Blog entry from Racism 101

Read this and apply it to what we discussed today. I'll ask you about it Thursday.
Taken from Tumblr site: http://racismschool.tumblr.com/

When You Say, “It’s Just a Joke”

While the two most common phrases I hear when people justify saying something racist are “It was just a joke” and “I didn’t mean it THAT way” I find the “Just a joke” to be quite the indictment of the particular racist using this justification.
 

It is a fairly reasonable assumption to believe that saying something is a “Joke” is an implication that the “something” in question is funny to you, right? This isn’t an outlandish concept. This would be a fairly safe thing to assume. So, I can’t help but wonder, why would someone say something racist and when called on it, say it was “Just a joke?”
 

You’ve said something racist. Someone gets upset and yells at you. Maybe even calls you a racist. Your reply, “Calm down, it was just a joke. People are too sensitive.”
 

Okay so, your reply is saying that you thought what you just said is funny, right? Again, this isn’t too far of a stretch to make. Joke=Funny. It makes sense. The problem is, what you are saying is that you believe what you’ve just said is funny. What you just said was racist. You think the racist thing you just said was funny. Your go-to defense was to say that you think racism is funny. Perhaps you didn’t mean it on such a general scale as “All” racism is funny but yes, you did imply that the racist thing you said is amusing to you.
 

We’re getting into critical thinking territory here and I know that certain people who really need to think about this will be furious by this point. ‘Cause as we all know, being called a racist is far worse than being the victim of racism. No really, just ask any racist. None the less, I’m going to have to ask you to really think this out. Let’s be honest with each other here. Racist people DO like racist jokes. I know that YOU are totally “Not racist” and you totally have [Fill in the racial blank] friends and you

“Don’t have hate in your heart” and stuff. But…

You ARE saying that you found the racist thing you just said to be funny.