Informant Data:

The informant is an American who was born in Riverside, California in 1956. He owns a construction company and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Contextual Data:

My informant heard four jokes from a friend of his and he wanted to share the jokes with me. The following is one of these jokes. It’s worthy of noting that my informant chuckled after telling the joke. When asked why he found the joke funny, my informant said that he didn’t know why the joke appealed to him, but said it was just “stupid humor.”

Item:

“What did God say when he first made a black guy? Dang it, I burnt one.”

Analysis:

This seems to speak to a stigma against black people prevalent in present-day American society. The joke seems to be a negative remark on having dark skin, for it perpetuates the idea that there is something wrong with having dark skin, that having dark skin is equivalent to having been deformed. This is a good example of Blason populaire, or folklore items that play off of stereotypes.