Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS DIDN'T GET THE JOKE.
Christopher Hitchens has a new piece up complaining that Wanda Sykes' routine didn't poke enough fun at the president--a criticism that I'm sympathetic to--but then he comes up with this:
There used to be a mildly racist comedian in England named Les Dawson who thought it amusing to ask what West Indians said to themselves while using the black-and-white strips of the pedestrian crossing. ("Now you see me, now you don't; now you see me, now you don't.") In order for this to be funny in the least—and I frankly despaired of it ever achieving that critical mass so essential to the life and definition of a comedian—it would have to be just as funny if a "white" person was traversing the road in the same way.
Not laughing yet? Me neither. Well, then, why is it so "edgy" for Wanda Sykes to say that Obama gets lots of praise now, but that if he messes up, it'll be, "What's up with the half-white guy?" This can be remotely hilarious only if said by somebody nonwhite, but almost every paleface in the audience seemed to feel it their duty to rock back and forth with complicit mirth.
I thought this joke was hilarious, I thought it was hilarious partially because I am mixed, and I'm going to ruin the joke by explaining it.
Black people are constantly being judged as a whole by the successes or failures of individuals--when one of us becomes famous or infamous, white folks who have little experience with black folks in real life come to conclusions based on what they see or hear. As a result, we're incredibly self-conscious about how we're perceived in the public eye--so much so that a black person that achieves a measure of success, no matter how light skinded or how much you deny your heritage--you can be Anatole Broyard, Jean Toomer, or Tiger Woods, we'll still claim you as reflective of what we, as a people, are capable of. At the same time, we feel pressure to disassociate from those who meet harmful the kind of harmful stereotypes that remain pervasive.
The joke is funny because it reveals the irony of a miserable social dynamic--despite what he's already achieved, the success or failure of Obama's presidency will ultimately reflect on the black community as a whole, not just on the United States. At the same time, we spent several months of the past year debating whether Obama was actually black--when we all really know the answer. Like so much good black humor, it squeezes a laugh from something that should bring us to tears. It's also not so complicated that it should be beyond a white audience with some cursory knowledge of black history.
Hitchens, for some reason, hears "white" and thinks the joke is on him. He's so used to being perceived as brilliant--and so sensitive to the idea that he, as a white man, is being slighted--that he doesn't even consider that he just didn't get the joke. The example from the racist comedian makes this plain--the simple punchline of that joke is "black people are ugly and different." Hitchens' column doesn't just betray a lack of sophistication in not getting Sykes' joke--it betrays a lack of intellectual curiosity. He didn't even think there was something there not to get, and so he didn't bother to ask anyone.
-- A. Serwer
COMMENTS (17)
Wow - I'm amazed that you managed to let Hitchens' "sable sapphist" line pass without comment.
Come to think of it, that article is full of crazy crap. Obama is making fun of his "strengths"? No, you moron - riffs like "and on the 73rd day, I will rest," is a crack on the cult of personality that has erupted around him, and his own perceived arrogance. Or doesn't Hitchens get that joke either?
Hitchens says that Limbaugh's life is a closed book to him. To me, Hitchens is a closed book, written in another language by a brilliant but schizophrenic Dadaist.
Posted by: Sammy | May 19, 2009 1:08 PM
and why does he call her the Sable Sapho twice?
Posted by: jimmy | May 19, 2009 1:08 PM
Really? I thought the joke was simpler - while Obama's doing good, the black community will happily embrace him as "the black guy"... when he messes up, he will be "the half-white guy" because that, really, is how we (me included) get to be mixed race - we're yours, while you like us... otherwise... we're somebody else's. I thought it was funny... but also pointed, and a nice reminder for us mixed kids that the welcome chair can be taken away anytime.
Posted by: weboy | May 19, 2009 1:42 PM
You have to keep in mind-- admitting that Wanda Sykes did anything worth noting would contradict that whole "Women Aren't Funny" crap he tried to pull a while ago.
Posted by: Persia | May 19, 2009 3:44 PM
Um, I got the joke instantly, and I'm as white as they come. If you have even a passing acquaintance with US culture, you'd get it.
Wasn't Hitchens the one who wrote an entire column about women not having a sense of humor? This is why I don't waste my time with the man.
Posted by: tmv | May 19, 2009 3:57 PM
Hitchens really irritates me. As an atheist, I cringe whenever he opens his mouth; he reflects poorly on us.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 19, 2009 4:04 PM
No no, Anonymous. When Hitchens is tearing some fundamentalist a new one, I'm proud of that fellow atheist. It's when he writes crap like this that I think, "What's up with that British guy?"
Posted by: Houdini's Ghost | May 19, 2009 4:36 PM
Houdini,
In my office, a guy has this great cartoon on his wall. A person going door to door, knocking and asking people to consider and embrace the doctrine of atheism and all the wonderful changes atheism can create in your life. It's hilarious -- the joke being that an atheist wouldn't bother with something as ridiculous and obnoxious as trying to convert people.
Christopher Hitchens is the guy in that cartoon. A jackass is a jackass even if he's on your side. Screw him.
Posted by: tmv | May 19, 2009 5:35 PM
its an old line. in 1921 Einstein put it this way:
"If I am proved correct," he said, "the Germans will call me a German , the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist.
"If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew."
Posted by: Sash | May 19, 2009 5:45 PM
Wanda Sykes' joke is a lot funnier if you know her very funny older routine about Tiger Woods.
She noticed that sports press reports about Tiger had him getting less and less black every time he won (he went from black to half-black to a quarter black, etc). A trend sure to be reversed if he ever got in trouble went the joke ("Black golfer gets arrested...").
Contemplate that truth for a minute then go back and listen to Wanda's joke. She's no dummy.
Posted by: Paul J. Reber | May 19, 2009 5:59 PM
I've read Hitchens's words about his failure to find humor in the Sykes joke a couple of times now, and I still don't get what the heck he's talking about, or why he fails to get the obviousness of the joke. Anybody who's grown up in the USA immediately grasps what it's based on: the tendency of the larger society to judge black folks not as individuals but as black folks. Anywyay, I do think his criticism of Sykes's easy handling of Obama is merited, though. You're supposed to rough up the president a bit. And she pretty much didn't. Doesn't mean her remarks weren't funny (I thought they were). Just means she didn't follow precedent.
Posted by: Jasper | May 19, 2009 6:37 PM
If you read enough Hitch, you'll see a trend when he's discussing blacks and black women in particular. Check out what he had to say on Wright and how he figured that it must have been Angry Michelle Obama that got Smiling Barack to go to that Racist Church in the first place.
Need further proof he's got a mad-on against blacks? Check the drug he posits as a black equivalent for Wanda to make fun of. Crack. Whereas Limbaugh was addicted to a prescription painkiller he presumably had some initially legal reason for obtaining, Hitchens offers as a black equivalent some figure addicted to a joke for which no one has any use.
Hitch doesn't know the first thing about black culture. The thing is, he's so used to his scotch-soaked observations of everything being hailed that he doesn't even recognize that he's talking about something he doesn't understand. One supposes he fancies himself some sort of Oscar Wilde or Hart Crane or some other kind of bon mot boozer, but he's really just a boor.
Posted by: kevin | May 20, 2009 10:50 AM
Credit where credit is due: From what I've seen, Hitchens is always brilliant on 20th-century literature.
Posted by: Tom Parmenter | May 20, 2009 12:39 PM
Slate have now corrected Hitchens' incorrect attribution of that joke to Les Dawson (who was a comic genius and in no way even slightly racist, albeit that he was more than slightly sexist)
Posted by: dsquared | May 21, 2009 8:13 AM
I took it to be a not terribly funny variation on the "victory-has-a-thousand-fathers-but-failure's-an-orphan" line.
In any event, serwer isn't a pimple on Hitchens' ass.
Posted by: John Smith | May 25, 2009 7:02 PM
"Need further proof he's got a mad-on against blacks? Check the drug he posits as a black equivalent for Wanda to make fun of. Crack."
Don't pretend that crack isn't associated with poor black communities in the same way the Oxycontin is associated with poor white ones. Ask yourself whether or not drug addiction in white communities is funnier than drug addiction in black ones. Any person with a shred of sympathy will see that drug addiction is not a shred humorous, especially if it is tried to be tied together with race. Imagine if Rush Limbaugh came on that stage and started making jokes about Barack Obama's use of cocaine, and then tried to tie that with him being half-black. No one would laugh. No one, with any respect for others and indeed self-respect, would even be entertaining that sort of thinking. What Sykes had said was perverted and racist.
Posted by: vishal | May 29, 2009 12:10 AM
The hot-sale Ugg Boots are coming now.We offer wide range of colors and styles Ugg Boots UK and Ugg Boots Sale for you.Shopping now for your favorite!
Posted by: ugg boots sale | November 19, 2009 3:46 AM