You may have noticed a week or so ago when President Donald Trump told a conference of police officers that they need not avoid injuring arrested suspects. And you may have noted that the president's spokesperson explained that he had been joking.
I have zero doubt that Trump was trying to get the cops to laugh. For that to be considered justification, however, was an apparently astonishing ignorance of the history of "humor" and of many examples of where "jokes" are a clear method of encouraging hateful and racist behavior.
Was Trump guilty of that? Who knows? Who can read his mind?
Let us leave aside a discussion about how important it can be for a president to nudge Americans into a higher moral standard. And let us leave aside the value of great law enforcement officers who quietly treat their suspects far better than a guilty arrestee likely treated his or her victims. Or that great cops realize that suspects are innocent until proven guilty.
Here's what Trump had to say to officers at Suffolk County Police Department in New York on efforts to combat the gang MS-13:
"And when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon -- you just see them thrown in, rough -- I said, please don't be too nice. [Laughter.] Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, don't hit their head and they've just killed somebody -- don't hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?"
And here's what White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, among several Trump spokespeople and supporters, told reporters: "I believe he was making a joke at the time."
No doubt. And the best way to understand the reason that such an explanation is not remotely an excuse is to look at the history of "jokes." The only way to do that, like the need to open up a parasite-ridden pig to understand the stink and the harm, is to offer clear examples of the use of hateful "humor."
Let's start with a more positive, artistic borrowing of the idea of hate-jokes as a way of showing the evil of early Nazi Germany. There's a great song in the musical "Cabaret." Here's the last verse of "If You Could See Her Through My Eyes," a song about a man with a gorilla for a girlfriend:
"Oh, I understand your objection, I grant my problem's not small; But if you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all!"
Oy.
For anti-black racist "humor," let's look at the use of watermelons as an easy example. William Black did a splendid analysis for The Atlantic a few years ago:
"The trope came into full force when slaves won their emancipation during the Civil War. Free black people grew, ate and sold watermelons, and in doing so made the fruit a symbol of their freedom. Southern whites, threatened by blacks' newfound freedom, responded by making the fruit a symbol of black people's perceived uncleanliness, laziness, childishness and unwanted public presence."
And OMG: "A popular postcard portrayed an elderly black man carrying a watermelon in each arm only to happen upon a stray chicken. The man laments, 'Dis am de wust perdickermunt ob mah life.'"
Anti-Asian "jokes?" For amazing visual evidence, check out Mickey Rooney's 1961 performance as Japanese photographer I.Y. Yunioshi in the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's." He wore yellow makeup and huge prosthetic false teeth.
Hysterical.
And let's leave history aside for a final poke into the guts of this. Laughfactory.com has a page just filled with "racist jokes" Here are some examples:
"What did God say when he made the first black man? 'Damn, I burnt one'."
"Q: Why do Mexicans eat beans for dinner? A: So they can take bubble baths."
Funny? Not remotely.
No kidding: What should Americans do about the most recent examples of humor-as-excuse? What can we do with the idea that a line calling for police officers to injure suspects is excused as a joke?
Laughing is probably not a solution.
Jeffrey Weiss is a former Dallas Morning News reporter and a writer in Dallas. Email: jweiss@dallasnews.com
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