Here’s a story from the BBC, marginally related to my last post, about CBS Radio doing the only ridiculously consistent action they could and suspending two DJs for making offensive jokes. CBS Radio, if you didn’t know, is the same company that fired Imus a few weeks back.
The difference here is that these guys were actually making jokes, instead of just snide comments about otherwise unassuming college athletes. You may not think the jokes were particularly funny (not having heard them myself, but having read the gist of them from the BBC article, they seem a bit derivative to me), but they obviously were done with humor in mind. From the article’s description, I don’t really see much to be offended about (granted, I’m not asian, but still). They apparently used stereotypical accents (the jokes on them though, because I don’t know of any Asian language who confuse the ‘r’ sound with the ‘l’ sound- although Japanese speakers are known to do the opposite) and sexist references to asian women, but is that racist? Even if it is, who cares?
Step foot into any comedy club and you’ll find a comedian making racist jokes and… guess what? people typically are laughing at them, even when they’re really pushing the boundaries. The difference here is that someone caught wind of the jokes who wasn’t in a comedy club setting. Patrons at the comedy club expect to be humored, so they are in the mindset that the jokes will be funny. It takes a really bad comedian to ruin that. If you listen, people were even laughing at the beginning of Michael Richards’ outbreak, even though realistically, nothing he said during his outbreak was particularly funny (although admittedly I did think it was funny that Richards apparently thought it was funny). On the other hand, people who are eager to get themselves labeled victims will read into the jokes something much more ominous.
Were these DJs jokes funny? Probably not very (I’m sure their prank calls are no competition for old Jerky Boys tapes or Crank Yankers). Was it worth suspending them? I doubt it. On the other hand, the heretofore uknown ‘ Organisation of Chinese Americans’ got their name in the press.
Kudos to the OCA. Welcome to victimhood!
