Guest Mock: Is Racism Mockable?

This one’s pretty kickass and comes from a guy named David.  I don’t have any juicy links so you can go read more of his stuff so why don’t you just go ahead and read this one over and over again?  UPDATE: You can read more RIGHT HERE! Also, just so you know, it was really hard for me to post the n-word.  Also, how do you like the multiple post format? Oh yeah, the funny guest mock…here it is:

I find racism to be fucking hilarious. Not hate crimes or anything like that, but the idea of liking or hating someone based entirely on where their family comes from is so ludicrous to me that I just have to laugh. Unfortunately it also means I make a lot of off color jokes, sometimes in mixed company.

I never ever use the “N” word (unless I’m quoting a Dr. Dre song or something, but in those cases it ends with “a”… the version that ends in “er” is pretty much not in my vocabulary at all). Generally speaking the racial epithets are something I avoid altogether, but I will say things like “I blame the Jews”. I don’t actually blame the Jews for anything except the deliciousness of bagels, but for some reason “I blame the Jews” is just something that I think is funny to say, like calling somebody a cocksucker, it just rolls off the tongue. I would never say “I blame the Kikes” or “Heebs” or whatever, as if that makes it better.

I do think a great sitcom gag would be to cut to the middle of a conversation between a manager of some sort and a Mexican janitor, with the first words being the janitor saying “You want the floor WHAT and span?!”. I can’t possibly be the first person to come up with this, but I’ve never seen it anywhere.

If there’s one thing that Avenue Q has taught us, it’s that everyone is a little bit racist. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but I do think that everyone’s prejudiced to some degree, whether it be by race, gender, socioeconomic background, sexual preference, religion, hair color, style of dress, or whatever. I spent the majority of my adult life in the service industry, working for tips. There’s not a single server in America who is happy to see a group of thugged out ghetto rats sit down in their section. It just so happens that most of the people in that particular group are African American, but it doesn’t matter what color their skin is, if they have giant baggy pants, a Black and Mild in their mouth, and a baseball hat set to 2:00 you’re getting a dollar from that table. That’s just the way it is. On the flip side of that, if there’s a guy in a tailored suit, you’re looking at at least 20% as long as you don’t fuck anything up. There are exceptions of course, and I myself always tried to give exceptional service, especially to tables that I knew weren’t gonna tip me. If I could get a group of old black women to give me two dollars instead of one, that extra dollar had the distinct taste of victory.

As I write this out it really sounds a lot worse than it does in my head, but fuck it, I’m forging onward.

My parents (who are saints) raised me in a household where race wasn’t even discussed. It was never even brought up as a potential issue, so I never considered that it could be one. In Kindergarden I sat beside a kid named Benjamen and we instantly bonded over the fact that we both thought that the word “feet” was the funniest thing in the English language. We became friends and I invited him over to my house to play big wheels or whatever five year olds do. Ben’s mom called the house to speak with my mom, as I suppose is the custom, and asked if I had told Mom that Ben was black. I hadn’t, because it hadn’t even occurred to me that it was worth mentioning. Ben came over and we played and frolicked and did whatever it is that kindergardeners do for fun… the Titty Bar, I think. It was good times, and we were friends throughout kindergarden. We never hung out after that year, but that was more because he didn’t live particularly close by and we never had a class together again. He was in my high school graduating class though. My point is that even as a kid, I judged people solely by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin. Come to think of it, another kid I was friends with that year is gay, but I don’t think you could really tell back then. Mike (the homosexual) started to come out in high school (we stayed in school together through college), and never really struck me as particularly effeminate so there’s no way I would have guessed his sexual preference back in kindergarden. Also I didn’t know what sexual preference was when I was five. I still don’t have a real firm grasp on it… is “big titties” a sexual preference?

I guess my point is that to the casual observer I may come off as something that I’m not. I make jokes about Italian women being hairy, or the Irish being drunk, black people not tipping, gays for having all the gay sex in the butthole and whatnot, and just generally blaming the Jews for everything (thanks for making that not funny, Mel Gibson!). Usually when I do so it is directly to a friend of that particular minority, but sometimes I get overheard, and rarely get called out for it. I applaud anyone with the fortitude to call out a complete stranger on racist speech. I certainly will just ignore it or laugh uncomfortably myself, for I lack the balls to take a stand. But when I try to explain that I’m not actually racist, that I’m just being racist ironically, people don’t always believe me. Especially when my hairy Italian friend won’t back me up.

Another funny racist gag, and one that I actually said: My friend Laura is full blooded Sicilian, about 2 or 3 generations removed from the motherland. We worked together at a restaurant many years ago, and a customer at her table muttered under his breath something about her being a “wop”. She was pissed when she got back to the service line in the kitchen. When another server asked her what the big deal was Laura said something equating “wop” with the “er” version of the N word (which I think may be a little extreme, but whatever). I looked Laura right in the eye and said “I thought you were full Sicilian” She replied that she was, and I said “So you’re not a wop, you’re a dego… that guy’s just proving his ignorance.” Laura got the most shocked look on a face that I have ever seen, thought for a second, and burst out laughing. Racism, bringing people together since 1998. She ended up going back to the table in question and correcting the customer on his unfortunate Dego/Wop mixup, and the man was so mortified he left her a huge tip, which Laura and I spent at the bar that night. I probably should have hit that. Oh well, hindsight.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that racism is so ridiculous to me it’s comedic, so cut me some slack if I make an offensive joke or two.

I just remembered that I do occasionally use the N word. I refer to Swedish people as “Fjord niggers”