Sunday, November 25, 2012

I Like Jokes

We are bombarded with images and news stories telling us how evil the white man is. How much he beats down the black man, how prejudiced we all are.

Several years ago a production line manager in the factory I worked cautioned our factory manager that she shouldn't use the 'master/slave' term common in lighting. (When a light fixture with a ballast, the master, is wired to another light fixture without a ballast, the slave.)  See,the funny part was that the line manager was a white guy and the factory manager was a black woman. She actually said that she never made the connection.

Yesterday while shopping with my wife in Durham, North Carolina (a predominantly black community) we saw a young light skinned black man wearing a NASCAR Oreo jacket...  I don't know what the wife and I were talking about before that but we both went silent. I had my mouth open in a gasp. I broke the silence by pointing the young mans attire out to my wife. She broke out laughing and said she was thinking the same thing.

Ok, I'm evil and wicked for thinking that but come on, it was funny, right? Yes, I think racist jokes are funny. Black, Irish, Polish, doesn't matter. Some of them are damn funny.

Anyway, it is awesome that words can go back to being just words.

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