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This is where I need some help: I freakin’ love Russell Peters. Am I a disgusting hypocrite?

His act is littered with sexism, he’s made a household name for himself with a joke condoning child abuse (somebody gonna get a hurt real bad…), and one of his hottest bits involves mocking South African names. But everyone I know loves him - particularly people of colour, and anti-racist people of colour at that.

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This lack of real diversity, Díaz argued, creates The Wheel of Tyranny (and if he was here to draw this for us he would), where communities of colour circle constantly around a hub that is white folks, while never communicating with each other. Díaz suggested that in reflecting the experience of other people of colour in our work, we create a home for each other in our art; we show each other that we exist.

Which is arguably what Peters does.

Let’s look at Esther Ku. In the video Latoya posted a while back (see the Esther Ku link above), who is Ku speaking to? In her celebration of yellow fever and her assurances that even Korean people can’t tell each other apart or use chopsticks, she’s always speaking to white audiences - even though when the Last Comic Standing camera pans to the audience, there’s always a few faces of colour.

Along with the fact that these jokes are offensive (and not really funny), they send the message that audiences of colour are not important enough to write jokes for. In fact, all they’re good for is the butt of jokes. Just like ye olde status quo, Ku’s jokes place white folks at the center of everything.

Peters on the other hand talks about relationships between Indians and Chinese folks, between Indians and Jamaicans, between Indians and Latinos. More than this it really seems like Peters is simply trying to make people like himself laugh. There’s something sorta subversive about the fact that he’s playing to himself, instead of pandering to an audience that doesn’t share his experience at all.

Latoya used the phrase “in house jokes” to refer to jokes that communities of colour will only tell to each other. These are jokes that are only funny when told by the POC they make fun of, to a POC audience. Peters’ jokes are different - while they definitely would not be the funny if told by a white person* they work for all stripes of audiences, because they aren’t crafted for a white audience.

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You tell me, is it ok to laugh at Russell Peters? Is it ever ok to laugh at any comedy that makes fun of race?

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http://www.racialicious.com/2008/08/01/in-defense-of-russell-peters-are-racial-stereotypes-ever-funny/

There are some links to some skits by Russel Peters for context. It may even help visiting Pacific Mall, I can give directions

Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Along with the fact that these jokes are offensive (and not really funny), they send the message that audiences of colour are not important enough to write jokes for. In fact, all they’re good for is the butt of jokes.

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Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged |