![]() Run by an immigrant, The Wasp fueled the racist grievances of the West Coast’s white working class, which resulted in the banning of Chinese immigrants for sixty-one years. Hall explains how this state newspaper, published in multicultural California, was in alignment with the nationwide post-Civil War racial resentment. In the run up to the passing the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, satirical weekly The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp published “ yellow peril” cartoons with increasing frequency. Nicholas Sean Hall, “ The Wasp’s ‘Troublesome Children’: Culture, Satire, and the Anti-Chinese Movement in the American West,” California History 90, no. Sharing diverse scholarly perspectives on the impacts of ethnic humor, he argues that assessing the social function of humor requires an understanding of “who says what to whom under what contextual circumstances.” He offers a pertinent reminder that the aphorism about being able to “joke about anything in the good ol’ days” isn’t true: the wrath of the United Irish societies brought down a Russell Brothers show. ![]() Mintz gives a brief overview of the varying ethnic stereotypes that circulated at the time and offers insight into why ethnic humor no longer found favor with vaudeville audiences by the end of the 1920s. Much of this humor was shaped by anti-immigrant sentiment. The peak of on-stage “ethnic humor”-from 1890 to 1910-was also considered the golden age of American vaudeville. Mintz, “ Humor and Ethnic Stereotypes in Vaudeville and Burlesque,” Melus 21, no. He shows how these depictions were beneficial to white justifications of the transatlantic slave trade and how they served as a precursor to subsequent traditions of blackface comedy. Hornback’s analysis reaches back to Medieval and Renaissance drama, illustrating how Blackness was constructed as “naturally” foolish. Robert Hornback, “ The Folly of Racism: Enslaving Blackface and the ‘Natural’ Fool Tradition,” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 20 (2007): 46–84. ![]() As always the JSTOR link-marked with the red letter “J” icon-are free for all to read and download. The choice of articles in this list doesn’t imply that disparaging humor doesn’t occur in other historical and geographical contexts but simply offers a starting point to interrogate the social functions of racist humor. This list is primarily focused on North American and European mobilizations of discriminatory humor-often what is labeled as “ethnic humor.” The scholars represented in this reading list evaluate how allegedly harmless everyday practices-like sharing a joke-dehumanize the victims. The ambivalence and ambiguity of humor allow it to tread where explicit hate speech cannot. Notably, participation in racist humor is not necessarily restricted to people who identify with any political affiliation. Certain themes recur in this reading list: “us” versus “them” thinking that fuels stereotypical humor humor’s ability to make hatred pleasurable (and even attractive) humor as a mechanism for race-based solidarity and most significantly, humor as a mechanism through which violence is reduced to a laughing matter. Much of the scholarship that studies this “punching down” variety of humor relies on the superiority theory to explain how feelings of ethnic/racial superiority and hostility inform racist humor. While memes are far from being the origin story of discriminatory humor, their proliferation and popularity reminds us that disparagement based on ascribed identities such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and so on can be normalized through everyday joking. Over the last few years, with the parallel rise of nationalism and social media as a stage for political participation, the spread of hateful ideas has been amplified, especially through humorous forms of communication such as memes. Laughter is the best medicine-for the ones who are doing the laughing-but how about for those who are the objects of derision? “ Racist humor reminds us of national difference and of prejudices we prefer not to admit but which continue to grip us,” writes performance and communication scholar Matt Jones. The icon indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR.
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