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Welcome to The Anti-Racism Leadership Institute, where we engage in thoughtful conversations with professors and visionary leaders who are dedicated to dismantling racism in schools and transforming education. Join us as we explore their inspiring journeys, innovative strategies, and impactful initiatives aimed at creating more inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist learning environments. Our podcast is a platform for sharing insights, stories, and actionable ideas that can help shape a brighter, more just future for education. Tune in and be inspired to be a part of the change!
Welcome to the Anti Racism Leadership
Institute Research to Practice podcast.
Today, we have the
opportunity to talk with Dr.
Raul Perez about his book,
Souls of White Jokes.
How Racist Humor Feels White Supremacy.
Available on Amazon or directly
from Stanford University Press.
Dr.
Raul Perez, Associate Professor of
Sociology at the University of Luverne.
His research examines the intersection
of racism, culture, power, and affect in
relation to social inequality, cultural
change, and social movements in the U.
S.
and globally.
I'd like to thank you so much
for joining us today, Dr.
Perez, Raul, and for the viewers
out there, anything that I didn't
say I'd like you to give you an
opportunity to introduce yourself
in a way that I can only capture
in your short your short profile.
Thank you for having me so
much on the show, Tracy.
I'm really looking forward
to our conversation today.
Wonderful.
And so you're a sociologist, and
I'm, my undergrad is in sociology.
I didn't go any further than that, but
I, most of the books on my shelves are
written by sociologists, and you could
have studied a number of different things.
What drew your interest to studying,
racist humor, white supremacy, and racism?
Why is it so important?
That's a really good question.
And I think a lot of what we end
up studying as scholars, whether in
the humanities or social sciences,
or even in the hard sciences.
Think there's something that maybe
from our early development or as we're
going through our socialization and
in the school system, we get pulled
to different sort of disciplines,
different fields, different ideas.
And, just reflecting on my own.
Childhood and then, through grade
school, high school and into college
and having them just work now for, over
a decade I can't pinpoint some kind of
pivotal moments where I realized that,
Something, there was something specific
and maybe perhaps even unique about humor
in, in what it does socially, right?
From racist jokes on like the school
playground and what that does, to
friendships, what that does to creating
enemies on, kids who, say mean things and
are taunting other kids through, heckling
and ridicule and forms of mockery.
And then witnessing that throughout
my life course and I think for me,
a pivotal moment was when I was an
undergraduate student and, now I'm
taking courses in sociology on race
and ethnicity social inequality,
learning to think conceptually,
historically and theoretically about
issues of structural racism, white
supremacy, racial violence and so forth.
For me, a lingering question was,
okay, so this is really great.
I'm learning about the
history and development of
these forms of inequalities.
What do jokes have to do with that?
And in part I started paying closer
attention for two reasons in particular
when I was an undergrad student, one was
that when I was living in the dorms as an
undergrad I realized that The trading and
the telling of racist jokes was pretty
popular, or another way to, to put it.
It was pretty prevalent
not just in my dorm room.
It was something that I saw
happening and it was getting
picked up in media at the time.
And here I'm talking about
the early 2000s other college
campuses where this is happening.
Fraternity contexts seem to be like a
key breeding ground for this to happen.
But I was living in the, in
a sociology house with other
fellow sociology students, not
exclusively, but there were several.
And I noticed that racist jokes,
sexist jokes, homophobic jokes,
We're being shared, in a like
wink, we're just having fun.
We don't really hold these perspectives,
we're just, we're playing with these
taboo topics that, we're taking these
classes, on the college campus that are
teaching us about how racism and gender
inequality and all these things are bad.
But here we are letting our guard
down after hours, having a meal,
having a few drinks which, these
are students under age 21 sometimes
say, where'd you get the alcohol?
And and so just realizing
that, okay, something is
happening here in the way that.
For me, it was reminiscent of some of
the stuff happening in high school or in
grade school joking to create in group
and out group dynamics and so I made note
of that, and I, was thinking about that
and turned it into a project at the time
as an undergrad, and then another event
happened at that very moment when I was
still an undergraduate student and that
was the United States invading the Middle
East post 9 11 and then paying attention
to the conflict and then noticing that
very quickly, within just a few years
of the beginning of the conflict there
were these global anti Muslim images
that were circulating as cartoons
that were being created by satirists.
In this case, there were, I believe
they were Danish, maybe Danish or
Dutch cartoonists who, in their own
satirical sort of newspapers and
magazines, you know, domestically were
playing a role in, mocking who from
The perspective of Western societies,
the United States, for instance, that,
it's responding to the 9 11 attacks.
And then, some of that sort of
be resonating or, being felt in
the context of Western European
societies of this, conflict and now
hostility towards Arabs and Muslims.
And it being played out via
these cartoons that once they.
Came out of, the local context there
and are now circulating globally, the
immediate reaction was, either these
cartoons are racist or these cartoons
are showing the sort of, the way that,
that, people of Muslim, faith and from
Arab countries are just so hostile
to the concept of free speech because
these cartoons are from a cartoonist
expressing their point of view, so it's
just ultimately their free expression.
I saw this divide really quickly
either you think the cartoons are
racist or it's a matter of free speech.
And being at the University of California,
Irvine with a large number of Muslim
students at the campus I noticed that
a lot of the Muslim students were,
quite upset, you can understand and
it became a sort of a local point.
for this global conflict
that was happening.
So you have this war, but then now you
have this, what can be called also like
an extension of a culture war that's
happening via proxy through jokes,
through humor, through images that again
I saw humor then playing a role in.
questions of inclusion
and exclusion legitimizing
violence against, populations.
And so for me, then I started
thinking then more systematically,
more historically, more theoretically
about what is it that racist jokes
do, how do they function in society
in the past and in the present?
Wow.
Wow.
That is quite the trajectory, right?
I think most folks listening to
this podcast have heard at least one
racist joke in their time, right?
Maybe it was innocuous.
Maybe they don't remember what
it was, but remember it's there.
And you talk about this concept
that I want to break down for
individuals to the very, the everyday
understanding of what it means.
And you talk about the theory
of amused racial contempt.
That's a mouthful, But I find myself
drawn to this concept in a way to
understand the harm, like we put it in
a space of, ha funny, it's a joke, but
it's really harmful in very real ways.
Could you break that down for the audience
about this amused racial contempt?
Yeah.
So I think part of what I was trying to
grapple with the concept is To try to
be a little bit more specific, so that
I think the term is a little bit of a
mouthful, but I think the other term
that we've used to understand racist
joke like even the pairing of the two
terms, racist joke, like the second
term still leaves it in the terrain of
joke, of unserious, like funny, don't
take, don't read too much into it.
So racist joke, yeah, there's maybe
a racist component to it, but at the
end of the day, it's just And at the
end of that term, it's just a joke.
And with amused racial contempt here, I'm
saying, okay, there's an amusing aspect
to it, but the racial contempt that
is part of this kind of communication
and exchange and fun that's happening
is predicated on reinforcing this.
This social dynamic of kind of superior
and inferior, or feeling those who
are the object of racial humor or
racial jokes as objects of contempt,
as seeing them beneath you, right?
You the joke teller, you the
audience enjoying the joke, you
taking the side of the joker.
For me, I think the term is doing
something in trying to try to be more
precise about what racist jokes are doing,
that they play a role in the social and
racial hierarchies that we've inherited
in our society, and that we continue
to see play out in different ways.
And here I'm arguing that, that
amusement, fun, humor is a form
of how racial inequality systemic
racism institutional and individual
forms of racism can be manifested.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Absolutely.
And they're harmful in a number
of ways, because just in an
instant, it creates that hierarchy,
when we enter it in the space.
And Why is it what sort,
what role does it play?
Let's take it in a a
homogeneous setting, right?
White folks in a white environment,
telling the racial jokes opposed to,
someone, a person of color maybe right?
In a multiracial environment
telling the same joke.
They function similarly, but how are
they different in these two spaces?
Let's talk take in a promptly
white space, telling racist jokes
against, an outgroup member.
Just the structure of racism, right?
We live in a society where historically
and presently those designated as white or
those who believe themselves to be white
operate in a way where Whiteness means
you're in a position of greater sort of
access to resources, power and so forth.
And it's this default category,
the category that's above the
sort of racial sort of structure.
And so that racist jokes then function as.
One, in group identity so we are
very different from the targets of
the joke, and when it's racial jokes
then the racial targets, and so it
creates this sense of we ness, like
we are very different from these other
racialized groups we're making fun of.
And enjoying a form of
humor at their expense.
So this is what I mean,
amuse racial contempt.
So you find amusing these racial
targets, but that amusement is connected
to feelings of contempt for them.
Like they're beneath your sort of status.
They're really beneath your
sort of social or racial sort of
understanding of yourself and your
group and the social structure.
And so we can see how that can happen
in today's context, but there's
also historical precedent for that.
So like Blackface minstrelsy, for
instance, the origins of what we
call blackface minstrelsy, emerged
in a moment in history in the
early 1800s, where racial slavery
is still very much prominent.
It's one of the dominant, if not the
dominant, economic structure of a U.
S.
society and that is connected to
the legal structure, the political
structure, the social structure,
and the cultural structure that says
whites are on top, non whites, and in
particular blacks are at the bottom.
And blackface minstrelsy was reinforcing
that social, political, and economic
reality that blacks are indeed at
the bottom and whites can share.
A joke at their expense that
reinforces their understanding
of themselves as white.
And historically, I think this was
very powerful because the way I
understand it, in the very early
development of American society, what
we call white today was very novel at
the time and really not widespread.
The laws were just changing.
The United States had just become a
country and we can go even further.
Before that, in the colonial period,
and this idea of what we call white
wasn't fully understood, and especially
when we consider that, in the early
1800s, you're also having new migrant
waves from Europe European immigrants
are coming, they're looking, in search
of jobs and labor and so forth and
they're coming from different societies,
speaking different languages, they have
different religions, Occupy different
roles and class positions in the society.
So it's not all white folks
are on the same team, right?
And you and, Early American society
also had a big class divide between,
those whites who own plantations or
factories or, are in political power.
And that's the minority of whites and
the vast majority who don't occupy those
roles and therefore are disempowered,
disenfranchised and so forth.
And so then by laughing at blackness.
At a time where the idea of whiteness is
beginning to be formed, I would argue that
racist humor plays a really powerful role
in creating this sense of we ness, that
we are together, that we're enjoying a
sort of an experience together in a common
way that signals our common identity.
In this more, at least temporarily,
more unified way against the
object of racial ridicule.
So the racist humor is creating
this sense of cohesion of sense of
belonging, sense of, we're on the
same side, the same team, or what I
call also is social alignment, right?
There's a social alignment here.
In early American society where
whiteness is fractured, they're not
all on, the same side necessarily.
And then of course that kind of
humor is one of the dominant forms
of humor, blackface minstrelsy,
from the early, American society
until the civil rights period.
And you see the remnants of that in
early 20th century, racial comedy shows
on the radio or on television like
Amos and Andy, and then, of course,
other racialized groups are targets
of racist humor, Asian immigrants,
Jewish immigrants, Irish immigrants
Black Americans, Latinos, right?
So that racist humor then becomes
a sort of prevalent and prominent.
form of humor in American society
that, that blackface in a sense helped
to establish as a cultural form, as
a method of popular entertainment.
So that gets challenged during
the civil rights period.
And after that, you have the possibility
where you have maybe now more multi
sort of racial environments that allow
for, people of color to then also
participate in telling racist jokes.
That was beginning to happen
after the Civil War period.
You have examples of black entertainers
in blackface, but they had to
subscribe to like white conceptions
of how you ridicule blacks, right?
So black, blackface entertainers
had to put on blackface.
They had to, perform all the
stereotypes and so forth.
And so after the civil rights movement,
it makes it so that white entertainers
are not necessarily the society has
shifted that doesn't allow them to
tell the kind of racist jokes that
were acceptable, in the pre civil
rights era, in the era of black race.
So now you have people of color.
You know who some of who become very
rich and famous and influential,
who are telling racist jokes that
white people can't tell anymore
because now it's seen as bad.
It's seen as, unacceptable.
But then it grants this license for
allowing the circulation of racist jokes,
racist slurs, to continue post civil
rights, which also grants license again,
or a sort of willingness or a desire
by, white folks who say, wait a minute.
We know we're not supposed to tell racist
jokes, but here's Richard Pryor and
these other folks telling racist jokes.
And we all find them funny.
Why is it a problem when I
tell them but not when Pryor
or somebody else tells them?
And a few decades after the Civil
Rights Movement, you begin to see why
comedians Moving more in that direction
saying, okay, we've, we see that racist
humor is still very much a sort of
popular form of entertainment or racial
humor when people of color do it,
but we want to be able to do it too.
And so when it happens then in, in
multiracial contexts, When people of
color use racist jokes alongside white
folks and other racialized groups it
almost, it creates this context of
like license, like you're allowing,
you're creating an invitation and
opening for other people to jump in.
And of course, if post civil rights.
Racial conditions had been dramatically
different and we actually had achieved
racial equality where everybody has
access to education, jobs, homes.
You don't have racial
discrimination, right?
If the society would have dramatically
shifted and made the society, equal
and equitable to trade racial jokes
in that context, doesn't necessarily
have the same sting or the same power.
In contrast to what the situation
we've had since the civil rights
period, which there was a lot of
signaling of equal opportunity, and so
forth we're moving in that direction.
But the reality is that it never became
a situation of full racial equality.
So that racist jokes in a post civil
rights context and into the present.
continue to sting because we still have
things like mass incarceration, police
violence against racialized communities.
We still very much live
in segregated communities.
Wealth is still tied to to
to race in many ways in our
society, access to opportunities.
So we don't live in this equal society.
But there was a shift post civil
rights of and especially among
entertainers as well, who played a role
in allowing the legitimacy of racial
humor and racist humor to continue
in this post civil rights context.
And they even gave it a name.
They used a new term for it.
And the term is equal
opportunity offender, right?
A term that didn't even exist
before the civil rights movement.
Now.
In the context of equal opportunity and so
forth entertainers and comedians are like
we can be equal opportunity offenders.
So instead of just making fun of one
racialized group, like in blackface
era now a white comedian or black or,
Latino or Asian comedian make fun of
themselves, but then they, that gives
them license also to make fun of others.
And so it creates this context where.
Racist humor is no longer a problem
because we have all these famous
comics and entertainers of color
who are also using racial slurs and,
and engaging in this kind of humor.
And there's also been like this
narrative of racial progress.
We live with slavery and
segregation and Jim Crow.
We had the civil rights movement.
Boom, things are better now.
And we're on this upward
trajectory towards racial equality.
So who cares if we tell a little racist
joke here and there what's the problem?
And so now the shift becomes the
problem is the people who find
racist jokes problematic or troubling
rather than what role are racist
jokes playing in this new context.
Awesome.
That's a great, thank you for that
sort of lineage and history of racist
jokes and the roles that they play,
especially in different contexts
where whites among whites is to
establish solidarity as the in group
and to establish out group, right?
Opposed to in a multiracial setting, it's,
the object of ridicule is there, right?
It's often the person who's telling
the joke about their own racial group.
right?
Which makes it all
funny in different ways.
And so I don't expect you to have a cover
all answer, but I am going to ask you
for some thinking around that, right?
Because, being an education organization,
we get questions all the time about
what do we do about Racist jokes,
because kids as young as second and
first grade are telling these jokes for
each other and laughing at it, right?
And let's take the first context,
that in predominantly white spaces
or all white spaces, you have
some boys telling racist jokes.
And they say there's, we're telling a
joke about a Latino, but there are no
Latinos around, so it's okay, right?
And a teacher overhears it.
How do you even begin to address that
it's not okay in that setting, even if
the object of ridicule is not there?
Yeah, so I think part of the challenge
is, and I think we're seeing this
play out right now in real time.
With laws that are being passed around
across different states, banning DEI
initiatives, the moral panic over
critical race theory and these kinds of
things that, I think when these racist
jokes do happen in school settings,
they, on the one hand, they could be
an opportunity to dive in deeper into
how these racist jokes are connected.
To inequality to racial inequality
continuing forms of racial inequality,
past forms of racial inequality.
So these can be teaching moments, right?
So if, obviously there needs to be some
kind of solution or policies or some kind
of maybe way to signal to the students,
in some way that this is unacceptable
But if the reaction is just to penalize
and to penalize privately, to pull the
students away privately I think that
also it creates a missed opportunity
to dive deeper into what's happening.
And I think the other component
is that if our schools are not
already teaching more broadly and
allowing for space in the curriculum.
From early childhood education and
keeping that consistent throughout about
the issue of racial inequality, racism,
and how that's connected to other forms
of social inequality, class inequality,
gender inequality, and so forth.
Then it becomes even more challenging
to get students to understand why
like a racist or sexist joke might
be problematic because now that all
the attention is just on the joke
itself, rather than understanding.
How that joke is connected to these
larger sort of social structures
and histories and systems of power.
So we allow the
conversation about the joke.
And it gets boiled down to that
being the only conversation, right?
And then if the students are not primed
or have a deeper understanding of why.
That joke might be problematic by having
a little bit of a deeper understanding
of, the nature of racial and gender
inequality more broadly, then it's, it
becomes a real challenge to to connect
the joke to power, to inequality.
And of course, it becomes even more
daunting in the sense when you have.
political leaders saying, let's just
not have these conversations at all.
Let's eliminate these kinds of
policies from, public education.
Let's dismantle these policies that were
set in place to try to, as an attempt
to try to have these conversations
more systematically in our curriculums.
And so now what we're ending up with
is even more of an uphill battle with
these kinds of issues when they emerge.
Because In a society and in a context
where we're seeing these, these opposite
sort of sides of understanding these
issues of social and racial inequality the
side of the table here that says, let's
not even have these conversations at all.
When we do have an incident where a
student tells a racist joke or a sexist
joke in the classroom, and that becomes
the focal point of the conversation,
and it's only isolated to that incident.
Then that side of the table that
says we shouldn't be having these
deeper conversations, their response
to a student getting penalized.
Is almost it's on repeat.
And the response is it's just a joke, like
the PC politically correct woke brigade
and whatever gee, you need to lighten up.
They're just jokes.
And so the just joke crowd is also
the same crowd who is saying no
more DI, no more critical race
theory, no more, the talking about
gender and these kinds of things.
And so they just don't want to have.
A context where as a society and
in our public schools, we are
grappling deeply with these issues
because they continue to manifest.
So then, when a joke does
happen, it's They're just jokes.
We can't even have jokes anymore, and
this is how far off we've declined as
a society that, you know, the, that
the, those who have a politically
correct sort of perspective are
actually detrimental to our society.
We see that from local sort of
contacts, school board meetings, when
these kinds of incidents happen, all
the way to, we're running up into a
2024 election this November, same two
candidates, seems like Biden and Trump.
The Trump administration, and if I recall
correctly, during Trump's campaign in
2016, a lot of his campaign speeches were
around the issue of political correctness
and how he was saying, hey, this political
correctness stuff has gone too far.
It's making us a weak society.
For me, it's like
connecting these dynamics.
So a racist joke in a school
told by kids, what is that?
What is that a signal of what's happening
in that school, in that community, in
that state, in that city, in our society.
And then the conversations we can
have, or the limited conversations
that We can't, we cannot have because
of these larger forces that, that sort
of have an impact on even the kind of
debate we can have about a racist joke.
Wow.
Wonderful.
Thank you.
And since you talked about this current
movement, it's taken over many states.
They're banning books.
They're saying you
can't say certain words.
They're taking away funding from
public institutions who do DEI work.
How much of it is, and you talk about this
term, the white epistemological ignorance.
How much do you, of this current movement,
do you believe is actual ignorance,
or is it possibly something else?
Because it seems like there's a
hyper awareness about the types
of power understanding about
racism can provide, but it often
can be shrouded under ignorance.
Yes.
I think there's a weaponization
of ignorance and a manufacturing
of ignorance, right?
I think the people political leaders The
think tanks, the folks behind the scenes
who've been thinking about this for a
very long time, I think are, they're
pointing to and their strategy, at least
from the way I understand it has been
to dismantle these efforts sort of one
by one by attacking certain things that
they can latch on to as a moral panic.
Cancel culture.
Critical race theory D.
I.
Initiatives and so forth.
And then create moral panics around
that in especially in public school
settings K through 12, but also
at the college level, we see,
Florida, for instance, is banning D.
I.
Initiatives at the university public
universities there that I think the
people who are I think the Sort of
people in power who are trying to
limit the conversations we can have.
I think they're not necessarily
working from a place of ignorance.
I think they understand that the
more, people in society are equipped
with the tools to think critically
about the world then the more willing
young people in particular who
are learning about these different
ways that inequality is manifested.
Young people then I think sometimes even
more readily than, people who are already
in their careers and you have a mortgage
and you've got kids to feed and so forth.
Young people see the
urgency in a way that.
Adults with responsibilities,
maybe sometimes might not.
So you teach kids about racism and racial
inequality, and it's still happening in
police violence and boom, young people
are like let's do something about it.
Let's change the.
Rules, let's change the system.
Let's do something about it.
And you see this very clearly, for
instance, in the aftermath of the killing
of George Floyd and, Breonna Taylor.
And what happened in 2020, it was
like this moment of uprising, and
one of the biggest, if not the
biggest, social justice and racial
justice protests in the history of
the country And young people played
a very prominent role in that, right?
They were like, yes, police violence,
mass incarceration, structural racism.
These are bad.
Let's do something about it.
And I think the response to that from
political leaders has been like, okay,
we need to pump the brakes on this.
Like where are young people
getting these ideas from?
Like something is happening at the
school levels where young kids are.
From their point of view, being
radicalized into, and these are
their words, hating America, right?
That's how, the way they frame it.
And when you frame it in that way
then you could understand if you put
yourself in the position of folks
who see this as a problem, not as
hey, this is part of the solution.
Yes, young people protesting and
Wanting to change laws and vote for
more progressive leaders and so forth.
If you see that as a step in the right
direction towards a solution, then
you're like, cool, this is great.
But if you don't, now put yourself
in the place of the people who are
terrified that this is happening.
So then what do you do if
you're in that position?
You say we need to pump
the brakes on this somehow.
We need to figure out how
to reverse this trend.
And so if kids are getting these
ideas in schools, then make sure the
schools aren't giving kids these ideas.
So no more conversations about
historic forms of racism, no
more conversations about systemic
racism, no more conversations about
inequality, just don't have those
conversations, limit those conversations.
So I think the folks in power
then understand the power of
ignorance and the power of
manufacturing immigrant ignorance.
So keep people ignorant about the
history of their society, keep people
ignorant about understanding history.
Theoretically, historically, and
conceptually, how inequality happens,
keep people ignorant then you don't
get the protesters who are protesting
against, mass incarceration and
defunding the police and all this stuff.
Instead, you're going to get folks
who say and who are upset at the
people who are actually protesting.
So it's also about, it's like a.
Competition in a sense, it's which
sort of ideas, should we try to be
the allowed to be the dominant ideas.
And from their perspective, it's okay,
the social justice speak and ideas
or whatever they've gone too far.
We've got to wrangle that back in.
So control the discourse.
And so they're banning books.
They're banning books.
They're banning fields.
They're banning disciplines.
They're banning the
teaching of certain ideas.
So it's very interesting to see the
contradiction then because the same
people that say, let's ban books, Are
the people who get upset when people
say, those jokes are a problem or those
jokes are problematic, those jokes
are offensive, the jokes being told by
candidate and then President Trump are
racist, are ableist, are misogynist.
Those jokes are problematic, because
they're an indication of something bigger.
And so the same people that say
ban books are the same people that
say, Stop banning jokes, right?
So it's very interesting that country.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
And I think we're in a space where
I have to believe that this is some
sort of racial progress, I'm a child
of the eighties, and I remember the
really racist Bugs Bunny cartoons.
They don't show those anymore.
Like Bugs Bunny was super racist.
Like Mickey Mouse.
Oh my God.
I didn't know what blackface was.
And I'm watching like
blackface on Bugs Bunny.
Warner Brothers were the main purveyor
of like black of a racist humor.
I don't see that anymore.
as much, right?
Not to say it's completely gone.
And this discourse around racism is
now a national conversation where,
from what I remember, it wasn't even a
thing, back in the 80s and early 90s.
And it's such a powerful movement
right now that there needs to be a
very deliberate and purposeful backlash
by the people in power to say, we
must, so there's something happening.
In our society that while it's painful,
I think it's a marker of progress
because it's a wider conversation and
the fact that there are sides, meaning
that there are people who understand
that this is a thing in our country.
And so thinking about how do Where do,
where is the place for racist jokes?
I'm not condoning it at all, but I don't
think they're going anywhere, right?
The majority of comedians I listen
to, they either play on, race or
gender or, body image or, or any one
of the isms, folks play around with
these taboo topics in a way where
they can actually talk about it in
a space without being offensive.
And they're actually very.
Very politically active and politically
powerful comedians, which like a Dave
Chappelle or a Jon Stewart who play on
these tropes in a way that I think pushes
us to think more deeply around these isms.
And do they, is it just a recommendation
that these jokes disappear?
Or what happens, what's the iteration
that promotes progress, if there is one?
I think that's a good question.
I think that the jokes are certainly not
gonna disappear any time soon but I think
the Interpretation of the jokes is what
has been changing and perhaps accelerating
And in a way that even the comedians who
we might have celebrated a decade ago as
being like, the champions of anti racism.
Today now they are stepping into
other forms of humor that, their
audiences might not necessarily see
in the same vein or are critical
of these other forms of humor.
So you have Dave Chappelle, who in the
early 2000s was seen as oh, He's talking
about race and racism and he's critiquing
white supremacy and then his more recent
comedy, he's gotten into trouble where
he's being perceived as promoting,
transphobia or transphobic humor
through, through his through his jokes.
I think one of the things to
understand too, is that not every
joke that it, that uses race or
gender or some other sort of form of.
Of of category where power is
at play is necessarily racist
or sexist or homophobic.
There is a difference between say a racist
joke and an anti racist joke, right?
A joke that talks about race,
but the punchline is not racist.
The racialized target
or individual or group.
The punchline is our society and how it
deals or doesn't deal with the issue of
racial inequality in some way, right?
So that anti racist jokes are important.
A sort of possibility.
There is a way to joke about race to talk
about race in a way that again, I think
what critical pedagogy does more broadly
in our education is to sensitize us to the
issues and the problems in our society.
And I think humor is a way to do that.
Comedians have been very successful
in many ways in doing that.
And I think sometimes the
challenges when comedians.
just rely, and especially, I mean
there's also different forms of
humor from slapstick to satire.
Satire sometimes requires It's a little
bit more sophisticated or broader
understanding of what is being satirized.
Because then now the humor is
subject to different interpretations.
If, a comedian is putting out a racial
caricature in the name of satire, while
some people might read the satire, some
people might be reading it at face value.
This is what happened to Dave Chappelle
and why he left Chappelle's show in the
early 2000s because he himself dressed
up in blackface thinking, I'm going to
satirize, race relations in our country.
And I'm going to dress up as a
blackface minstrel and, and use that
as an opportunity to make fun of.
What blackface was make fun of our
conversations when it comes to race
today and our understanding of race.
And of course he has this moment
of realization where it's wait a
minute, are people laughing with
me or are they laughing at me?
And the story goes that one of the crew
members, a white crew member there, when
he's, dressed in blackface he says laughed
a little too hard when I was in blackface
in a way that made him feel uncomfortable.
And in a way, not just uncomfortable.
It made him Chappelle dressed in
blackface, a white crew member laughing
at him dressed in blackface, made him
not only question his joke, it made him
question his whole profession, his whole
point for being in this profession.
It created an existential
crisis for Chappelle.
He left Chappelle's show.
He left to Africa.
He left 50 million dollars on the table.
People thought he was crazy.
People thought he was on drugs.
People thought he was, what the
hell, he lost his mind, right?
And this moment for him, it was like
this existential crisis where he's
like I thought I was a racial satirist.
Am I actually reinforcing white
supremacy as a black comedian
dressed in blackface or as a black
comedian, dressed as a clan member?
So he had, he went away for a decade.
He went away for 10 years,
trying to figure out like, what
the hell, who is Chappelle?
What did he do?
So jokes are not just
jokes and comedians, right?
Even those comedians who think they're
being anti racist or maybe satirizing
race relations in the society.
There's a fine line, and They're
playing with this poison, right?
Racism is a poison in our society,
and they're playing with it.
They're playing with this thing that's
dangerous, and sometimes they get
burned quite literally sometimes, like
what happened to Richard Pryor, who
set himself on fire because he had his
own existential crisis with the nature
of his comedy and humor, and his use
of the N word in his comedy, One of
his last comedy specials realizing
that maybe I was wrong for doing that.
Maybe I shouldn't have done that.
And he says, the moment I realized
that was when I had white audience
members coming up to me after my
comedy performance and telling me and
we're jokes, he's I'm not doing this.
So you feel you can do that.
That's not the takeaway here.
So again, this double
edged sort of sword to it.
Yeah, thank you for that.
And I think you're also speaking to
the power of folks who do play on
this sort of razor's edge, right?
Are you a progressive
or are you reinforcing?
And I think when you talk about Chappelle
and his, Play in the satire at times.
I think he was on both
sides, but unrealized.
And then in retrospect, it's wow, I
don't, I can't even tell where I was
at any point in time, but also being
someone that pushed racial progress
forward, but doing so in a way that
you don't really know where you're
going when you're on the cutting
edge of playing with humor and race.
And so for those listening
so say for example principals
love book studies, right?
So I want to show the book,
The Souls of White Jokes.
Great book.
I've read it twice.
I have lots of highlights and
bookmarks, in, in terms that I like.
So say that, after this podcast, someone
listens, they buy your book, they want to
have a book study because they're having
an issue with racist jokes in schools,
which, which is, which happens a lot.
Right?
Racial slurs, racist jokes.
And they were looking for guidance.
What guidance will you
give our listeners around?
All right, we want to be in the fight.
We want to be a part of progress.
What is the guidance you would give them?
So for racist jokes in particular,
just more broadly in terms of, Yeah.
we get a lot,
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
We get, yeah, we get that
question, and then more broadly.
Yeah.
I think I'll go back to, yeah, I
think part of the conversation we had
earlier, which is, when these things
happen in school environments, they
definitely have to be teaching moments.
They have to be moments where people
have to acknowledge the issue at hand,
which racist jokes happen in the context.
Let's focus on that.
But then I think the conversation has
to be broader than that and connecting
those incidents of racist jokes to
what's happening in the society, right?
So it's an opportunity to have a
conversation about, okay, so what
is the issue of race relations
or racial inequality right now?
In our school, in our community,
in in our city, right?
And so those moments, I think
sometimes when they do happen, they're
like a moment that allows us to
confront the broader issues at hand.
Because if the racist jokes are happening
at least in my experience of studying
this more deeply, if racist jokes are
happening in a community, within an
organization, whether it's a school,
whether it's a police department.
And one of my chapters looks at
racist humor in police departments.
So if racist jokes are being traded
pretty freely by students, by staff,
by by police officers and so forth,
it's often a signal of something else
happening within that organization.
Something else is
happening in that context.
And so once the jokes bubble up to the
surface, that means that something else is
going on here and we need to look closer
at ourselves, at our space, our context,
our institution, but not in isolation.
Again, it's also
connecting it more broadly.
So I think it's being more
intentional about trying to.
Connect these dots.
I think at the end of the day, that's
what we're trying to do as educators is
we're trying to help our students connect
the dots along the way with these issues
historically and into the present and
across spaces and context and so forth.
And I think when these racist jokes
happen, It's an opportunity to connect
the dots and jokes sometimes are a dot
that we don't think too much about until
we're confronted with a joke that boom,
like really crystallizes the inequalities
that are happening in part because,
jokes, not just racist jokes, but jokes in
general, they're a part of everyday life.
They're a part of being human.
We're going to tell jokes.
We're going to, we want to enjoy the
company of others and laugh and so forth.
So even when racist jokes are told, and
that's the other thing I'm realizing too,
even when racist jokes are told, it's
also like people are engaging in some
effort to To bond with others, right?
You don't just tell a racist joke
with fellow police officers or others
just for the just for the hell of it.
You're doing it in part connected to all
the things we've been talking about, but
you're also doing it because you're just
trying to have fun with your friend,
with your colleague, your, you're testing
boundaries and pushing boundaries.
But at the end of the day, jokes are
not told just to yourself, right?
They're not just shared to yourself.
You're doing them.
In a social relation.
So it's an effort to try to
connect with other people.
And I think part of the conversation is.
What are the ways that we're trying to
connect and how are some of the ways that
we do connect historically in the present?
How can they be a problem and
how can they actually contribute
to these larger social problems?
And I think these are So
there's ways to talk about it.
And so I'm not going to pretend
that I'm an expert on how
to deal with these issues.
I think I'm pointing to a problem that
as a society I believe we need to take
more seriously because often we don't
and we just discount them as just jokes.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much.
And I appreciate that.
And so what if I can capture it is
like using these moments as when they
do surface as a teachable moment, not
just suppressing, don't say that, or
don't say that in proximity to adults.
But when we do hear it using as a moment
to discuss the broader concept of race
in society, and not just a moment in time
to squash the joke, but using it as a
moment to teach about what fuels the joke.
So students can have a better
understanding of how it.
It's not, even though it's couched in
humor, it's actually very detrimental
to ourselves and our society.
So if people want to find you, if
they want to follow your work, like I
have, I'm waiting for the next book.
So if people want to find
you, they want to follow you,
they want to follow your work.
Where could they look for more?
I know you have a ton
of videos on YouTube.
I watch a couple of them.
So you can go to YouTube, type in Dr.
Earl Perez.
But where else can they find
you if they want to follow you?
I guess I'm on Twitter Raul Perez, S O C.
S.
O.
C.
For sociology.
So at Raul Perez S.
O.
C.
That's place where I've been.
I know Twitter is a toxic mess,
and it has been, but it's also an
opportunity to see what's happening
socially, at least on social media.
So I also use it as like a
place for data for gathering
incidents that are happening.
So anyways, that's the space.
Folks can always email me Raul
oh, sorry, rperez3 at laverne.
edu.
I'm at the University of Laverne, so
folks can email me there through my
institutional email address as well.
And you mentioned the podcast here is
for folks with an education, and if you
know these issues emerge within their
school settings and folks want to talk
or bounce some ideas off of, what to
do in the context like this, I'm more
than happy to, to, offer any kind of
insights that might be useful as well.
Wonderful.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much for taking time out
of your busy schedule for everyone.
It's also White Jokes, How Racist
Humor Feels White Supremacy.
You can pick it up at Amazon or
directly from Stanford University Press.
I highly recommend it.
Love it.
Great educational book.
I appreciate you for coming today.
Thank you for stopping by
and I look forward to reading
more of your future work.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it, Tracy.