An Awkward Black Joke

I was taking Noah to the Library to watch Monsters University on their big screen for free. As we went to the front there was a crowd watching a group of street performers. They were sort of like break dancers or gymnasts. One was a fourteen year old black teenage guy, and his fellow performer was a twenty  or older teenage white guy. It was the part of the show where they were getting people from the audience and a white child of about 6 or 7 was out there. Most of the audience was white.

Part of most shows like this is black jokes. A part of that is to get the mostly non-black audience to laugh and relax. "Don't be afraid we won't rob you we're just dancers." There is a bit where one guy will hold a purse and pretend to run off, "Stop we don't do that... anymore" That sort of thing. The same jokes are circulated, who knows since when.

This black teen was particularly short, and young to be sort running the show himself. He had that awkward pumped up look of a teen that is usually shy but is performing. Something I have only been able to notice now that I am thirty. (when I was 15 I could not see it, perhaps because I was still in that stage.)

"Now kid, don't move. When I was a kid I was called up here as a volunteer from the audience and I moved... and now I'm black." hahahah I laughed. That joke was for me. The non-black member of the majority non-black audience. "Do you want to be black." At this point the kid is supposed to shake his head and obediently not move.


Only the kid nodded. He did want to be black. There was even more laughter and only then when the joke sort of backfired and the teen running the show was at a loss for words did I even notice how racist that joke is. This is not the 1990's. There are racial issues. But we do have a black president. And we are at a multi-racial point in America when I don't think any light skinned blacks would think of "passing" but instead choose to represent all of the races they are made of. I scanned around to the black people in the audience. I saw two men. One opposite me was laughing and clapping his hands. I shouldn't do this because I'm bad at it, but I will. If I had to guess his ethnicity. I would say he was Haitian and that he had been in the U.S. no more than ten years. I .e. he was raised in a majority black society. Has he gone through racist experiences? Of course. But he probably spent his childhood not even thinking about white people.

 The other man in a different part of the audience looked like he was born and raised in America. He looked like he wanted to say something to the teen running the show. Explain to him how that joke is harmful to his people. That sort of thing.

It's interesting to me that had this joke not backfired, I wouldn't have felt awkward about it, because I have heard it before, but usually the performer was in his forties and had a raspy voice. It seemed sad for a 14 year old to have to use that joke. Actually that's the point, he didn't have to. And didn't realize he didn't have to. It made me re-evaluate my racist-o-meter.

I actually left after that, I felt so awkward. If I wasn't with Noah I might have stayed, but I just realized what he was hearing was bad for him. But too late. He started asking me, "Why does that little boy want to be black?" and "why would he turn black?"

He didn't know anything about the concepts the joke was based on.

"Do you want to get the full answer to that question Noah or do you want  to watch Monsters University? The full answer is very long and you have to listen to the whole answer."


He didn't. He was just asking. I wasn't dodging the question. It's just that he started asking more questions when I began my answer.


I had forgotten about this incident until I saw a post about the Leslie Jones SNL skit on Facebook.
I was going to write something about that (and I still might) because I felt really awkward watching that the first time and had to actually turn it off, until I read through Leslie Jones' responses and forced myself to watch the skit again.

But W. Kamau Bell wrote a response that is just better because it's his job to do so.

www.wkamaubell.com