Diversity (or racism) & humour ?
Categories: ENGLISH, cross-cultural, ethnic, "race", multicultural, mixity, humour, just for fun,... (really?), society, demography, global trends, Zeitgeist
Still in our quest to understand cultural diversity and other’s perception… hereunder is a video (cut from “the Office”, a US American comedy) trying to confront cross-cultural stereotypes and diversity to a community of clerks. “Race” is a totally irrelevant concept when speaking about different Ethnic Human groups. This concept of race is pretty widespread though in the US.
Humour sometimes breaks the ice, saying loud what you might think as well. Even if hereunder this is pretty much cumbersome (stupid?) and unnecessarily (re-)opens wounds. You might believe this sequence was mostly oriented to a “white” viewer, who wouldn’t put himself into question… I could understand.
When these complex ethnic questions have not been much considered, humour and diversity can easily lead to racism, performing a totally different goal from the initial one. Without going to a witch hunt where every cross-cultural jokes could be considered as “racist” ones, we could easily state such situation being mostly due to ignorance, a lack of interest and an inner sense of condescension.
(very) funny at first, appalling at the end.
very nice illustration about humour and diversity Tanguy…
hi Beckie,
The office, yeah, this is a very funny comedy, wittier than it looks like at first. This full-length episode is a pretty good one ; if you have the possibility to go and watch it, please go ahead, you’ll have a great time.
I just want to challenge a bit the last sentence : “… an inner sense of condescension.” especially. Sometimes minorities are playing with this type of feeling, stating racism when there is none, giving a feeling of guiltiness to the one having “supposedly” been “racist”. This kind of overreaction gives a blurred image about borders and on how to behave towards each other. “Racist” being the most feared insult, paralysing any real communication between communities.
My point (which could look like a bit cheezy) is : “we are all human beings. I won’t treat you differently from my brother or sister. If I treat them bad/well, I’ll treat you bad/well”. but your skin color won’t be a factor.
of course, in this video example, the slap was plenty deserved. Plenty.