The Funny Side of Racism and Stereotypes

Introduction
Racism and stereotypes can be serious issues in today's society. Personally, I find racism funny. I own a store in a mall here in Las Vegas, NV and one of my best friends is a Mexican girl who also thinks racism and stereotypes funny. For those that don't know, I'm a black guy that happens to try to find humor in almost everything.

Warning: If you are easily offended, please don't continue.

The Problem
In my opinion, the only reason racism is a big issue is because people are way too serious about certain issues. I'm not talking about hate filled racsim being funny, but racism and stereotypes based on misinformation or lack of knowledge about a culture. If everyone took the time to really look at their own culture, they would realize that a lot of stereotypes are true.

Black Stereotypes
My mexican friend had a lot of pre-conceived notions about black people. For some odd reason, out of the blue one day, she asked me if I could answer a question for her. "Yep, I sure can." This may not be funny to a lot of people, but this was funny as hell to me. "Why do black people eat chicken and waffles together?" Of course I die laughing because some black people do eat chicken and waffles together. What made it funny is the fact that she assumed that all of us eat that. Personally, I'm not a fan of chicken in general, but it's damn funny when she gets mad and tells me she is going to throw chicken and waffles at my house instead of eggs.

There are tons of black stereotypes we have gotten into. I know that a lot of people make fun of Mexicans for having a lot of kids, but so do Blacks. I never even noticed that until my Mexican friend pointed that out.

Mexican Stereotypes
Of course, me being who I am, I have the occasional racist joke that I throw at her. One day she came into the store and had a stain on her shirt. My business partner asked her what it was and I just said burrito juice out of reaction. We all started laughing, including her, because it really was burrito juice.

The same Mexican girl has a friend who's name I won't reveal, but lets just say when I saw him and his friend in their stereotypical Ben Davis shirt, khakis, and Nike Cortez, I assumed they were gangbanging drug dealers. The funny part is what they do for a living. Both of these guys are veternarians (probably spelled that wrong). LOL, I couldn't believe it at first, but they are indeed vets and perform operations and everything. They also think the whole stereotyping thing is funny as hell because we all do it.

Probably the funniest thing to happen that I can recall off the top of my head involves just one of the vets. He was sitting in our store and an older white lady walks past me and my black partner and asks the Mexican guy, "Do you speak english?" All three of us start laughing and I'm sure she had no clue as to why, but he was laughing so hard that he started crying and couldn't answer. She then turns to me and says, "Does he understand what I'm saying?" That just made us laugh harder because of her assumption. Eventually, she did get an answer and we pointed her in the right direction of a place she was trying to find. She may not have been a racist in the traditional sense, but maybe just based on misinformation, which made it funny.

White Stereotypes
The most common stereotype is that white people can't dance. I know this to be false for a fact. White people dance their ass off, just not to the same beat as everyone else. The white guy that fixes the cell phones dances hard as hell while he is waiting for the boxes to be brought from the back.

Conclusion
I'm not sure if its just our environment or the type of people we hang around, but everyone in the mall seems to find racism to be funny and something that we poke fun at on a daily basis. It might just be the fact that we are all open and willing to point out other stereotypes instead of concealing it. The one thing that I have learned is that everyone believes in some kind of stereotype. Everyone really does make racist comments, even if they don't consider themself to be a racist.

I encourace Blacks, Whites, Mexicans, etc. to make friends with other races and ask them about different stereotypes. You might be surprised that a lot of people really don't take it all that seriously or blow it out of proportion if you are trying to inform yourself.