I make fun of white people sometimes. They are just innocuous jokes that I like to share with other Asians as well as white people. What’s wrong with that? They are not mean spirited nor aimed to cause ill-will or harm. I’m not anti-white or attempting to bash on white people. I’m just poking fun. It’s mostly exaggerations and light humor. Here’s the deal. White people make fun of Asians all the time: In person, on TV, in the media, in sports, in politics, in magazines, at work, at school, everywhere. Why can’t I make fun of them? Is that so wrong? Is that so non-PC?
I mean of all the racist and ridiculous things white people can and do say about Blacks, Asians, and Latinos, is there anything in the language as egregious when we talk about white people? Honky? White trash? Yankee? I mean, are these “derogatory” labels that offensive compared to the N-word or Gook or Wetback? Please. Black comedians make the white-black jokes all the time. And you know what? I see all white people laughing. Why can’t we Asians make the white-Asian jokes? No one here is racist towards white people. I’m not. I’m poking fun and making light of it.
It just seems some white people can dish it out but can’t take it. I’m not trying to get even or retaliate or get defensive. I’m just having fun at the expense of some white people just like we Asians have been for many years. We make fun of slanted-eye Asians on this site almost 90% of the time. I should be able to make fun of round eye white people as well. It doesn’t matter who does it, when anyone does something stupid, that person is subject to be made fun of, regardless of their skin color. Don’t you agree?
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Humor is something I think a lot about. To me, it can be divided into two categories. Humor that makes fun of yourself (self-deprecating), and humor that makes fun of others. The latter is usually mean-spirited, and it’s usually done to make yourself feel better by putting others down. This is the category racial jokes are in. I tend to stay within self-deprecating humor, and try not to be mean towards others.
The thing I find interesting is that there are a lot of Asian comedians who make fun of themselves and Asians, but never make fun of whites or blacks. I think that’s just stupid and cowardly. These comedians think they are being funny, but they’re just being laughed AT, not with. They, in my opinion, are further escalating stereotypes, and lowering our status in the eyes of non-Asians. So, in this sense, I’d like to see more Asian comedians with balls who can poke fun at other cultures.
I’m not going to say that it’s good to poke fun at other cultures, because, like I said, it tends to be mean-spirited. However, if you do return the favor, it will give a definite message that SAMs and Asians have arrived, and we expect equal treatment. Like we’ve said before, if someone makes a wisecrack against you, you should send a message that it’s not cool. This is often done by returning the favor.
In the end, there are a lot of funny things found in all the different cultures. It tends to be funny if you’re talking about yourself in your in-crowd. However, if someone from the out-crowd says the same thing, then thems fightin’ words!
Yup, they don’t want you to break the stereotype of being Mr.Nice asian but you should just to show them that you’re capable of it.
frankly, i would just like to hear asians be funny. the asian humor i’ve heard has been really hokey, clownish, or bland. if not for bobby lee, i wouldn’t think an asian-american humor that actually made people laugh was possible.
who are the asian comedians anyhow?
If you want to make jokes about whites, it might be more effective to use ethnic type taunts. I.e., white people are not as used to being ridiculed for being white, but may joke at each other for being some nationality or from some region of the U.S. Like, Scots are cheap. My SAM and I used to joke with that kind of thing because the stereotype is that Asians are cheap, too. Or like, the way people talk in Minnesota. You can bag on them because they’re mostly descendants of Scandinavia, and, being the whitest of the white, it’s fair game. Actually I was up in northern MN and it’s funny, they’re just a different kind of hillbilly with a different kind of accent. They work in iron mining instead of coal mining. Somebody’s going to kill me for the last few sentences.
I would be very careful with the term White Trash. To most of America, it’s a vague, antiquated term that is called upon now to supply a racial slur for whites since there aren’t as many as for other races. However, in Appalachia and the South, White Trash still has a deeply painful and pejorative meaning, and can also be grossly unfair to poor people who have been disadvantaged by the system. Like my ex-husband, who grew up with severe disadvantages–you could really hurt somebody who doesn’t deserve it with that.
One thing is, I would say most of you Asians are from sophisticated urban centers in the U.S. and have not experienced the pockets of white poverty in various places in the U.S. Where I grew up in the Midwest, the town had a WHITE HOUSING PROJECT. These are some of the kids with bad teeth, unclean homes, molested at home, struggling. It’s not their fault being raised in that, and they don’t deserve to get called Trash.
I was also going to say, who is more of a threat to AA’s, an ignorant, unworldy but well-meaning country American, or a white Ivy League guy who’s scared shitless off his ass that he isn’t as smart as the AA’s–like those white guys from work in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.
On a different note, there’s a good cookbook called White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matthew Mickler. It’s not in print but you can get an old copy over the internet. It has recipes and a nice photoessay (except I’m not sure the people in the photos knew the name of the book they were going to be in).
I had a fantasy of opening a theme cafe called The White Trash Cafe. It would have franchises all over the world, staffed by local races, following a strict dress code of mullets or hair in curlers, cut off jeans and sleeveless t-shirts, muumuus and fuzzy slippers. It would sell t-shirts that say, ‘You don’t have to be white to be White Trash.’ But I realized what I said above, which is that not everyone thinks WT is just cute.
Ms. Robinson,
Excellent post — you touch upon some often overlooked points. Where I grew up and still live now (Boston), there are plenty of “white housing projects” and I’ve travelled to other places in the U.S. where I’ve seen whites living in abject poverty. From my life experiences, I try to be genuinely sensitive and empathetic towards people of all races and classes, and not just be politically correct for its own sake. Still, I do enjoy a good non-PC joke, be it against trailer trash, whites, blacks, Asians, whatever. I suppose it boils down to whether the teller is delivering the joke in a poking-fun spirit, or a malicious one, and whether the teller has first established the proper rapport and environment for the audience. I think Jeff Foxworthy does a great job of telling white trash jokes. A Jeff Foxworthy show preceded by dinner at the White Trash Cafe — you might have something there!
Racial humor can have a positive, disarming effect I think. The only caveat, in my opinion, is if you’re gonna make fun along racial lines, make fun of everyone. The Chappelle show gets away with some of the most outrageous and taboo stereotypes ever because he makes fun of black people as much, if not more, than anybody else. But when you consistently single a group out, that’s when there may be some deeper issues.
Just because one makes fun of white people, are they anti-white or white-bashing?
No, I don’t feel sorry for white people since most of the world is governed by them, except China and South America, and some parts of Africa. They rule the media and corporate world, plus the banks of the world.
I find though I tend to have to defend myself as not being anti-white, so I don’t get taken as a racist. But lets face it everyones a racist, they just don’t like the label. How much of a racist you are varies greatly.
I don’t blame my white friends for being white, I judge them on their personalitie and their friendship. So people on this site must understand that if we bad mouth whites don’t take it personally. We are just bad mouthing “the man” so to speak, and it just happens that “the man” is white.
I wanted to know, what is it that you say when you make fun of white people? Hairy? Smelly? Lazy in school? Dumb with money? Fat? Food choices? Car choices?
originalsin: I only saw Foxworthy once, but it was really funny–when they did Hick Eye for the Queer Guy and the 3 bluecollar guys madeover a gay guy and his apartment.
What about Margaret Cho? She’s funny as hell. Koreans’ answer to Rosie O’Donnell, I’m sure they love that.
Hey, we crackers can take it!
Racial jokes are funny when their 1. Accurate and informed. 2. Kind-spirited.
A lot of the things white Americans say about Asia/Asians really anger me because they’re just DUMB and WRONG (in the incorrect sense, not the immoral sense – but that, too).
Chinese have a lot of inaccurate stereotypes about whites and Americans, but they’re well-meant and based on simple curiousity. Others are mean but accurate, because a lot of Occidentals in Asia DO act like assholes or idiots.
It also helps to know your audience. I often repeat common jokes about different regions’ Chinese, told to me by countless Chinese friends. Chinese think it’s hilarious that a foreigner knows these things. ABCs get offended. All my Hongkongese friends self-mock their Hongky-ness, the term is used casually and affectionately here, but my Hongky-American friends really dislike it.
I find it’s good to own your epiteths, and self-mock. I often call myself a guaipo, a cracker, a bitch, a cunt. Great words! It’s all in how they’re meant. (I was once chased down the streets of Amsterdam by a Russian whore in her underwear screaming that I was a “Stoopid bitch!” and I was like, hey, I’m not stupid!)
I find Americans are particularly sensative and PC about such things. I once in an article about piracy in China used the phrase “chink in the armor”, and got loads of hate mail from Americans. Before then, I’d only once heard the word as a slur, and had to have the asshole explain what he was talking about, so it didn’t even occur to me that the phrase would be considered offensive. (Now I am forced to imagine a Chinese guy wearing medieval armor, which is actually a pretty funny image. How Terracotta!) Chinese are SOOOO utterly un-PC and direct, it’s hilarious but I still often blanch at things. Like some of my English-speaking Chinese friends like to make the “chink” jokes, always make me squirm.
Speaking of which. This is awful, and I apologize in advance. I’m a horrible person:
Q: What do you call an overweight Chinese?
A: A Chunk.
I have two words for you, Carols Mencia. He is funny, he gets everybody. He had the racial olympics I laughed so hard. He had a Palestinian guy in a rock throwing contest. That’st he kind of humor I like, when he taps into what is really on our minds and says it. Dave Chappelle was a little too anti black, believe it, that’s why he ditched his show. Was being asked to be too samboish to get all the money. I am glad Dave took a moment to realize people weren’t laughing with him or at his jokes but at the pitiful way he portrayed blacks.
And the one thing I hated about Dave….he married an Asian woman. Oh alright he had a right to. But he and I grew up in the same place, and there weren’t that many asians around. So for my part Dave needs to grow up. But Carols is hitting it.
Shanghai Meimi whats this mean: “because a lot of Occidentals in Asia” — whats Occidentals.
I’ve seen Carlos Mencia before, you got to
check out this Canadian comedian Russell Peters
No race it off limits, Asian, Indian, White or Black,
dude is funny as hell — heres the link
“Occidental” is to the West what “Oriental” is to the East.
Occidental is from Latin for “falling,” as in the falling sun or the West, just like oriental is from Latin for rising, as in rising sun, the east.
Shanghai Meimi, that’s a cute joke. It nicely avoids actually using the slur word, yet still depends upon the audience knowing the referenced slur word. Speaking of “chink in the armor,” my brother (we’re Chinese) dressed in a suit of armor one Halloween and that’s exactly what he went as.
BrwnBeauty4u–
Why do you hate that Dave Chappelle married an Asian woman? And thus, he needs to grow up?
You’re not making any sense whatsoever.
i can’t elaborate for brwnbeauty, (and i don’t get the “grow up” part, either) but i can say that i was somewhat disappointed, too, when i found out that chappelle’s wife was asian. but don’t label me a hypocrite (yet).
it’s just the same old sad story: black man who enjoys some success can’t love a black woman. notice, i said “love,” as i have no doubt that he loves his wife. (i mean, he goes to great lengths to protect her. has anyone ever seen her, or his kids?) i don’t resent her or him, and find him enjoyable nonetheless. (the rick james sketch is in the pantheon of all-time great comedy routines.)plus, i’ve been in interracial relationships myself, and know that love happens. but i’m not so naive to believe that love happens without a conscious decision. and with men, more than women, i think, there is calculation at work. men tend to fetishize. if i read brwnbeauty correctly, she, like me, is disappointed that chappelle, seemingly very likable, cute, with such fine-tuned cultural consciousness, would not want a black woman.
does his wife being asian mean that he holds black women in low regard? not knowing either of them, i can’t say. but, once more, men tend to make who they “like” that kind of exclusionary proposition.
to be honest, i’ll say that while i see black guys who are yummy (and the guy i’m seeing now is black), my favorite look is brown hair, blue eyes. does that preference predispose me to want to like men with those features? probably. is this a racial preference? possibly. and i say “possibly” because the light hair, blue eyes combo doesn’t do anything for me (on a superficial level), and if i had some weird racial preference going, that probably wouldn’t be the case.
this is all very tough to sort out, isn’t it?
I don’t know. Unless a person is privy to Chappelle’s personal life and thoughts, I can’t see how anyone could resent their relationship. Aren’t you acting and feeling on personal assumptions? How do you know he can’t love or want a black woman?
The thought that he ought to love a black woman because he’s black and successful (which I’m not sure has to do with anything) is a bit twisted when you think about it.
Aren’t you confusing the notions that black women should be loved with black men ought to willfully choose black women?
i think you might have given my comment a cursory read, bicycle thief, because i believe my response took into account some, if not all, of the questions you raise.
may i suggest as an exercise in understanding, you give my posting a second, closer read, this time looking at what i say (for example, i did not mention having feelings of resentment, i said disappointment), and asking yourself how can this be true? versus are you confused? which could be construed as condescending.
while we still might not agree, you could arrive at different conclusions and possibly ask different questions.
you know, as i was writing this reply, it occured to me that you might not be empathetic because of this whole AF/WM thing that’s happening. there doesn’t seem to be much of an outcry from AMs when the outmarry rate for AFs is quite high. i realize this question takes me waaaay off-topic, so if someone can direct me to a thread on this issue, i’ll try to educate myself there.
This is what I read: “It’s just the same old sad story: black man who enjoys some success can’t love a black woman.”
Resentment, disappointment–it doesn’t matter. Sorry to have mistakenly exaggerated your feelings. That you have any negative feelings at all for a couple you don’t know just because he’s black and she’s not is what’s strange to me.
You’re right, I’m not sympathetic on this issue. Who cares if Asian women are dating white males? Why should there be an outcry? When a human being can find another human being, it’s a joyous thing no matter what.
bicycle thief, i didn’t say that i didn’t want them to be happy, and obviously, i don’t know either of them. but we all have opinions on people we don’t know. to pretend we don’t is … pretending we don’t.
as for “caring” about what others are doing, it’s disingenuous to suggest that people don’t routinely do just that, and pointless to suggest that it’s wrong. it’s not in all cases, and it’s useful in many, particularly when we’re talking about race trends and outcomes in this country. me, i’m only too aware that the whims of white men can make a huge difference in who gets jobs, where people can live, who gets educated and, finally, who is or isn’t racially penalized. i guess i’m guilty of caring about this.
re AF/WM, given the reasons that some AFs give for finding WMs desirable and some of the reasons WMs give for finding AFs desirable, i think the pairing can be subjected to some scrutiny. perhaps of interest to you, and perhaps not, are comments i’ve read on craigslist on the matter where AFs/WMs talk contemptuously about AMs’ undesirability. it’s like a bonding force for some of them and that’s saddening. that alone suggests to me that not all these relationships are joyous or honest.
i think not caring about who’s “loving” whom in a racially stratified culture like the U.S. is unwise, but i’m not billy-club wielding member of the thought-police so that choice is up to you. again, if someone would direct me to where this subject is underway, i’ll look there. in any event, i think i should stop cluttering up this thread with off-topic postings. my word: i won’t post on this matter in this thread again. promise.
We can talk about unjust ideals of beauty and appeal along the lines of race, but this, to me, seems far removed from a Dave Chappelle marrying an Asian woman instead of a black woman.
That’s ironic, because I think when we stop caring about who’s loving whom, we’ll have a less racially stratified culture in the U.S.
Interesting points and I would agree if the reverse were possible , but in our society it isn’t. If a white were to make jokes of a racial nature it would immediately turn into a racist issue. If racism is going to be hot button it needs to be universally applied to all, not for convenience, or to certain groups and not others, ALL.
I think all races need to get a sense of humor about our selves and get rid of the Politicaly Correct movement that seeks to hide the differences. We all know of stereotypes in each race and culture, that is what is funny…I know of real white trash, heck Jerry Springer has them on all the time. I have asian friends who really can’t drive well and carry a camera all the time. Point is, we are all funny, and different, and need to lighten up and be able to laugh at each other.
Considering all the shit whities have unleashed on the world, I’d say it’s only the beginning of the impending karmic backlash.
And just because I’m white doesn’t mean I like it. If you call me a self-racist, thank you for being obvious because it’s true.