Dear Abby,
I am a crack dealer in Beaumont , Texas , who has recently been diagnosed as a carrier of HIV virus. My parents live in Fort Worth . One of my sisters lives in Pflugerville and is married to a transvestite. My father and mother have recently been arrested for growing and selling marijuana. They are financially dependent on my other two sisters, who are prostitutes in Dallas.
I have two brothers: one is currently serving a life sentence at Huntsville for the murder of a teenage boy in 1994. My other brother is currently in jail awaiting charges of sexual misconduct with his three children. I have recently become engaged to marry a former prostitute who lives in Longview. She is a part time ‘working girl’.
All things considered, my problem is this. I love my fiancee and look forward to bringing her into the family. I certainly want to be totally open and honest with her.
Should I tell her about my cousin who supports Barack Obama for President?
Signed,
Worried About My Reputation
Thanks Gene
sounds like that person has really poor judgement. I can see why he would support McCain for pres.
Why would anyone be ashamed of voting for an intelligent man with real concerns? I would be much more ashamed of having voted for Bush, with all that he did.
can you say spammer?
i once called up mars candy company to complain that the first three skittles i pulled out were 2 blue raspberry and a cherry. I wanted a watermelon. lol
I would suggest you keep racist politics out of your blog – you’re starting to look like a card carrying member of the KKK!
Racist politics? It’s a joke. Has nothing to do with race. Geez!
Racist politics? Grow up….and learn to take a joke!
Race? WTF’nF? I missed that one!
But know we know who has race on the mind, eh?
That kind of seeing ‘racism’ in everything is kinda racist in itself, don’t ya think?
Disagree with someone’s tax policy, it’s racist? Energy Policy? Racist. Foreign policy? Racist.
WTF? Which side is it that’s always screaming “racist”?
Come into the 21st century.
i don’t consider myself a racist, but my (black) fiancee and I really wan a big ol dog named “Nigger” she says she saw in in some movie (“c’mon Nigger ol’ boy!”) and I just think it rolls off the tongue for a big dark dog.
now i could see how some ppl could misconstrue that as racist even though it has nothing to do with any dark-skinned race, but the above joke is in NO way racist. What’s racist is the ppl voting for Obama because they don’t want to be called out for being racist and not voting for the black man.
The writer forgot to include the most serious failing–voting Republican.
Someones always gotta pull the race card,get a sense of humor….ass clown
The owner of this site has posted some pretty tasteless items when it comes to denigrating Democrats at the expense of Republicans. Nothing wrong with being one or the other but I stand by my interpretation that this is a tasteless joke. Ask yourself this – would you see any of the late night talk show hosts using it? I don’t think so. Would you be happy saying this joke to a black person?
What’s interesting is although I used the word racist no mention of colour is used in this joke at all – people replying here just assume the person talking in the joke is black. If you assume this you are racist, sorry, but that’s the truth.
I have seen this joke in numerous forms – it’s pretty much a standard template and can be used in many genres. Comparing prostitution, drug dealing, transvestites and pedophilia to someone who votes for Barack Obama is, I say again, racist and pretty disgusting. If you find this joke funny thanI find that a shame.
its a joke, here is how to take a joke
1. look at it
2. laugh
3. forget it
dont get too complicated
I’ve been seeing this joke for at least the past 3 elections, with the candidates from both sides being used as the punchline, depending on where and when you see it. (Sometimes it even uses local candidates.)
For the life of me, how you get any hint of race out of that damn old joke absolutely baffles me. (btw–I have told it to a few black co-workers, and they laughed as hard as I did.)
I agree with the post above ^. Get some humor. Laugh a little. If it makes you feel better, put John McCain’s name in it. I’ll bet you’ll think it’s hilarious then. But you’ve got to try to get over your racism. We’re well into the 21st century. Catch up.
I’ll say it again – I deliberately used the word racist when no colour was implied in the joke. It’s interesting to see that the subconscious sub-text that comes forward is that the joke implies a black person telling it. By using the juxtaposition of “crack dealer”, “arrested for growing and selling marijuana”, “engaged to marry a former prostitute”, “financially dependent on my other two sisters, who are prostitutes”, “sexual misconduct with his three children” you are deliberately associating Barack with the worst type of racial stereotype. The fact that you continue to defend this as “just a joke” confirms to me that you have prejudices that are so deep rooted that you are now blind to them.
As I’ve said, this is a common template joke and it’s the genuine feelings of the teller (or writer in this case) that get exposed in their choice of protagonist subject context. How on earth you can’t see that all the negatives are the most deep ‘good-old-boy’ prejudices of backwards America put forward as ‘a joke’ beats me.
This is pretty close to a written equivalent of Michael Richards “N-word” rant at that comedy club a year or so ago. Although the N word wasn’t actually used here it’s implication is so strongly implied it stinks. I despair at the naivety of those here who can’t see that.
so you are angry at someone saying that black people do that, when no one said that?
good grief, I think your question kind of sums up, or rather, is a perfect example of everything that I’ve been trying to get across – you’ve pretty much proved that you haven’t read anything I said but somehow still managed to generate a question based on your own subconscious prejudices. i’m not angry – i’m just sad that those replying to this forum can’t even string together a well considered response.
Dude, you are talking absolute rubbish.
Taking your comment ‘…the subconscious sub-text that comes forward is that the joke implies a black person telling it.’
Where are you getting that from. To me, if you want to talk about stereotypes, those expressed in the joke are far more reminiscent of the ‘trailer trash hick’ who are far more closely identified with being white than black.
If you are, as I suspect, of the erroneous view that black people themselves cannot be guilty of racism as they are a minority in America, then surely if it is a black person telling that joke, it automatically cannot be racist.
Ignoring the joke as written for a moment and substituting John McCain as was suggested before, what then would you extrapolate about the writer? That he was black? That he was a Democrat? That he didn’t like John McCain as a person?
If we look at another comment you made: ‘The owner of this site has posted some pretty tasteless items when it comes to denigrating Democrats at the expense of Republicans.’ I think we get to the root of your issues. This has nothing to do with race, you just don’t like the fact that the poor defenceless Democrats get picked on more than the nasty Republicans. At it’s heart this is a political joke, whoever writes it is not denigrating black people, they are denigrating Barack Obama. This could be because he is a Democrat and the writer disagress with his policies, or it could be that he just doesn’t like him personally.
What you should do is stop being so overly sensitive and maybe think about the intent of the joke, rather than cruising the internet screaming racism at everything that upsets your delicate sensibilities, then twisting the joke, its subtext and everything else about it until it fits your point of view. There is a reason why nobody else gets what you are saying. Crudely put, it’s because you’re talking crap.
Dear Abby,
I am a crack dealer in Beaumont , Texas , who has recently been diagnosed as a carrier of HIV virus. My parents live in Fort Worth . One of my sisters lives in Pflugerville and is married to a transvestite. My father and mother have recently been arrested for growing and selling marijuana. They are financially dependent on my other two sisters, who are prostitutes in Dallas.
I have two brothers: one is currently serving a life sentence at Huntsville for the murder of a teenage boy in 1994. My other brother is currently in jail awaiting charges of sexual misconduct with his three children. I have recently become engaged to marry a former prostitute who lives in Longview. She is a part time ‘working girl’.
All things considered, my problem is this. I love my fiancee and look forward to bringing her into the family. I certainly want to be totally open and honest with her.
Should I tell her about my cousin who supports Ron Paul for President?
Signed,
Worried About My Reputation
There you go Media_Lush. I fixed it for you. Now you can laugh.
I’d like to mention that I also pictured the “white trash hick” speaking… not a black person.
For the record I’m actually English. I used to work for the BBC and have been in television and media for quite a few years. I posted the “joke” to some other forums (well respected with an academic bent) with the simple question “what do you think of this joke” – I didn’t include any of the comments. The general consensus was pretty much what I felt and expressed here. I also discussed it with a couple of professional comedians (BBC contacts/clients who became friends of mine) and asked if they would say such a joke in their set. “Are you kidding?” was pretty much their reply. Hence I pretty much stand by everything I’ve said. I’ll say again that I despair that other posters have stated that “I’m talking crap”.
Congratulations media_lush. For the record, I’m english too. I work for one of the largest law firms in the country, since we are comparing jobs.
So you posted the joke to some ‘academic’ forums, doubtlessly filled with pseudo intellectual and overley sensitive types like yourself. Doubtless they read it and then huffed and puffed while over-anylysing it to the minutest detail whilst extrapolating numerous wierd and wondeful conclusions. I can see it now:
‘Well, we can see from the use of the phrase ‘financially dependant’, that the writer of this joke is clearly a communist and will probably be selling out his country to the cubans any minute.’
In my experience of intellectual forums, they are incompatible with humour anyway.
Are these professional comedian friends of yours those that wrote Playdays? Have you ever seen a performance by Jimmy Carr? Jim Davidson? Jerry Sadowitz? Such material is regularly used.
In any case, you didn’t answer my question. Ignoring the joke as written and subsituting John McCain as the subject, what would you have done then? Would we have had these ill-advised rantings from you or would you have just laughed and moved on because it’s OK in your PC little world for old white men to be the subject of jokes?
I’ve been polite and refrained from making personal comments; the fact that you’ve chosen to go down the personal insult route pretty much sums up and consolidates everything I’ve said. There’s no point in me posting further, so I won’t.
Just in case you continue to read, I’ll refer you to your first comment when you accused Jonco of starting to sound like ‘a card carrying member of the KKK.’ Yes, you’re well above personal insults.
To me, this sounds like a bit of a cop out. You said that you were sad because no-one who was posting could string together a well considered response. Well, without tooting my own horn, I have, and you have declined to reply to the questions that I posed or argue the points that I have made.
Instead, you have, so to speak, thrown your toys out of the pram and tried to imply with some pithy comment that you are taking the moral high ground. In addition, you have, once again, managed to come to the consclusion that my points support your argument, another example of your indanely twisted logic.
In conclusion, me FTW.
even through i have nothing relevant to say. i feel like i should contribute. Oh yeah i am voting for reagan. i think the corpse of ronald reagan could do a better job then any of the candidates.