The Ethics of Ethnic Humor

My biggest problem with ethnic humor is not that it is offensive, but rather that quite often it just isn't funny. I tend to have a knee-jerk aversion to both speech codes and political correctness, but that doesn't mean I like ethnic or racial humor. It seems to me that whether intentionally or not, the genre most commonly works to inculcate or perpetuate stereotypes--many of which are bound to the specific cultures, times, or cultural misconceptions from which they spawned. As time capsules they seem relevant--testimonies to the latent or manifest racial tensions or ethnic hostilities of the day. Nevertheless, from the  Polish jokes of the early American twentieth century to the Dave Chappelle Show (R.I.P.), ethnic jokes are a legitimate and longstanding form of comedy, and perhaps the darkest of all genres if we scrape beneath their surface and examine their function.

At their most innocuous level, ethnic jokes assert the real differences between cultures in reductive but not necessarily illustrative ways. When they arise from a heterogeneous multicultural environment--think, for example, of the crowded tenement houses of Manhattan's Lower East Side of the early twentieth century from which so much of American Vaudeville and humor originated--they might actually have the ability to unify differing cultural groups through the humor of shared experience. In contrast, when this sort of humor originates in a more homogenous and isolated setting and as a consequence is based in ignorance, misconceptions might be propagated that result in further dividing seemingly disparate groups.

Not to be overly meta, but here is my joke, which is drawn from Asa Berger's book,  Anatomy of Humor (1993):

Q: How does every ethnic joke start?
A: With a look over your shoulder.

In considering ethnic humor, the identity of both audience and speaker must be considered in order to fully realize the joke's work. Is the speaker an insider addressing other insiders--as for example the racial humor of Dave Chappelle that addresses a largely black audience--or is that humor utilized by insiders against outsiders, which defines bigotry rather than humor. Don Rickles is largely thought of as the master of insult comedy. Rickles wields racial, ethnic, and sexual stereotypes against all and for the benefit of all. He embraces the persona of the loveable albeit curmudgeonly bigoted uncle, but perhaps because he laughs at everyone equally (including himself) and utilizes an incessant and rapid-fire approach to insult humor, his performances seem to be beyond reproach. But what if Rickles' jokes only derided one group? Might that change how he is perceived?  

This week, I ask that you submit an ethnic, racial, or cultural joke. As you do, ask yourself who the subject/object is and how the joke proceeds from that relationship. Ethnic jokes circle the wagons, demarcating who is in and who is out of a given social group. Decide who is the "in-group" or audience of the joke and who is in the "out-group" and add a sentence to your post as a comment answering those questions.