Word: mason
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WHEN comedian Jackie Mason recently called New York City mayoral candidate David L. Dinkins a "fancy schvartzer with a moustache" who looked like a "Black model without a job," Jewish and Black groups were quick to criticize him. ("Schvartzer" is a derogatory Yiddish term for Blacks...
...when Mason performed similar material (without mention of Dinkins) this summer at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the audience did not respond with outrage. They laughed. Mason's derogatory remarks about Blacks and Hispanics were just "part...
This vast discrepancy reveals that humor that is funny in one context can be offensive in another. A small audience with shared experiences and expectations takes Mason's act to be a parody of old-time American Judaism. A racially-charged electorate, on the other hand, isn't ready to joke about racial or ethnic stereotypes...
...Mason's case is indicative of a larger truth. The context of humor--and not the intent of the comedian or some inherent quality of the joke--primarily determines what is funny and what is inappropriate...
HUMOR, like everything else, has its time and its place. Some jokes--like Mason's--may have no place at all. And while most humor puts someone or something down, I try to stick to targets who are not subject to hateful denigration. (Yale, the QRR, Harvard administrators and tenured economists all fall into this category...