Without differentiated races, comedians wouldn't exist. They feed off making fun of other races. How many times have you seen a black comedian make fun of white people in that southern accent? How many times have you seen a white comedian use an innappropriate "derogatory term" (even with those minorities present)? Most importantly, how many times have you seen each of these races make fun of something that their race is stereotyped for? It happens ALL THE TIME. Part of the comedic relief is that they ARE using these words that are so taboo with society. You kind of have to expect to hear them from comedians. People start laughing when they realize that they are just WORDS and nothing physical whatsoever. That's the comedy in the whole thing. When someone doesn't get that, they usually don't get half of comedians...
It's one thing to reference "Asians/Chinese/Korean/..." in a joke and another to use "ch*nK" in a joke. Our fellow member, Another Brother, said "Chinaman" in his skit a while back. He appologized when told that it was a racial slur. I'm sure the context he used the racial slur in wasn't meant to offend, but he appologized! Stever Kerr said "Chinaman" during one of the NBA games and he also appologized when told that it was a racial slur. Sara Silverman didn't appoligize. She went on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect show and continue to say "ch*nk" and actually crack jokes ABOUT Asians! And no, uttering a racial slur doesn't make the person racist. I wouldn't know if Sara Silverman is really a racist or not. But you wouldn't find me seeing her in any favorable way. That's my point! I can't believe some Asians here would actually adore her! You all know it would be different if someone says "K*ke" or "n*gger" instead on national television because you will hear it in the newspapers, television, radio, everywhere...(after all, Jewish people own/run 60% of Hollywood and media outlets)! The fact that she "deliberately" chose to say "ch*nk" instead of "n*gger," "wet back," or even "k*ke" indicates institutionalized racism! Why? Because everyone thinks Asians are passive and won't stand up for themselves when sepped on -- thus we are easy targets! Fu*k all that! I've seen, heard, experience enough of this sh*t to know! Why do we get a different reaction from a comedian saying "ch*nk"(Asian) on national television as opposed to saying another racial slur (Black, Mexican, Jewish, etc.)??? And yes, there will be a different reaction! That's institutionalized racism!
If it makes you feel better, as I've seen reported, her original version of the joke on Conan differed in that it did use the black racial slur, rather than the Asian racial slur. NBC censors wouldn't allow the first variant, but saw no problem with the second. This makes the only possible bigots in this case the censors, not Sarah Silverman. As others have pointed out, it's a joke decrying racism and our reactions to racism, not upholding bigotry. It's really painful to attempt to deconstruct what makes good comedy (it's impossible if you have to explain the joke), but here's a decent analysis from Slate : Another from Roger Ebert's website Editor's Notes (though not written by Ebert): If you get a chance, you should check out her act, or at least read the sampled jokes in each of the linked articles. She's an incredible comedian. Count me among the infatuated.
Can you provide a link? If this is the case, it doesn't change my views on her. It just shows that she may not be a racist. As I said in my post above yours, saying a racial slur doesn't make someone racist. If someone points a gun at me but doesnt intend to shoot me, I don't care what the person's intentions are, you wouldn't get a favorable reaction from me! Racial slurs are like guns, you can only use them to harm people! And if this is the case, it, more strongly, indicates institutionalized racism!
So many things going wrong in the world today and you are focused on a 5-year old joke that you didn't get. Next week, could you do me a favor and abolish Santa? He's really not PC either.
A version in the New Yorker contradicts my understanding: I spent ten minutes searching for a supporting link, wading through lots of similar message board posts, but to no avail. Best I can come up with, from something called Pressure Point, Fall 2001 (via NY public library): I can say that I saw her perform in New York about two and a half years ago (after the Conan controversy), and she told the version with the African American racial slur. It's possible that she started using the new variant after the controversy, but I don't believe so. My memory, faulty though it may be, is that in an interview she claimed an NBC censor found the black slur in her original set unacceptable, but was indifferent to the Asian slur. The New Yorker excerpt apparently contradicts this. However, I've found her slightly contradicting herself on this very issue, so I'm unsure if my memory is indeed faulty. From Rolling Stone: Yet, from Radar Online: ******** As to the larger point, however, I think you're dead wrong. A skilled satirist, in using a racial slur, causes his/her audience to confront the bigoted mindset behind the word. The signifier, the word, is not the problem; the signified, the attitude itself, is. Ignoring racism, as we've largely done in this country for the last three decades, hasn't made it go away. You should look up articles on "queer theory," so-named by linguists looking to empower discussions of homosexuality in our culture, to purposefully reclaim that particular word from bigots. And yes, I'm aware of the absurdity of going back and deleting all possibly objectionable material from the quoted articles when I cite such cultural self-censorship as the underlying problem. However, I'm aware this is a family site. On topic more, Sarah Silverman, especially in her SNL days, is indeed hot. And, more in fitting with the Hangout idea, chalupas rule. All that copy & pasting done, however, I'm sorry that you don't get the joke. 'Cause it's really [censored] funny.
People are too damned sensitive.....who cares...she is a comic. I don't care if she makes fun of any race....it is a JOKE people. DD
I will bet most people who are offended had NO idea who Sarah Silverman was before this stunt.... She knows exactly what she is doing..... No such thing as bad press, her price just went up.... DD
Geez, could this conversation get any further off-topic? Sarah Silverman is hot. And she was hillarious in The Aristocrats. I'd do her, even though she's a racist Jew dating Jimmy Kimmel. Funny, the only thing that turned me off in that previous sentence was thinking about Jimmy Kimmel's sloppy seconds. Seriously, whats up, find another cross to bear. You're beating a horse that died 4 years ago. People are never going to be any more sensitive to Asian racial slurs than they are to any other immigrant slurs. Unless your race went through a few hundred years of slavery on this continent, you get treated like everybody else. That goes the same for Mexicans, Poles, the Irish, Indians, American Indians, Muslims, Jews, homosexuals, fat people, the dyslexic, the physically challenged, the mentally challenged, the visually challenged, the speliing chellandged, etc. There's a difference between respecting diversity and being a PC asshat.
Don't you mean the spics, pollacks, micks, sammies, redskins, ragheads, kikes, fags, blimps, cripples, r****ds, umpires, and Sir Jackie Chiles?
Do you know what is worse then popular media's portrayal of Asians as meek, quiet folk who don't stand up for themselves? Asians who whine about racism. Your choices in any situation is to a) correct the problem, or b) move on with your life.
I skipped page two and three. <standup kam> I love Jewish girls, but I prefer this nosed up chicks to be working at a bank instead of doing stand up. </standup kam> by the way, did i do that right?
I don't think there's any celebrity that's hotter than Sarah Silverman. Here's a bit from the end of that New Yorker article that what up might enjoy: I got in trouble for saying the word “Chink” on a talk show, a network talk show. It was in the context of a joke. Obviously. That’d be weird. That’d be a really bad career choice if it wasn’t. But, nevertheless, the president of an Asian-American watchdog group out here in Los Angeles, his name is Guy Aoki, and he was up in arms about it and he put my name in the papers calling me a racist, and it hurt. As a Jew—as a member of the Jewish community—I was really concerned that we were losing control of the media. Right? What kind of a world do we live in where a totally cute white girl can’t say “Chink” on network television? It’s like the fifties. It’s scary. There are only two Asian people that I know that I have any problem with, at all. One is, uh, Guy Aoki. The other is my friend Steve, who actually went pee-pee in my Coke. He’s all, ‘Me Chinese, me play joke.’ Uh, if you have to explain it, Steve, it’s not funny. Backed up by a band she calls the Silvermen, she picks up a guitar and sings “A Love Song”: “I love you more than bears love honey / I love you more than Jews love money / I love you more than Asians are good at math . . .” Later, she says, as if to put an end to it, “I don’t care if you think I’m racist. I just want you to think I’m thin.”
"The reason I don't get hung up with, well, say, integration, is that by the time Bob Newhart is integrated, I'm bigoted. And anyway, Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin are geniuses, the battle's won. By the way, are there any ******s here tonight? (Outraged whisper) "What did he say? ïAre there any ******s here tonight?' Jesus Christ! Does he have to get that low for laughs? Wow! Have I ever talked about the schwarzes when the schwarzes had gone home? Or spoken about the Moulonjohns when they'd left? Or placated some Southerner by absence of voice when he ranted and raved about ****** ****** ******?" Are there any ******s here tonight? I know that one ****** who works here, I see him back there. Oh, there's two ******s, customers, and, ah, aha! Between those two ******s sits one kike-- man, thank God for the kike! Uh, two kikes. That's two kikes, and three ******s, and one spic. One spic-- two, three spics. One mick. One mick, one spic, one hick, thick, funcky, spunky boogey. And there's another kike. Three kikes. Three kikes, one guinea, one greaseball. Three greaseballs, two guineas. Two guineas, one hunky funky lace-curtain Irish mick. That mick spic hunky funky boogey. Two guineas plus three greaseballs and four boogies makes usually three spics. Minus two Yid spic Polack funky spunky Polacks. AUCTIONEER: Five more ******s! Five more ******s! GAMBLER: I pass with six ******s and eight micks and four spics. The point? That the word's suppression gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. If President Kennedy got on television and said, "Tonight I'd like to introduce the ******s in my cabinet,: and he yelled "nig- ger******************************gigger" at every ****** he saw, "boogeyboogeyboogeyboogeyboogey,nig-ger******************" till ****** didn't mean anything any more, till ****** lost its meaning-- you'd never make any four-year-old "******" cry when he came home from school. Screw "Negro!" Oh, it's so good to say, "******!" Boy! "Hello, Mr. ******, how're you?" Lenny Bruce In a brilliant leap, Bruce was attacking a couple of our fallacies at once. First, the pleasant liberal notion that by eliminating unpleasant racial and ethnic references from our vocabulary that we're eliminating bigotry. Worse, by casting these words beyond the linguistic pale, we're creating forbidden fruit, giving these awful words added punch, undermining the very intent of setting them proscribing their use. Mr. Bruce was obviously not advocating using the words in a hurtful way; he certainly abhorred the harm these words can cause. He was pointing out that the words were the symptom, not the cause; it was the thought behind the word that hurt, not the word itself. The day the hatred is gone from the hearts is the day the word is meaningless-- the day we're looking for. http://www.wam.umd.edu/~molouns/amst450/delillo/1950s.html
Not to bring back this awful thread, but there was an interview I heard on Fresh Air on NPR today with Silverman where she and the interviewer discuss many of the issues which have become heated in this thread. You can listen to it here If you're old and easily offended you can also cultivate a sense of moral outrage by listening to the song You're going to die soon which you can access from the NPR web page. edit: BTW during the interview she discusses the issue, and the funny thing is that the racism joke in question is one where she makes fun of people who don't understand that racism isn't about obeying or disobeying some set of rules of etiquette, but rather a way of viewing groups of people. She also mentions that she contemplated making it a Jewish joke, but decided that a self-deprecating Jewish joke would have not been racist enough. She implies that she would have used the N-word if the networks would have allowed it… She also talks about her childhood bedwetting and her excessive body hair.
i wonder if asian-americans had an ADL or ACLU in their corner if they wouldn't be such an easy target for silverman and others to clown....then again, their negligible political influence and media ownership means that they will not have any sort of ADL or ACLU anytime soon.... if there is ever any doubt as to who your ruler is, it rather simple to deduce....it is he who you are not permitted to speak against.
Jokes can cross the line. They can perpetuate negative stereotypes and make them appear socially acceptable. Not commenting on SS's jokes though.
