Joke of the Day

Courtesy of Hillary Rodham Clinton:

Clinton introduced a quote from Gandhi by saying, "He ran a gas station down in St. Louis."

followed by:

"No, Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader of the 20th century."

Insensitive? Or just plain ol' fun from a good ol' girl from Arkansas? The junior senator from New York was sort of apologetic (empahasis mine):

"I have admired the work and life of Mahatma Gandhi and have spoken publicly about that many times," Clinton said. "I truly regret if a lame attempt at humor suggested otherwise."

Reaction:

"I don't think she was, in any way, trying to demean Mahatma Gandhi," [Michelle Naef, administrator of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence,] said. "To be generous to her, I would say it was a poor attempt at humor. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive, but I find it offensive when people use stereotypes in that way."

On one level, the image that Clinton (er, Rodham-Clinton) paints for me of Ghandi behind a gas station counter of the local AM/PM is funny because it is incongruous with the (I think) dignified images I DO have of him (bespeckled, robed and barefoot, contemplating something deep while seated on the floor of a sunlit room).

On another level, there are most likely racial sterotypes and overtones that multiply the humor. Ask yourself if it had been "Ghandi who managed the local department store" or "Ghandi who was a systems analyst" and see if the humor is the same. Not quite as much, although I think that a skit about Ghandi as the pacifist computer game programmer can be funny (geek that I am).

My comment is that there must be some basis in reality for the sterotypes to be able to stick in our minds. Maybe there are a number of Indians who do run gas stations. And that could be equivalent to saying that there are a number of Koreans who run liqour stores, Chinese who run laundries, Hispanics who work as busboys and black Americans who play basketball. I think that each of these stereotypes have some element of truth to it, otherwise they would not persist.

We all know that Indians, Hispanics, blacks, Chinese and all other types and kinds of people are capable or talented in more than the stereotyped vocations. The problem lies in the fact that we would lump all people in a stereotyped class together.

But for that problem, should we throw out the joke? I don't mind people making fun of my ethnicity, to a degree and so long as the joke--as I can understand it--does not demean my dignity as a person and rights as a citizen. In fact, it can be healthy to make jokes about stereotypes, I've often been seen how it can be the beginnings or part of a larger conversation.

Tell the jokes, but don't let the joke make us into fools by clouding the ability to see who people are underneath the labels we put on them.