Maybe it’s too late for me to be pondering deep thoughts. My intent here isn’t to ruffle feathers, sound like I’m ignorant, or be politically publicly incorrect.
A lot of people joke about race and the stereotypes of race. Some of those people, if they’re not of that race, get chastised or labeled racist for making such jokes. But most of the people who ARE OF THAT RACE don’t get in trouble (for the most part; I’m speaking generally).
For instance, we watch a corny show called GRIMM when the kids are asleep. If you don’t know it, let me enlighten you (if you know it, skip to the next paragraph)… A Portland Police detective starts seeing faces of a few people morph into monsters but nobody else sees it happen. He learns from a relative that he comes from a long line of grimm’s, monster killers to protect the non-monsters (regular people). However, he prefers to be a cop and is a strict rule-follower so he decides that he’s not going to be a monster killer, which is confusing to the monsters because ALL grimm’s want to kill them, no matter how well-behaved they are in the real world. At first, his partner doesn’t know, but now he does (he’s the only non-monster who knows) and is going with the flow. Here’s where I get to my point, kind of, because all that might not have been necessary (but now you know the premise of the show in case you want to try it – remember it’s corny, but still clever if you can get past the lame stuff). Another officer at the precinct is in every episode as the witty, funny, officer who does the grunt/background work for the detective team.
During one of the cases, the Asian officer is working at the computer and makes a joke about how he should be able to break into the code because he’s Asian, it’s in his DNA or something. The way he said it was meant to be funny. It was a joke. We laughed.
If a non-Asian would’ve said the Asian should be able to hack it, people would’ve been all up and down his case, saying he’s racist.
That’s what makes me confused. It was meant to be a joke, it was said by an Asian about Asian’s, so is it okay that I thought it was funny or, in theory, does that make me a racist? Why is it okay for him to say it but not a non-Asian? There are several comedians who make horrible jokes about their own race and their same race laughs and laughs and laughs because they’re true/funny.
To be clear, I am not racist. My first couple boyfriend’s were black (African-American, dark, what?), my grandpa was full Hawaiian but looked black (and I loved him so much I named my firstborn after him; that’s got to prove my non-racistness), and I’ve dated Mexican’s (my First Love), formerly homosecksual (I broke up with him because he sold Amway creepily, not because he used to live a gay lifestyle), a Filipino, a short guy, some fluffy guys, a Samoan, cowboy’s, trailer trash (that’s probably rude, but you totally know what I mean when I say that and I liked the guy so I can’t be in trouble for the label because it is what it is – is there a PC alternative?), a homeless guy, and mixtures of others.
Wow. I sound trampy. Oops, probably not supposed to say that word either? See what I mean? It’s tricky to tap dance around what words to say or not and how do you explain what you’re talking about unless you cut to the chase and state the obvious?
Wait. How’d I get from racial jokes to labels? They’re kind of lumped together, don’t you think? Same theory that if you talk about someone’s race, their economic condition, where they’re from, who they’ve been, or what they look like on the outside it’s an automatic black mark against you because you’re mean but you’re not intending to be mean just stating a fact. When does a fact equal racism?
Did I make any sense to you?
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