My previous post was about racist humor and it tried to support it, but I recently came across something that made me change my views. I feel like racist jokes could be divided in at least two categories: those jokes that sound ridiculous and offensive on purpose and those that come purely from a place of hate. The problem however, is that one could tell and enjoy the former out of hate as well.
What I came across in my research is a website literally dedicated to hateful jokes. They proudly display their slogan at the top of every page: "The face of Hate on the 'net!" I think I was unable to explore much of the site because it was recently hacked by the "hacktivist" group Anonymous who most recently organized protests against Bay Area Rapid Transit's shut down of cell phone service claiming that it was a violation of our freedom of speech.
The hateful website accepts joke submissions from other hateful people. It appears that only the "Niggers" section of jokes is available. Some of the jokes are indeed quite hateful, like "Why do niggers call white people "honkies"? Thats the last sound they hear before they get hit!" I don't see how jokes about harming or even killing members of a race are funny unless you are coming from a place of hatred.
On the other hand, a joke on the site that I thought was funny was "Everyone should stop being racist... racism is a crime, and crime is for niggers!" First of all, the derogatory use of the slur "nigger" is definitely not okay and since it comes from this website it probably is used out of hate which is also not okay, but as one who enjoys irony I feel like the rest of the joke can be appreciated. It pokes fun at the idea of someone who says they are against racism, but still blurts out extremely racist statements. As mentioned in my previous post, my professor said that laughing at racist jokes means that I am condoning racism, but I still feel like I can appreciate a joke without being racist.
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