Stereotypes exist because someone decided that the majority of a certain population have something in common. They weren’t just pulled out of thin air, there is (or was) a basis for them.

There is an AA comedian who says that he doesn’t mind all of the bad stereotypes as long as everyone remembers the one that says he has a big penis. I’m sure it’s much funnier when he says it, but ya’ll get the idea.

On Last Comic Standing last night someone was talking about sitting in traffic for a long time and finally getting to the source of the traffic jam, 8 Mexicans pushing a Ford Escort that had either broken down or ran out of gas. He seemed shocked to see a real live walking example of a stereotype that he apparently had only thought was a joke before that.

Okay, so maybe we have a large percentage of a certain population that fits a stereotype. Some people say they don’t see the harm in pointing out the obvious. Old men change lanes without looking first. AA men have large penises (or is the plural peni like fungi?). Asians are smart.

Ouch.

That last one hits home, and it already hurts. Maybe the child is smart because they have studied hard. Or maybe they aren’t smart and feel that they have let down their entire race because they didn’t study hard enough? Either way, it will likely be a painful stereotype for your child at some point in their life. And that’s a supposedly “good” stereotype - imagine how bad the “bad” stereotypes will hurt. (I’m using quotes there because all stereotypes are bad, BTW.)

One of the things I noted on Last Comic Standing last night was that over half of the comics had some kind of physical or racial difference, and that their act was based in large part around that difference. The woman with the lisp had a joke about speech therapy. The man with cerebral palsy joked that his mom was the only person in the world who could tell when he was drunk. The man of Jewish descent joked that Jews don’t burn buildings down when they get mad like the Muslims do but instead they buy the building and have it rezoned and then sell it for five times what they bought it for. Even the short man joked about his height, and the man with the large head had a joke about that.

And, the woman with the lisp? She was asked if the lisp was real before they decided if she was funny or not. So, if it wasn’t real then she wasn’t funny? Yeah, I’m guessing so. She told them she had a cleft palate and that it was real. So they asked her to come back that night to perform in front of the crowd.

I think that we, as a nation, are still trying to figure this out. We are told that stereotypes are wrong, and yet we see jokes about them that have enough truth behind them that they make it onto network TV as something that is funny. And to further muddy the waters, if a non-Jew stood up and made the rezoning joke it wouldn’t have been funny, it was only funny because it came from a person of Jewish descent, and he has a special license to make fun of himself.

Carlos Mencia is another comic that pushes stereotypes pretty hard. I’ve seen him make a joke about another race and have the camera pan the audience. He will point out that the white people in the audience aren’t laughing because it isn’t politically correct for him (a Hispanic) to make a joke about a black man, but that he knows that the people at home are laughing their asses off. And he’s probably right.

So here is what I struggle with.

I know that it is wrong to meet someone and to make assumptions of them based on their skin color or body size or accent or physical handicap. Stereotypes are wrong, and they are hurtful. I figured that out long before I adopted a child of a different race, but having her in my life has only cemented that belief all the greater.

But then we have the conundrum that makes it okay for people to make fun of themselves. And how can we tell them that they can’t?

But, is it okay for them to be furthering the stereotype? I mean, sure, it’s a stereotype that they have had to deal with, and perhaps joking about it helps them minimize it somehow so it doesn’t hurt. Or maybe they really do think it’s funny. I’m not going to dare try to figure out why they think it’s okay to joke about it… I’m just trying to figure out how to help my daughter deal with this as she gets older. It’s okay for Jews to make Jewish jokes, it’s okay for black men to make stereotypical black jokes, and now we learn from Carlos Mencia that a Hispanic man can make stereotypical racial jokes about ALL races and it’s still socially acceptable.

So, why is it socially acceptable to joke about something that can be so hurtful to so many people?

We know that not all members of at least one race thinks it’s okay. There are plenty of people of Italian heritage who spoke out against the stereotypes that The Sopranos helps to keep alive. I wonder if there are people of Jewish descent who turned the channel last night away from Last Comic Standing?

I don’t have a lot of answers yet. But I will continue to live my life by taking each person as an individual and not making assumptions about them based on stereotypes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 1:08 pm and is filed under Race Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.