Racism in Comedy

1102 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of comedy in society

Racism in comedy
This essay is going to discuss about racism in comedy and in addition to that it is also going to look at whether it is acceptable for comedians to use certain racial words for example when black comedians use the word “Nigger”. Also it is going to look at how different audience put up with this kind of material, but first of all it is going to look at the actual word itself and where in the blue marble that we call earth it originated from.

Make no mistake that slave owners came up with the word Nigger and it was only supposed to mean an individual, who is lazy, unwise, and good for nothing, but somewhere along the history lines of slavery the N word began to be used more as racial insult against the non-white Americans of that era. It would also be irrational for one to assume or to contemplate that slaves did not poke fun at their masters after a hard working day at the cotton plantations. That is why for that reason it should come to no surprise that the black African Americans invented comedy back during the slavery era. It is believed that “slaves were treated with favour for putting smiles on their master’s face by the way they performed and slave masters would take turns to send their slave performers off to a neighbouring plantation to amuse another family, as well as showing off the talented darkie the senders posed”(Littleton, 2006.p.7).

The N word has also been used to cause offense even to the non-black racial groups, for instance Jews have been called the white niggers; Arabs have been called the sand niggers and Japanese have also been called the yellow niggers. Back then the American country was dived into two halves meaning to say the whites were on top of the chain and the blacks were on the ve...

... middle of paper ...

...word should be used by comedians or not, the answer is it depends with the comedian or the person who is using the word after all it is just a word with different meanings to it.

to conclude this essay the origins of the N word and how it got to be used was looked at and who helped in bringing the word into modern day comedy and also how blacks and whites formed a long term relationship In order for them to be sharing stages even to this day.

Bibliography
• Helitzer, M (1992). COMEDY WRITING SECRETS. United States Of America: Library of congress. 17-103.
• . King, G (2002). FILM COMEDY. London: Wallflower Press. 7-152.
• Cashmore, E (1997). The Black Culture Industry. New York: ROUTLEDGE 5-134.
• Newland, P (2010). DON'T LOOK NOW. United States Of America: Intellect Ltd. 34-88.
• Littleton,D (2006). BLACKCOMEDY. New York: Library of congress . 4-120.

Show More
Related

  • Luis J Rodriguez Race Politics Poem

    523 Words  | 2 Pages

    Words are commonly used to separate people by the color of their skin, but they can also be used to bring people together, no matter what their skin color was. Using words improperly was a common problem in America when our parents were our age, and even way long before that. People have written countless stories about racism, it’s affect of the world, or it’s effect on the person themselves. One of the more well known poems about racism is “‘Race’ Politics”, by Luis J. Rodriguez. The story the poem is based off of took place sometime in the mid 1960’s, so this gives us an insight of what the world was like back then.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of John Griffin's Black Like Me And Dick Gregory And Nigger

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    He effectively moves from a position of “Other” to one of empowerment through his active participation in the Civil Rights movement, and his comedy. In fact, Gregory views comedy as “friendly relations,” allowing him to abandon his repressed identity—one that was “mad and mean inside” (134)—and move to a position of empowerment that allows Gregory to “make jokes about [whites] and their society” (Gregory 132). Through his comedy, Gregory is also able to dissociate himself from the term “nigger,” as well as the namelessness, de-individuation, and dehumanizing effects associated with it: “Every white man in America knows we are Americans, knows we are Negroes, and some of them know us by our names. So when he calls us a nigger, he’s calling us something we are not, something that exists only in his mind. So if nigger exists only in his mind, who’s the nigger?” (Gregory 201). In refusing to adopt the word and its negative connotations as self-definition, Gregory “returns” the word and its negativity to the dominant society of the white middle class—the discriminatory “. . . system that makes a man less than a man, that teaches hate and fear and ignorance” (Gregory

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of The Article 'Black Men And Public Space'

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    The article “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples, originally published in Ms. Magazine in 1986, under the title “Just Walk on by,” depicts the existence of racism within the unconscious prejudice of people. The main idea of this article is the fact that blacks are perceived as a violent and disastrous people, and this, in turn, puts them in danger. Staples uses a detailed imagery to illustrate the stereotype of individuals based on black people. In the article, the author portrays the poignant events that black people face and uses pathos to describe his melancholy of people judging him by his skin color. He attracts the focus of audience towards the main idea of this article by using onomatopoeia as well as diction. The usage of such rhetorical strategy has successfully clarified the main idea of the article and widened the approach of this article towards public.

    Read More

  • How Does Williams Use Nigga?

    1078 Words  | 3 Pages

    “I don’t give a fuck what a nigga say,” for a word that many different things I think most people would agree that in this since nigga means a person preferably black. Nigga is a derogatory and racist word that refers to Black people. But, we, meaning Black people, still use it. We do not care, nigga flows off the tough. In using nigga we not only show disdain but become a nigga when using it and we’re ok with it. This is why I choose Katt Williams, 2006 comedy skit Pimp Chronicle Part 1. In William’s skit he use nigga some 221 times, in 45 minute, that’s about four times per minute. I could not find a better example of someone using nigga. 221 times, he must have something interesting to say if he can find 221 reason to say the word and you know what he did. I could not help but laugh it was funny, but at the end of the day I knew though it may have been funny it was still morally wrong. In Williams, he uses nigga in ways that support Black stereotypes, which make the audience laugh. There is nothing worng with that a mans

    Read More

  • Comparison of the Two Essays "The Meaning of a Word" and "Being a Chink"

    971 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "The Meaning of a Word" and "Being a Chink", Gloria Naylor and Christine Leong examine words of hatred that are meant to scorn, hurt and disgrace people. But these same words could also be used without harmful intentions and in a fashion of endearment amongst the people those words were created for. They each had a different word to discriminate their different culture and ethnicity. These writers discuss the words "nigger" and "chink", which are words in our language mostly ignorant people use. Naylor and Leong are also both minorities who were raised in America. They talk about how discrimination and hatred towards minorities is almost always inevitable in America, which is mostly populated by Caucasians. Naylor and Leong observe how these racial acts of discrimination can unify a group of people even closer together. Naylor didn't know the true meaning of the hate word nigger until it was used against her in a degrading manner. On the other hand Leong already knew what chink meant but wasn't traumatized until she found out her father discovered it.

    Read More

  • The Word Nigger

    2002 Words  | 5 Pages

    When it comes to the use of the “N-word”, “nigger”, most of us will readily agree that it is derived from negativity. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of is this word appropriate and should it be a part of our vocabulary today. Many feel like this word is okay to use but there are some that disagree.

    Read More

  • The Longest Yard Analysis

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are laws that prohibit any type of segregation in the United States of America. We have in office today the very first African American president, President Barack Obama. The culture is now more politically correct on what is acceptable and what isn 't. There is a scene in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard that includes Guard Dunham ( Stone Cold Steve Austin) and prisoner Megget (Nelly). The "N" word was used towards this prisoner a few times, but this was the only time in the movie it was used. This is obviously not okay, but compared to the 1970 's film, this was a huge change. The use of that hateful word helped the director portray the guards as villains in the film. The 2005 remake did not separate the white and black inmates in the prison like they did in the 1974 original. Although director Peter Segal did use the disrespectful word in modern day, he used it moderately. Segal did not use it so freely like the original film because today 's culture would not tolerate it. It could have jeopardized the quality of the film in the view of modern day

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The F Word By Firoozeh Dumas

    1566 Words  | 4 Pages

    Firoozeh Dumas’s essay “The "F” Word” is not what people think it would be about.  When people hear the someone mention the “F” word all sorts of things pop into their head. Yet, Firoozeh Dumas twist the meaning of her title to something people wouldn't think when they heard the title. Dumas takes a stereotype in the title to grab our attention.  People in the American Society judge people by more than just the color of their skin, for instance in Firoozeh’s case it was her name.  Society has an image of what everyone should be like from their looks the the name they go by.  In the article Firoozeh Dumas tries to explain her experience as an immigrant from Iran to the US. Dumas tries to show how hard it was for her to come to America and live

    Read More

  • Racist Acts And Racist Hummor Philips Summary

    1257 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “Racist Acts and Racist Humor”, Michael Philips details three theories regarding how and why racist humor is representative of immorality. Philips states that he concurs with the act-centered theory, and identifies flaws in the other two theories, agent-based and belief-centered, to explain why he believes the act-centered theory is the most plausible. According to the act-centered theory, Philips believes that ‘Basic Racist Acts’ are what set the guidelines concerning which expressions and manifestations of humor are labelled as racist, and therefore immoral. In this essay, I argue in favor of Philips’ interpretation of ‘Basic Racist Acts’ as the guiding framework which establishes powerful social beliefs about what constitutes moral objectionability.

    Read More

  • Nigger Communicated To White People

    180 Words  | 1 Pages

    On the other hand, when some people hear the N-word they feel a negative aura surrounding that word. It brings forth unwanted memories of the past. According to Coates, “for some the mere mention of “nigger” conjured memories of lynching and bombings. But there’s more here - a deep fear of what our use of the word “nigger” communicated to white people” (Coates, 1-2). In other words, Coates believes that yes some people associate the n-word with trauma from the past. But the importance in this word is that in how it communicates with white people. Essentially, it’s the one thing that they don’t have control over. They’ve lost the battle and no longer have the freedom to use one word in all of the english language. I guess they were never expecting

    Read More

  • Origins of the N-Word

    1380 Words  | 3 Pages

    The words Negro, nigger, and nigga have always been a sensitive topic, yet it is a topic that needs to be addressed in light of the more common use of its vernacular. One word is used to describe a color, while the others are used to define a people. It’s very clear to many the negative connotation these words carry, but where did these words come from? Furthermore, is there a difference between the word nigger and nigga; and why is it that African-Americans now use the word nigga to degrade each other in today’s society? These words, in spite of their spelling, still holds the same degrading power as it did during the time of slavery, and they are still spoken out of cruelty and ignorance, but who is to blame? Can one still blame the Spaniards for considering people of a darker skin tone –Black? Can we blame the Europeans for perpetuating their hatred and ignorance of superiority over a race of people to the point they felt it lawful to define and dehumanize them? Or does the blame lie with the African-American race as we use this degrading labeling on our own kind, thus becoming the victimizer. Either way nigger or nigga are words that should be eliminated from the vocabulary of every human being.

    Read More

  • History Of The Word Nigger

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    The “N word” as some people call it, is an age old name for people of African American descent. Now where in tarnation did this monstrosity of a word come from? Well of course we look to Latin American Language as the culprit. The word “niger” is Latin meaning “black” and at the time was only used as the name of a color. Eventually, the word “niger” was turned into a noun, a noun being a word for any person, place or thing. The noun formed from the adjective “niger” was “negro”. Which coincidently enough is the word for the color black in Spanish and Portuguese. From these words, the French developed the word “nigre” meaning a black man and “negress” which referred to a black woman. Now I bet you’re wondering how the word “nigger” originated from the word “negro”. Well it is believed that misinterpretation and mispronunciation from white southerners that led to the development of the word “nigger”.

    Read More

  • The Word Nigger

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first recorded use of the word nigger was in 1786 in a poem by Robert Burns yet variations on it including negar, neger, and niger are recorded two centuries before then.

    Read More

  • 'Mommy What Does Nigger Mean?' By Gloria Naylor

    1243 Words  | 3 Pages

    That changed when a white boy called her a ‘nigger’ and she knew that it wasn’t meant to sound like the way that she had heard it before but instead to hurt her. Naylor wrote “But I didn’t “hear” it until it was said by a small pair of lips that had already learned it could be a way to humiliate me” (346). Just like in the story I grew up with an African-American family and society and become to know words or phrases that when used within the group was completely acceptable but when used outside the group became offensive. The words or phrases that offend me are; the word ‘Nigger’, the phrase “All crimes are committed by an African American”, and the phrase “It’s because you’re

    Read More

  • Cultural Appropriation In Street Culture

    1462 Words  | 3 Pages

    We’ve heard this word many a time in movies and we probably guessed that it refers to an african american male. In the movies they always show someone who isn’t black calling a black male a nigger, that black male would always get upset and go berserk, punching the guy. This can be seen in the movie Rush Hour, it’s a funny example but it brings the point across. People who aren't african american get upset when they can’t use the word ‘nigger’ but this word shows oppression just like ‘’kaffer” shows oppression to black people in South Africa, the difference here is that the black people in South Africa will never call one another a “kaffer” and become very offended and even cringe if someone would use that word. Whilst the use of the word “nigger” is used by african americans to refer to african americans. “For some, the use of an ‘a’ on the end of the expression marks a distinct contrast with the ‘er’ ending, the former denoting endearment or camaraderie and the latter racism.” () The word “nigger” is seen as a derogatory term, when someone refers to someone else as the N-word they are giving that person certain qualities and attributes and in this case it could mean that a black man is inferior because of their skin colour. In a more positive aspect of the word when used by black americans to other black americans, it could mean “buddy” or “friend”. The tone in which the word is said

    Read More

More about Racism in Comedy

Open Document