Tag Archives: Joke

Joke – Racist – African American/Mexican

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Construction
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: April 2011
Primary Language: English

Joke – Racist – African American/Mexican

“What kind of baby do you get when a black person and a Mexican person have a baby? A baby that’s too lazy to steal.”

The informant made it very clear that he is “not racist” as he told me this joke, as people often do when telling jokes framed around racial stereotypes and conflict. He also made it very clear, before telling me the joke, that it is “really racist.” The informant is fifty years old and from Texas, and has lived there all of his life. He claims that jokes such as this are still used among close friends, but that “it’s just funny, we’re not racists.” He also claims to have “black friends,” as if that serves as some sort of justification or proof that he is not racist. He claims that jokes such as these stem from the racism that existed in the south during his childhood. The informant told me how he remembers when schools were desegregated in the south, and how “the blacks were brought over in busses” to his school. He stated, “they didn’t want to be there as much as we didn’t want them there.” He claims that much of the conflict was two sided, a kind of mutual racism. Furthermore, he claims that the inclusion of a Mexican individual in this joke probably stems from immigration from Mexico to the United States, often to border states such as California and Texas.
I agree that these jokes stem from a generation that experienced extreme racial conflict, but the fact that they are still used implies that they are still considered humorous. The fact that people still find these jokes humorous hints at the state of racism today, and shows that although it is much less prominent than in previous generations, subtle racism does still exist. The addition of a Mexican individual in this joke exemplifies the discomfort that many people feel toward Mexican immigrants, but the fact that they are portrayed as thieves in this joke conveys the stereotype that many Latinos are criminals. Furthermore, the idea of black people being inherently lazy seems to stem from Affirmative Action. Many people, who are usually white, are against affirmative action and other social programs, and believe it makes people who benefit from these things lazy. On some level, this joke serves as a racist critique of society in the context of immigration and social programs that are intended for minorities.

Joke – Racist – African American – Texas

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Construction
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: April 2011
Primary Language: English

“Run Nigga” Racist Joke

Joke – Racist – African American – American, Texas

“So Johnny’s in class one mornin’… little black boy Raymond comes walkin’ in and he’s all smiles ear to ear and he tells Johnny, he says, ‘my daddy got a new car yesterday, and Johnny, guess what his horn sounds like?’ And Johnny says, ‘I dunno, what’s his horn sound like?’ Raymond says, ‘well, when daddy pushes that horn, it says ‘haaaawnky.’ [informant laughs]. Now, he thought that was pretty funny. Johnny just kind of looks at him, and Johnny says, ‘Raymond, that ain’t nothin’. My daddy got a chainsaw and when he starts that thing up it says, ‘runnnnnn nigga nigga nigga nigga nigga nigga nigga.’”
(Note: Joke makes much more sense when heard. See audio file).

The informant made it very clear that he is “not racist” as he told me this joke, as people often do when telling jokes framed around racial stereotypes and conflict. He also made it very clear, before telling me the joke, that it is “really racist.” The informant is fifty years old and from Texas, and has lived there all of his life. He claims that jokes such as this are still used among close friends, but that “it’s just funny, we’re not racists.” He also claims to have “black friends,” as if that serves as some sort of justification or proof that he is not racist. He claims that jokes such as these stem from the racism that existed in the south during his childhood. The informant told me how he remembers when schools were desegregated in the south, and how “the blacks were brought over in busses” to his school. He stated, “they didn’t want to be there as much as we didn’t want them there.” He claims that much of the conflict was two sided, a kind of mutual racism.
I agree that these jokes stem from a generation that experienced extreme racial conflict, but the fact that they are still used implies that they are still considered humorous. The fact that people still find these jokes humorous hints at the state of racism today, and shows that although it is much less prominent that in previous generation, subtle racism does still exist. Furthermore, this joke uses pejorative terms for both white people and black people (being “honky” for white people and “nigger” for black people), but the fact that the white person “wins” in the end shows an attempt to assert racial superiority. Simultaneously, the joke implies that white people are not the only perpetrators of racial stereotypes, perhaps in an attempt to justify these racist ideas.

Two Hispanic Jokes – Pablito

Nationality: Hispanic American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: 615 Childs Way, Room Tro368, Los Angels, CA 90007
Performance Date: 4/26/2011
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My informant says this about his background:

“My parents are both um…from Mexico… and then they moved to the uh…Sacramento, California in uh ’88 and had my sister and I was born shortly after that in ’91…um…we lived in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood until the time I was in third grade at which point my Dad’s career brought us to a point where we could move into a high income neighborhood elsewhere in Sacramento and I lived there since until I moved to Los Angeles this year for college.”

I would just like to add that he’s raised Catholic.

He told me the following when I interviewed him:

“So the last time I was in Mexican…’cause my family got around…now that a couple of us are grown up, we were at the table and couple of uncles were sharing Pablito jokes…uh, Pablito is like a national figure in some crass, crude Mexican jokes that are usually shared amoung young Mexican adolescents..um..usually involves swearing or some kind of sexual innuendo. One joke is, about Pablito, uh…going to sell vegetables at the market…so his mom sends him off and she says…I’ll say this partly in English and partly in Spanish so the puns make sense and she sends him out and says, mijo, I want you to go out and sell jalapenos, so he goes to the market walking around going ‘jalas, jalas, jalas…jalas, jalas, jalas… (song-like quality)…shortening jalapenos to jalas and she says, ‘no, no, no, miho,  they’re jalapenos, you have to say that and don’t shorten them next time! Tomorrow I need you to go sell melons’ and so he goes to the market and he goes ‘melos, melos, melos…. melos, melos, melos and he comes back home, he hasn’t sold anything and his mom says you have to say the whole thing…melones, you can’t shorten it again! Tomorrow, you’re going to go to the market again and you’re going to sell eggs, but you’re not going to shorten anything!’ So finally, Pablito goes to the market on the third day and remembering not to shorten anything, he said the entire phrase ‘jalasmelosjuevos, jalasmelosjuevos, jalasmelosjuevos’, which is basically, ‘pull out my testicles, pull out my testicles, pull out testicles’ so yeah, haha, it’s, yeah…a crude, dirty joke. And if anything, I remember hearing a variant of this in the…uh…elementary school back when I lived in uh…and in that context, just the whole…crude humor thing again, but I don’t quite remember this.’

Then I asked, “Why is the kid called Pablito?” To which, my informant responded:

“Pablito is just like a…a…it can be like…a…in the s-same way that uh…Americans usually use Bob as a default name, it’s like a little default name…uh for some reason, I’m not sure. And of course, ‘blito’ implies that he’s some small kid who’s involved in these crude situations…um another Pablito joke is, um…I’m trying to remember…Pablito has a problem with swearing, he swears a lot…he’s the stock joke boy. He swears a lot, he has a very dirty mouth for a young boy. So uh, he goes to a church, he’s also crippled…he’s arm is bent so that…permanently bent so that uh…he can’t extend it, so this obviously is not good and he sits down at a pew and he prays and prays and prays, ‘God, if you uh, cure my arm, I’ll never swear again, I promise, I promise’. And then, so he prays and nothing happens and then he walk out the church and the second he steps out, his arm extends and he says ‘Ay cabron! and his arm, uh, bends again.’

*Ay cabron is a swear word in Spanish, which is something like fucker*

I inquired further and said, “What’s the significance of this joke?” to which he answered:

“Um, it’s hard to say, but the Pablito, Pablito is very indicative of the every man, not the every man, but the every boy. My parents always told that in the context of the little town they grew up in, so he’s clearly not high income or anything like that…uh…he spends a lot of time on the streets, hence the crude humor, which is usually shared by boys at a young age. Um..usually, not older adolescents but younger people, boys at around ten or eleven, maybe younger….I think it’s just mostly reflective of everyday life of my people.”

While I think my informant hit on many of the important aspects of the joke, I just wanted to point out the emphasis on family and a more agricultural life in the first joke and the focus on Christianity in the second joke. Moreover, the second joke implicitly teaches the moral lesson that “God can take back what he gives, and because of this, we should keep our promises to him”. Lastly, I just wanted to reinforce how Pablito jokes are reflective of a much more impoverished and low class lifestyle (in the neutral sense).

For more Pablito jokes, visit this site (which is in Spanish): http://www.minichistes.com/tag/pablito/

Blason Populaire Joke

Nationality: Caucasian with Irish and Italian ancestry
Age: 29
Occupation: English Student
Residence: Tujunga, Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Conversational Spanish

The informant learned this joke, which falls under the category of blason populaire, from one of his friends in junior high school. He says that he has also heard it from other active bearers as a “black joke”:

“How do you stop a Mexican from drowning? The answer is, of course, take your foot off his head.”

The informant says that when he performs this joke it is usually in a group of friends who consider vulgar jokes acceptable and that he varies the ethnicity to match the group’s prejudices. He also admits that sometimes he tells the joke when he’s “around people who are racist” and he doesn’t “want to make any waves.”

He considers it to be a “pretty bad joke” but says it’s “easy to use for a cheap laugh, as an icebreaker.”

The informant grew up in Tujunga, which according to the LA Times’s 2009 “Mapping LA” project has a black population of only 1.8%. It is therefore not surprising that he would have heard the “black joke” cognate, since the members of the audience to the joke would have been unlikely to be black or have black acquaintances on whose behalf to be offended. However, it is perhaps more surprising that his friend told it to him as a Mexican joke, since according to the same project, 14.7% of Tujunga’s residents have Mexican ancestry. It may be that the joke was more acceptable to tell because some members of the active bearer’s audience had Mexican ancestry and were willing to laugh at themselves, or perhaps the informant’s friend had Mexican ancestry himself.

Source: Ardalani, Sarah, et al. “Tujunga.” Los Angeles Times. 2009. Tribune Newspaper. 25 April 2011 <http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/tujunga/#ethnicity>.

Jokes/Riddles

Nationality: American
Age: 50s
Occupation: Drama Teacher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/11
Primary Language: English

The informant is a caucasian female in her 50s. She was born in Southern California to an upper middle class family. The informant was raised presbyterian, but now professes to follow no religion. She attended Stanford University and then settled back in Los Angeles. She works part-time as a high school drama teacher. The informant is married with one child.

The informant learned these joke riddles as a child in the 1960s. In her youth she would retell them to her friends and family frequently. She considers them to be riddles and will supply them if anyone asks for a riddle, even to this day. She remembered these examples specifically because they have interesting and unexpected answers and made her laugh as a child. She says that she was not able to guess the answers to any of these three and that prompted her to remember and retell them.

Text:

What do you loose every time you stand up?    Your lap.

Why do birds fly south?    Because its too far to walk.

When you throw a white hat into the red sea, what does it become?    Wet.

Analysis: It is interesting that the informant still tells these childhood jokes/riddles when well in adulthood. Her fascination with the unexpected answers has transferred these examples into long term memory. It is the subversion of the expected answer type, replacing it with the unusual and ridiculous, that intrigued the informant as a child. This aspect of subverting the norm is common in children’s folklore, representing the exploration of boundaries through the safe means on jokes, songs, stories, etc. While these jokes represent a very mild version of such a rebellion, there is still present a slight twist that pushes against how the mind is taught to think when posed such questions. That the informant remembered these jokes to this day indicates that the resonance she had with the unexpected and surprising nature of these examples. That she still retells them today perhaps indicates that, even as an adult, she is still drawn to the slightly subversive nature of these jokes.