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I agree with you. I like your statement "The sexism isn't what's funny, the sexism is what's being made fun of.". Similarly, in this article there's a line "a joke can illuminate uncomfortable subjects by giving us permission to laugh at them". At my corporate job, we have a focus on diversity and in these times of Black Lives Matter and COVID related anti-Asian sentiment, we've been challenged to think about how we talk to our kids about jokes. Here's my take... I've tried to express this to my teenager - that sometimes these jokes that seem racist/sexist/ist are actually making fun of the absurdity* of racism/sexism/ism, but it can also be hard to tell sometimes, and many jokes truly are bigoted. As someone who hears an off-color joke, try to cross examine it before knee-jerking taking offense (although, often offense is warranted), and as someone telling an off-color joke, be very careful* in your delivery. For jokes, there's a time and a place, and the flip side to that is that there's a wrong time/place too! For example, I like the joke "I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.... not screaming like the passengers in his car" - but I would never tell that to someone grieving the recent loss of a grandfather or someone who passed in a car accident. And given the current BLM movement and the anti-Asian sentiment - this is definitely not the time for some jokes. My teenager is mixed race, half Asian (prefer not to say which), and they and their friends sometimes feel like they have the green light to make certain Asian jokes. I've told them these are not the times to make those; in other times, it might be okay, but keep a lid on that stuff until some of this passes, because this is serious - it's not the time. And very importantly: just because you find an off color joke funny as opposed to taking offense, it doesn't mean that you're a racist/sexist/etc... and it doesn't mean that you have a character flaw. But just because you find the humor in it, doesn't mean your insensitive or bigoted. As a society, we shouldn't be afraid to laugh and we shouldn't virtue signal by jumping to offense. But if someone takes offense to a joke that you make, you're almost always the one in the wrong (not always, but almost always, so do some self reflection). |
This is especially relevant for in-group jokes and self-deprecation. A Black person performing for a Black audience can poke fun at Black culture as a form of self-deprecation, but if a white person tries to perform the same joke to the same audience the intention will get muddled, and if the audience is white it quickly turns from laughing at yourself to laughing at a marginalized group.
This effect is also why there is no such thing as the "n-word pass": even if a Black person tells you as a white person that they're okay with you using that word and even if they're honest, that only makes it okay in the narrow context of conversations between you and them. Even having another person around can quickly get messy.
Likewise "Karen" originating as a pejorative against white women "playing the victim" sounds very different coming from a Black person or a white man.
Language and communication are complex and jokes are just another way to communicate ideas with language, even if the ideas may be somewhat non-obvious.