May 8, 2008
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A Lot of Truth is Told in a Joke
B"H
If I were a psychologist I’m sure I’d know more about the underlying motives behind jokes and what makes us laugh. I heard once that one thing we laugh at is our own insecurities. I don’t know why this is, but it certainly seems to ring true in my mind.
Just a short while ago I saw a post on Brother Ed Gilbreath’s blog about a site entitled, Stuff White People Like. Ed muses that he hesitated to blog about this topic because, “while I found it funny, I wasn’t sure whether I was laughing with my white brothers and sisters or at them.” In the treacherous field of modern race relations this distinction can make all the difference between helping and hurting those we are reaching out to. I’d like to bring this topic to the table here and mention a few other sites besides the one that Ed referenced. Perhaps some of you have seen these sites and have already formed your opinions about them. Others may be viewing them for the first time. I hope that you will feel free to express your thoughts and reactions and help to advance the conversation on race one step further.
Damali Ayo’s – Rent-a-Negro.com
What can you give a person
who has everything?
Give them a new black friend....
We make the perfect gift easy!
Start Renting Today!Univ. of N. Colorado’s – Fightin’Whities
See also this Wikipedia article.
The title of this post, A Lot of Truth is Told in a Joke, comes from my collection of sayings from my mother.
Blessings,
Shlomo
Comments (3)
Ha! Shlomo, I'm not offended by this at all. In fact. I laughed out loud, then asked a white friend of mine, who also thought, "It's actually very funny!".
I think that sometimes we have trouble laughing at ourselves, and it's to our detriment.
What do you think about this?
John
I believe it is generally important to not take one's self too seriously, but I also think it's important to edify. It's so easy to cross the line from being humorous to being demeaning, hurtful, or worse.
Personally, I generally enjoy white jokes and people poking fun at white idiosyncracies, but I'm also comfortably in the majority. For the shoe to be on the other foot and white (or black) people poking fun at black people, it is a little more complicated. It's certainly not automatically bad, just complicated.
I encourage my teenagers to be careful, as they love all kinds of jokes. As long as you can laugh and it's not at someone else's expense, you're clearly in a safe zone. But the Bible warns against inappropriate joking (Eph. 5:4) for a reason... it becomes hurtful too quickly.
My web access is currently filtered, and the "rent-a-negro" site was filtered as a "racism and hate" site and my access was blocked. Man I hope my computer gets fixed soon. I'm sure my Webkinz cat has starved to death too
It seems like it is more socially acceptable to make fun of white people and culture than it is to make fun of minority cultures. I can see reasons why this is the case, but it complicates things. It seems as though the rules are different for different groups of people. So when different groups come into contact, there is great potential for offense and misunderstanding.