Racism without Hatred? Racist Humor and the Myth of “Colorblindness”

Abstract

Critical Race scholars contend that the current period of “race relations” is dominated by a “color-blind” racial ideology. Scholars maintain that although individuals continue to hold conventional racial views, today people tend to minimize overt racial discourse and direct racial language in public to avoid the stigma of racism. This essay identifies racist humor as a discourse that challenges such constraints on public racist discourse, often derided as “political correctness,” in ways that reinforce everyday and systemic forms of racism in an ostensibly color-blind society. While humor research generally highlights the “positive” aspects of social humor and celebrates the possibilities of humor to challenge and subvert dominant racial meanings, the “negative” aspects of racist humor are often overlooked, downplayed, or are viewed as extreme and fringe incidents that occur at the periphery of mainstream society. Moreover, race scholars have largely ignored the role of humor as a “serious” site for the reproduction and circulation of racism in society. I contend that in a post-civil-rights and color-blind society, where overt racist discourse became disavowed in public, racist humor allows interlocutors to foster social relations by partaking in the “forbidden fruit” of racist discourse. In this article, I highlight the (re)circulation of racist jokes across three social contexts (in mass market joke books, on the Internet, and in the criminal justice system), to illustrate that racist humor exists not in a bygone past or at the margins of society but is widely practiced and circulated today across various social contexts and institutions in an ostensibly color-blind society.

Neutralized Hegemonic Banter: The Persistence of Sexist and Racist Joking Among Undergraduate Students

“…However, “cracker” does not carry the same symbolic significance as “beaner” and “wetback” (Beagan 2003; Perez 2017) so when racist banter among interracial joke‐tellers occurs, the type of racialized one‐upmanship that Jesse describes, it subtly bolsters a racial hierarchy among men.…”

“…Such strategies ultimately reinforce existing structures of inequality, in large part, because they conceal harm caused by racist and sexist joking, allow privileged groups to escape scrutiny, and cloak contemporary manifestations of racism and sexism (Perez 2017). The hegemonic discursive strategy that allows some men to downplay the harm caused by engaging in racist and sexist joking is a process that we identify as neutralized hegemonic banter .…”

“…Such situations typically involve friends and acquaintances interacting in backstage spaces and taking part in behaviors that participants convey as humorous, not meant to cause harm, and not reflective of their attitudes (Mueller, Hout, and Picca 2007). This context enables those who participate in the joking to maintain self‐perceptions of color or gender blindness (Perez 2017).…”

“…But, why might some students believe that racist and sexist joking is innocuous while others perceive it as harmful, and why is this topic worthy of scholarly consideration? Viewing such behaviors as “harmless fun” is sociologically relevant, in part, because participants can express racist and sexist sentiments without revealing or acknowledging their own biases and the many ways such banter contributes to the reproduction of gendered and racialized hierarchies more broadly (Cabrera 2014b; Crandall and Eshleman 2003; Ford et al 2014; Hodson, Rush, and MacInnis 2010; Perez 2017; Strain, Martens, and Saucier 2016).…”

Populist Counterpublics: Exploring Populist Mobilization, Crises of Representation, and Popular Subjectivities in Canadian Politics

“…For others, such figureheads tap into pre-existing discourses and structures of racism that have transformed but endured since the civil rights movement (Pérez, 2017). More commonly, these explanations are combined to some extent.…”