That's Racist! (Racists Don't Care)

[WolfEyes]

Parody is dead.

No February? No Mardi Gras.

What a bunch of dumbasses.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Beebo Brink]

Carr said: “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.

“No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.”

There are two ways to interpret that joke, and I don't know enough about Carr to know which version was intended.

Interpretation #1: As just a flat, offensive, racist joke, the death of gypsies is presented as a good thing.

Interpretation #2: As layered irony, laughter is a release of tension because "omg, he said it out loud, what racist people are thinking". It draws attention to the horror of the racism.

The danger of delivering the second kind of joke (if that was, indeed, what he was trying to do), is that it is so easy for people to take literally. Also you're left wondering if the audience is laughing at dead gypsies or because they understand that such atrocities are truly horrifying.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Interpretation #2: As layered irony, laughter is a release of tension because "omg, he said it out loud, what racist people are thinking". It draws attention to the horror of the racism.

I'm semi-familiar with Carr, and this seems the most likely.

The danger of delivering the second kind of joke (if that was, indeed, what he was trying to do), is that it is so easy for people to take literally. Also you're left wondering if the audience is laughing at dead gypsies or because they understand that such atrocities are truly horrifying.

I recall reading somewhere that Denis Leary's song 'Asshole' was written as satire about the 'ugly American' but he nailed it so well it became an anthem for knuckleheads instead.

Other one time slurs and satirical mockeries: Christian, Yankee Doodle

 

[Romana]

Thread by a Roma author who seems pretty sure Carr meant it the first way.
Or that even if he didn't, the audience took it that way.
Seems to me like he'd know. Or if he's wrong, I can understand why he feels that way.

 

[Essence Lumin]

The danger of delivering the second kind of joke (if that was, indeed, what he was trying to do), is that it is so easy for people to take literally.

On a less serious note, but in that same vein, Randy Newman got blowback for his song Short People.

 

[Romana]

More about Whoopi.

 

[Govi]

More about Whoopi.

What does it say about Whoopi? I block all Facebook's tracking cookies pretty thoroughly with Privacy Badger, so I can't see whatever it is, since it tries to set a cookie.

 

[WolfEyes]

Couple of interesting articles.

Race - Ethnicity, Genetics, Anthropology | Britannica

Race - Ethnicity, Genetics, Anthropology: In publications issued from 1735 to 1759, Linnaeus classified all the then-known animal forms. He included humans with the primates and established the use of both genus and species terms for identification of all animals. For the human species, he...

www.britannica.com

Race - Genetics, Anthropology, Socialization | Britannica

Race - Genetics, Anthropology, Socialization: Typological thinking about race, however, was soon contradicted by the works of some early 20th-century anthropologists. Franz Boas, for example, published studies that showed that morphological characteristics varied from generation to generation in...

www.britannica.com

You don't really need the second link as there are several related articles all on the same page.

 

[Romana]

What does it say about Whoopi? I block all Facebook's tracking cookies pretty thoroughly with Privacy Badger, so I can't see whatever it is, since it tries to set a cookie.

He starts off by saying something the stories I'd seen missed (deliberately?):: that Whoopi meet with the head of the ADL, and he explained to her why what she said we inaccurate; she interviewed him on The View and issued a genuine apology. She was suspended after the apology, and he Amado talks about that and how that, too, sure from her initial remarks, did damage.
He does a good job of explaining why and how the Nazis "made" Jews into a race, and an inferior one, for their purposes, using details like facial features and hair and designating them bad things which showed how "the Jew" was evil and inhuman. Makes it easier to understand why people actually thought that Jews had horns, and things like that, too.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

One of the features of racism is that "race" is often defined by the racists. A "race" in that sense is any group that they assign a set of traits and behaviors to in order to prejudge members of that group.

So despite cries of "but it's not racism" from racists, both Islamaphobia and prejudice against Mexicans are racism. It is the result of lumping together a large and diverse group of people and saying that they are all the same.

Islamaphobia takes a simplified stereotype of Arab muslims and applies it to a billion people stretched out from central Europe to Malaysia and calls them all violent extremists bent on the destruction of Christianity and the subjugation of women. But most Muslims are nothing like that cartoon image of the bearded villain in the turban and robe.

Prejudice against Mexicans ignores the rich diversity of Mexico with dozens of major native groups and waves of European settlement and intermarriage including Spanish, French, and Germans among others.

And then there is anti-Semitism. Genetically Jews are the descendants of refugees from the Middle East who intermarried with people from the countries they settled in who share cultural heritage based on their religion. Despite their diversity racists lump them all together and apply often contradictory stereotypes (Jews have been said to be both financial manipulators pulling global strings and unskilled labor taking jobs away from Christian immigrants).

tl:dr Racists often create races to fit their stereotypes.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

He might also have mentioned, but didn't, that the Nuremberg laws, which defined Jews as an inferior race, were modeled on the US anti-miscegenation laws in Virginia and elsewhere, with the difference that the Nazis had to water them down, because they thought the US "one drop" rule, by which any Black ancestor made a person legally Black was far too severe.

See Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman.

 

[Romana]

He might also have mentioned, but didn't, that the Nuremberg laws, which defined Jews as an inferior race, were modeled on the US anti-miscegenation laws in Virginia and elsewhere, with the difference that the Nazis had to water them down, because they thought the US "one drop" rule, by which any Black ancestor made a person legally Black was far too severe.

See Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman.

The guy in the video is a friend of a friend, and I don't know him personally, but I think it's safe to say that he knows this, but didn't want to make the video too long.
I already knew it, too.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thread by a Roma author who seems pretty sure Carr meant it the first way.
Or that even if he didn't, the audience took it that way.
Seems to me like he'd know. Or if he's wrong, I can understand why he feels that way.

The level of anti-GRT racism in parts of the country is frightening. I've seen it first hand, in South Warwickshire, as it happens, and I can well believe her (I bet she means Stratford-upon-Avon).

 

[Innula Zenovka]

There are two ways to interpret that joke, and I don't know enough about Carr to know which version was intended.

Interpretation #1: As just a flat, offensive, racist joke, the death of gypsies is presented as a good thing.

Interpretation #2: As layered irony, laughter is a release of tension because "omg, he said it out loud, what racist people are thinking". It draws attention to the horror of the racism.

The danger of delivering the second kind of joke (if that was, indeed, what he was trying to do), is that it is so easy for people to take literally. Also you're left wondering if the audience is laughing at dead gypsies or because they understand that such atrocities are truly horrifying.

Comedy is dying, says Jimmy Carr after Holocaust joke furore

Jimmy Carr’s Holocaust joke was “deeply disturbing”, Boris Johnson has said without commenting on whether Netflix should pull the comedian’s show.The prime mini

www.thetimes.co.uk

Evernote link

It seems as if he intended something like #2, but clearly he got it very badly wrong, and his refusal to acknowledge this stands in very marked contrast to Whoopi Goldberg's apology.

It's not complicated, or shouldn't be. If I unintentionally offend someone by something I've said, then, unless they've genuinely misunderstood what I actually said (as opposed to the intention behind it) I apologize and try to learn from my mistake, while I might not consider something offensive or hurtful, others do, so I should avoid repeating my mistake.

I don't get into an argument about whether the person I've upset is being oversensitive or has missed my point or lacks a sense of irony or humour.

Most people learn this as children, I thought.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Most people learn this as children, I thought.

Given Carr's brand of humor -- which is deliberately provocative, edgy, and confrontational -- there's a whole range of social interactions that he has not internalized.

 

[Romana]

If he was “a man full of goodness and kindness “, he wouldn’t be pulling the oh poor pitiful new cancel culture all of comedy is dead because my joke fell flat routine. He’d be genuinely sorry and learn from it. There have got to be other ways to make that point, even humorous ones. Also, “Comedy is dead” because his joke was bad, what an ego

 

[Beebo Brink]

Funny how time changes perspective. George Carlin has become practically a saint in some liberal circles, but his "edgy" humor was just as treacherous. There were plenty of times when I felt he crossed the line from funny insightful to just plain mean. And yet, overall, I thought those painful moments (often directed at me, as a lesbian feminist) were worth wading through for the gold. And I can't remember Carlin apologizing for anything he said, not matter how much people squealed.

Comedians who poke at society have to be brazen and arrogant almost by definition. The razor edge of that humor cuts many different ways, and being thoughtful and prudent works against that creative exploration. There's no magic formulat for getting it right every single time.

 

[Romana]

Funny how time changes perspective. George Carlin has become practically a saint in some liberal circles, but his "edgy" humor was just as treacherous. There were plenty of times when I felt he crossed the line from funny insightful to just plain mean. And yet, overall, I thought those painful moments (often directed at me, as a lesbian feminist) were worth wading through for the gold. And I can't remember Carlin apologizing for anything he said, not matter how much people squealed.

Comedians who poke at society have to be brazen and arrogant almost by definition. The razor edge of that humor cuts many different ways, and being thoughtful and prudent works against that creative exploration. There's no magic formulat for getting it right every single time.

That he didn't apologize didn't mean Carr shouldn't..
Carlin should have apologized, too.
I don't remember all his routines. I don't doubt their existence. I do remember his comedy specials got angrier as time went by, and I turned them off. Probably those were part of why.
I don't like mean humor and humor at others' expense, the exception being if the target of the humor is an asshole who deserves it. I don't have to tell you which politicians and pundits I mean.

 

[Lexxi]

Funny how time changes perspective. George Carlin has become practically a saint in some liberal circles, but his "edgy" humor was just as treacherous. There were plenty of times when I felt he crossed the line from funny insightful to just plain mean. And yet, overall, I thought those painful moments (often directed at me, as a lesbian feminist) were worth wading through for the gold. And I can't remember Carlin apologizing for anything he said, not matter how much people squealed.

Comedians who poke at society have to be brazen and arrogant almost by definition. The razor edge of that humor cuts many different ways, and being thoughtful and prudent works against that creative exploration. There's no magic formulat for getting it right every single time.

As a side note and not really one point (because of the audience), but I've been watching a lot more episodes from the Johnny Carson show. And George Carlin has been on a lot.

Not really on point because I think Carlin might have been intentionally tamer on the Carson show. There was one routine wherein Carlin was just plain flat (I don't mean from 21st century point of view, I mean from his own point of view, - the audience knew it, Johnny knew it and Carlin knew it); and one routine wherein each joke was progressively meaner than the prior to the point wherein he crossed the line. These weren't his specials or his books, so not same audience as Carr on his special.

As a side side note - it really kind of showed where comedy stood at the time (seeing what jokes some of the comedians made during the stand up portion of the show; also seeing an episode of Carlin from the late '60s, early 1970s, late 1970s, early 1980s, (I don't actually recall seeing a Carlin episode after the early 1980s *looks it up*, oh, yeah, I saw that 1985 episode with Chuck Yeager, and that one in 1988 with Mark Harmon)), and how down right mean some of the people were, more so than I expected (and more the guests than the comedians, oddly enough). For example, Johnny had Walter Cronkite on roughly around when Cronkite retired. And some of Cronkite's comments on that show . . . wow.