Statements like:
- Malays are lazy, so lazy they won't even read this blog to berate the racist bigot who wrote this.
- Chinese businessmen are blood-sucking mosquitoes, just harder to swat than your average sized mosquito.
- Indians are so stupid, they literally believe they can swat the blood-sucking bigot mosquito who wrote this.
are sure to get you into hot water no matter how funny you are and how many times you rehearsed your delivery. People say jokes like that are in bad taste, as though Malay, Chinese and Indian were ice cream flavours. Weird.
Now that i've presented myself as a self-centred racist bigot, take a moment to ponder why. We stereotype and make fun of ah gua, bondan, or more accurately, transsexuals on television quite openly. Why is it not permissible for the same people to satirise a particular race?
I think I must now make something very clear. I am not advocating we abuse each other racially. I am wondering aloud why we don't talk about racial issues in an open, honest manner. Talking about race, acknowledging the differences and even finding the humour in it is surely a way to reconcile differences, bring everyone together and make real progress towards solving issues. Scott Adams goes so far as to say " You haven’t achieved equality until you’re a legitimate target for humor." I totally agree with that. I think we (both singapore and malaysia) are unequal societies.
In the context of Malaysia, with which i am most familiar, any mention of race triggers alarm bells in our collective consciousness. Mention racial issues in the public sphere and you're liable to get shouted down. This is an impediment to real progress in this area.
I am reminded of a story my friend Matthieu told me about France. He said that all government offices in France never ask for your race in any way for any service. The problem with this is that the government has no statistics on racial disparity in schools and are blind to the segregation of communities. We in Malaysia are marginally better in this respect. We can actually see the white err... multi-coloured elephant in the room. We just refuse to deal with it.
My suggestion as a first step to bringing about the kind of openness about these issues that society needs is to tell racist jokes. Why not? There are genuinely funny race jokes out there. I don't mean those unfunny, derogatory pseudo-jokes that pass for humour in some parlia... i mean parties. I mean race jokes the way comedians like Russell Peters and Chris Rock do it. Local comedians are funny too, but none of them have the cojones to do a proper race joke routine. Imagine the benefits a proper race comedy would have. Children to college students to old pensioners would have something to share and chat about with their multi-racial neighbours without worrying about appearing racist or bigoted.
Think about it. The next time you're in an awkward situation with a friend of a different race, break the tension with a funny, tasteful witticism about race. You could start a revolution in the way people think about race.
