Racist Comedy?

[Dennis]

> again, the reasoning against this response might be that such usage
> and satire is intended exactly to parody and delegitimize the
> racism of those who do use the term in a serious racist sense. but
> the problem with such reasoning is that you then make an implicit
> claim that you know what is best for chinese americans and solving
> their problems than they do, or so it seems to me.
>
> all "you"s above are hypothetical, of course.
>
> --ravi

Of course.

I don't think that Silverman was trying to help Asian-Americans at all. I
think she was making fun of whites who casually use racism to get out of
social obligations. They might not even be "racist" per se, but they have
little trouble with using the nasty words that define racism. Again, how do
you satirize racism without using the words?

When "All in the Family" premiered in 1970, a lot of people, liberal whites
especially (like John Leonard in Life magazine), worried that Archie
Bunker's coarse language might seem too literal to some, that the show was
tacitly endorsing the use of words like "spade," "chink," and "hebe" solely
to get a laugh. And I'm sure there were bigots who thought Archie spoke for
them. But again, does one alter the usage in order to mollify a certain
group of people? And do these people, like Aoki, speak for everyone in their
tribe?

DP