-black person myself, but as a person who likes comedy. Because these jokes aren't funny in the least bit. The thing is, if they were actually funny jokes, I probably wouldn't feel like they were racist. But the fact that they're bad jokes just emphasizes their racism.

Let me give you an example. A friend of mine showed me her phone, and she'd been forwarded a racist joke that went thusly: "I received the first installment of Obama's stimulus package today. It contained watermelon seeds, malt liquor, and 10 chickens."

When I don't find this to be funny, suddenly I can't take a joke. But it's got nothing to do with not being able to take a joke. The problem isn't the fact that it's racist, the problem is that it's an awful joke. It is structurally unsound. If you're going to make fun of black people, how about not describing the menu of a fucking Applebees.

Here is a better version of that joke, and it didn't even take any more time to think of it: "I received my first installment of Obama's stimulus package today. It contained watermelon seeds, three FUBU jackets, and five Tyler Perry movies on DVD."

I'm not trying to pretend like I'm an authority on comedy, but come on. Watermelons and ten chickens? Who wrote that, Vaudevillian Hackbot 2000?
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with love from CRS @ 8:35 AM 

1 Comments:

Dude,what up with all these spaces between words? It kinda hurts my wrist to have to sit here and hit the space bar every time. I don't get it. You use too many spaces between your words! Nexttimeyoushouldtypelikethis.

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