Opus 2025-464: The Revival of Ethnic Humor

Remember the good old days when you could tell Pollock jokes and everyone would laugh, especially the Pollocks?  Some of the best Pollock jokes I ever heard came from a Pollock.  No one wore their feelings on their sleeve, and everyone understood a clever remark when they heard it.

Part of the reason people could enjoy it is because there’s a certain attractiveness to the humility that can poke fun at yourself and receive the fun when people poke it at you.  I used to always be using self-deprecating humor when I was teaching middle school.  Once the kids got over the shock, they enjoyed it.  That’s a good thing.  Good humor is not dished out to destroy but to lift up.

What I’m enjoying is seeing on YouTube a growing number of people from different ethnic groups who are doing stand-up comedy.  Currently, I was watching Latina as she was explaining insights into her culture.  She did a good job.  You could almost believe that she was actually born in the barrio.  Maybe she was.  She could also have put on a business suit and walked into an executive board meeting and carried herself off very well.  I enjoyed when she made jokes that we all understood and wasn’t all self-conscious about the fact that they were about Latinos.

We need more of this.  I can see that some of these comics get pretty funky, but so do the comedians of the Anglo persuasion.  Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Humor is humor.  I can enjoy humor that makes fun of my culture.  I can enjoy humor that points out the hangups of middle class America.  It helps us understand each other, increases our compassion, and breaks down unnecessary barriers.

So let’s have more Pollak jokes, Latino jokes, blonde jokes and blogger jokes. Right now we need the laughs.

homo unius libri