Clearing the air: Racism against all races is unacceptable

I haven’t blogged for long but I feel that I need to set my blog audience straight about the way I feel about stereotyping and racism being used as a form of comedy. 

I believe that stereotypes about all races are all examples of bad, distasteful, boring humour. It gets boring seeing the same silly misconceptions about certain races in comedy, especially when you know they are being used as cheap attempts to generate laughs.Here’s a link to a blog post about lazy racism vs lazy satire which makes a fair point. 

In my blog posts I am not just going to talk about my offence about racist jokes towards black people just because I am black. Instead I will highlight examples of racism used in comedy that represent different races in a negative way. London is a community in which I have lived in all my life and I don’t just see white people (…and no they aren’t drinking tea all day and talking about the Queen either). I see people from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds, and have friends from different countries so I do find jokes about other races equally as distasteful. I just feel that some races are used more frequently and hit harder than others…maybe because at this current time it’s easier to do and get away with.

 Racism has always been a sensitive topic and I am not trying to say that race should be a taboo topic that is hidden and buried and not spoken about. People should just try and think outside the box. Just because racist jokes and stereotypes have existed as a platform for comedy for many years and been allowed to appear on our television screens, it does not mean that it is justified. We should not all just sit down and feel that because something has been allowed to continue and be carelessly reproduced it should therefore be accepted. Some may argue that racial humour as entertainment is acceptable because it is just a simple joke. Therefore, people who cannot take a joke are sad and pathetic. I am not trying to pick people out here but a white person has said this to me before and it annoyed me slightly. Do you have to be a white blonde lady before you can take offense to a comedy which features a blonde female character being portrayed as an air head, who wears pink, wears fluffy things and cannot keep a stable relationship? Or is it the fact that not enough of the white community say anything about it therefore it is seen as okay… Point is: A stereotype directed at race is a racial stereotype and fuels the judgmental nature of humans. This is not suitable for comedy.

Everyone should be rightfully loud mouthed about racist jokes. They aren’t funny and I really do not know how producers see them to be entertaining. It is even more harmful to children in the sense that other than in school or at home with their family children rely on the media to socialize them and teach them about the world. What good is it exposing children to silly stereotypes, most of which can even be found in productions from Disney. I mean look at Aladdin! 

I have a lot more to say but just not now but I will leave you with a link to a blog written by Ricky Gervais, a popular British comedian who everyone knows from The Office (Original UK version). In it he talks about the difference between American and British Humour. The second to last paragraph is particularly linked to what I was talking about.

Please read and feel free to comment. 


3 thoughts on “Clearing the air: Racism against all races is unacceptable

  1. Morolayo says:

    I personally think using racism in comedy shows isnt acceptble by doing this, people make it seem like its joke rather than an issue.
    Although its meant to be a joke i feel like comedys arent the only ones blame, for example in certain songs the word ‘n______’ is used as way refering to a friend or a mate. Its not meant to come across as offensive. but if someone the opposite to you was to say this people would be ready to fight them.
    Regardless of whether time as changed or not we owe it to each other to respect one another. Racism is not funny there have people who have become victims of hate crime like Stephen Lawerence therefore we shouldnt pretend that such a horrid issue like racsim could ever be funny.. or made into a joke!

    • eveemay says:

      I totally agree with you Morolayo. Racism has been a long standing issue within cultures and between cultures for a very long time. Stereotyping people and making these unrealistic or exaggerated depictions of certain groups of people in the media is wrong. It doesn’t help anything… it doesn’t move societies forward by educating them and personally I don’t find it funny. Music is definitely another area where racism is either overlooked or downplayed. I’m going to be talking about this issue soon actually… take a look at Florence and the machine’s song “No light, no light” and the use of imagery in the music video. You might be surprised.

  2. […] Clearing the air: Racism against all races is unacceptable ( […]

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s