Why Gay White Men (And White People In General) Need To Stop Joking About Race

If blessed are the peacemakers, I must have already earned my sweet spot in heaven. It seems like I spend an immoral majority of my time not-grinning-and-bearing-it after gay white men say and write dumb funny things about the black guy.

The jokers are especially wild on the dating apps, sometimes coming so frequently that even if I were inclined to respond full or righteous indignation, I wouldnt have the time.

Hello chocolate.

Um, OK...

Once you go black...

Zzzzz.

Ive always wanted to try black.

Uh-huh...

Im not a chocolate chaser, but youre fine.

Huh? (Yep, that unlikely one actually happened last week in Zagreb, Croatia.)

Whats up nigga?

N... what? (Another Zagreb winner.)

Is it true what they say about black men?

Grrr...

And then there was Don, a 28-year-old Spanish man living in Berlin, where I spent most of October and November. He actually took the time to unleash an entire race-for-laughs narrative.

He first approached me on Grindr shortly after my arrival in Germany, and we spent more than a week doing the online mating dance without meeting face to face. Then around 3.30 one morning he finally asked me out for a spontaneous night drink or tea or whatever ur drink of choice is.

He wrote: Cant sleep so might as well do something like socially interact with a hot stranger. (Why was I awake at 3.30 am? Good question. I was still on Bangkok time so, to my body, it was actually 9.30 am.)

When I pointed out that we might have trouble finding anything open at such an ungodly hour, he suggested I go over to his place.

Id rather meet at a bar or cafe or somewhere like that, I wrote back. I wasnt in the mood to risk my life and/or limbs just to, erm, interact with a beautiful stranger in the wee small hours.

His response: Scared of my intentions? :) no worries. Was more meant as a joke tbh. A colored man in my home at these hours? No thank u probably ur a thug and bring grass to my humble innocent home.

Immediately, he tried to whitewash his black comedy: Ok, I think weve stated im not very funny [sic]. But joke aside, I would have suggested a stroll in the hood.

My head started spinning. I spent a few moments hanging onto colored man. Then I let it go. I lived in Argentina for four and a half years and have a pretty tight grasp on Spanish. Negro (pronounced NEIGH-gro) is the Spanish word for black, so cringe-y is practically built into Dons native language. The day after Barack Obama won the U.S. Presidential election in 2008, I saw a front-page newspaper headline in Buenos Aires that actually said Martes Negro or Black Tuesday. Yuck.

Clearly native Spanish speakers dont need to be making puns about black people en espaol. But Dons joke hadnt been simply lost in translation. His ironic way of handling my hesitance to go to a strangers home was to turn it into why he shouldnt invite a black man to his place. Tbh, his joke made my stomach turn.

While waiting for it to settle, I clicked on a link in his profile and discovered more dark humor on his Instagram. Last February 11, in the middle of Black History Month, he Google d racist candy and posted the illustrated result: Nigroids breath mints... Cherry Clan Candy... LOL. Racism is so damn funny.

Ive been pursued by enough white/Latino/Asian men who called me the N-word after I rejected them to confirm that theres a thin line between lust and racism. But black comedy and racism? Can white people legitimately look on the light side of race? Its one thing when David Chappelle does it. He lives with racism every day. But its not OK for someone who doesnt to turn a stereotype thats the bane of a black mans existence a stereotype that has cost so many their lives into a joke.

Slavery may have ended 150 years ago. Civil Rights may have kicked in more than 50 years ago. But its still way too soon for white people anywhere to be making careless cracks about race.

That also goes for celebrities who might be tempted to flash their creative license. A few years ago, social media erupted after Madonna used nigga in an Instagram post. In 2015, it crucified country singer Jason Aldean for topping off his Bob Marley Halloween costume with blackface. Meanwhile, Quentin Tarantino regularly gets blowback for peppering his movies with the N-word.

When legendary TV producer and writer Norman Lear created the racist character Archie Bunker for the 1970s sitcom All in the Family, it made sense. The racial outbursts of Caroll OConnors alter-ego were near-highbrow comedy because it wasnt just about getting laughs. Bunker held a mirror up to white America in the 70s. Blacks may have been the legal equals of whites according to relatively recent Civil Rights legislation, but the point was that some whites would never think of blacks as equals in any other way.

There was a certain gallows humor there that felt appropriate for the time, as the races were still breaking the ice amid integration. Meanwhile, the politically correct/socially sound flipside to Bunker was given near-equal screen time. The result: classic comedy that probably wouldnt fly if it were debuting in 2017.

Gallows humor was a centerpiece of Quentin Tarantinos 2012 dark comedy Django Unchained. I accepted the racist language there because you cant make a film set in the 1800s U.S. Deep South and pretend that slaveowners didnt freely and frequently drop the N-word.

The revenge fantasys Oscar-winning screenplay made us flinch while offering catharsis to black viewers in a world that was already careening toward Black Lives Matter. The film upped its relevance by highlighting the caste system among black slaves that left a lasting legacy within the black community. Thats something you dont get with slavery-themed Hollywood movies like Gone with the Wind and Lincoln, which are mostly about white people.

Then theres Tarantinos Pulp Fiction, the 1994 Oscar winner (again, for its screenplay) in which the director showed up toward the end playing a mob associate who gratuitously and liberally used the N-word. Heres where I had a real problem with Tarantino. Was the N-word crucial to the narrative, or was Tarantino using his art to fund his own catharsis?

Dear unfunny white people: You cannot turn racism into a joke or use the N-word whenever you feel like it. Weve earned the right to do so because most of us have to deal with it in some form every day. You get to laugh about it and then return to your regularly scheduled white privilege, while we have to sit there uncomfortably and return to our regularly scheduled misery.

I told Don his joke was a stink bomb and ended our mating dance for good. I wont ever be knocking on his door. Considering his warped sense of humor, he might actually answer it wearing blackface and offering me a slice of watermelon. Id rather stay home and binge-watch Black-ish. At least on Black-ish, blacks are in on the jokes and theyre getting paid to tell them, too.