At the core of my ‘comic masterpiece’ (let’s not be modest!)is a true event: the abduction and murder of a teenage boy by the Secret Police. Shades of Pinochet’ Chile. A lot of this went on (still does?) in those conservative states so dear to US presidents and UK prime ministers.

I’ve also tried to address the dilemma of being a gay Arab (male or female) in a culture where Arranged Marriages are still commonplace. Not easy to be Glad to be Gay in the Muslim world.

Why is my book a comedy and not a polemic? Sometimes comedy is the sharpest weapon in our armoury.

As for your analogy with the sexual joke, I don’t think it works perfectly. They are related in one respect. An off color sexual joke is about taboos that are not supposed to be discussed sexually. Racist jokes are only taboos to people who don’t believe they are inherently fucked up, but only appreciate the fact they shouldn’t share them publicly (oddly enough, this is where people start taking out their frustration on political correctness as opposed to racism). For the butt of the joke, these jokes are marginalizing and oppressive, not merely offensive.

I can appreciate the fact that you can enjoy cultural humor, which I think is fine too. But I think there is a qualitative difference between disparaging jokes and ones in good taste.

I especially have to agree with Beetle’s analysis that one looks over his shoulder to make sure that nobody will be offended, not to make sure that nobody of the mentioned race is around. I, for example, enjoy telling and hearing Jewish jokes, when in good taste, and when told without malicious intent. (I am Jewish.) Among non Jewish friends, we know each other well enough to know what is acceptable.

I would like to pose an interesting example that might more clearly illustrate this point. Suppose I told a friend an off-color sexual joke, not demeaning towards anyone, but just plain vulgar. I might look over my shoulder first to make sure that nobody else is around, to protect someone else from unintended offense. Note that in this situation there is no person or party to whom the joke refers, but I am still cautious. This example serves to clearly isolate the ‘offensive’ aspect of jokes from the ‘racial’ aspect.

I do acknowledge the danger in telling any sort of joke that offends people, and agree that there is a very good argument in favor of not telling them at all, to be extra careful not to offend people. But I hold that the telling of a racial joke is not wrong in itself, especially since it about a largely fictional schema anyway.

I would like to ask Yaman what he meant by: “I don’t believe in groups of people in the first place.” Do you mean that groups don’t exist inherently in nature, we have no meaningful way of assigning them, or assigning them is possible but wrong?

I would also like to ask Mr. Jonathan Yee, who I hope will see this post, what he meant by the following quote, which I hope I misunderstood: “For we now live in a society of many conflicting identities, colored and rich, white and poor…”

To Raffi and Beetle’s comments, I do think that joke teller should sensor themselves around others in fear that they are going to “offend” someone. If someone is going to say something bigoted or ignorant it should not matter if there are people in the room/behind them who are going to put the joke teller in check. The greater point, I think, is the presumption that people think of or say such jokes in the first place.

Because, lets say that a rich white man was whispering a comment about black women at a party. Just because no black woman is there, or the one one black woman present does not care to respond, does not mean that the joke teller was not out of line or wrong, because if they were not wrong then they would not care who is listening. For example, Dave Chappell says hella bigoted things all the time, but he says them on public TV and in movies and he does not watch his back while doing so, nor does he care to be “politically correct.” He does not have to be at a party surrounded by like-minded people ready to laugh at anything, the world thinks he is funny, there is a reason. I really cannot explain but, you gotta admit, he’s hella funny.

The thing I think we should be taking away from this article is the implicit power dynamics that exist in such interactions. Another example: Woody Allen can say funny Jewish jokes but that is also available to the masses. When I hear someone I know is anti-Semitic say something bigoted about Jews I get really offended, and try and put them in check. When I hear Woody Allen say a Jewish joke about his mother in one of his movies, I laugh. There is a gut reaction we have when we hear or see things that are wrong or uncomfortable. Perhaps that is an arbitrary and emotive distinction but some things cannot be explained linearly, sometimes things do not have a clear criteria.

good/surprising article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/23lawyers.html?_r=2&hp

Sarah Silverman is only funny when her jokes overtly reference the ignorance of her character, when it’s just a string of racial stereotypes it’s stupid and boring and that seems to be a lot of her shtick.