Are we really living in a post-racism society?

After studying the way issues of race are treated among stand-up comedians, Raúl Pérez—a ‘15 Ph.D recipient in the Department of Sociology—doesn’t believe that we are.

His work, published by Discourse & Society in 2013, earned him the 2015 American Sociological Association Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award. The study details how comedians are making racism funny in a supposedly “color-blind” era. Utilizing specific comedic strategies, performers are being taught how to use comedy as a vessel to deliver racially charged sentiments in order to get laughs.

“These findings contradict recent studies of social discourse that indicate public displays of racism are declining,” Perez says. “Instead, they illustrate that society is simply finding new ways to deliver these messages.”

Society is no longer accepting of public, blatant ridicule—such as the blackface minstrel shows that were a popular form of entertainment during the first half of the 20th century—but Pérez finds that modern day comedians tend to have a free pass in this area.

“Part of why this is the case is because of the strategic way in which racist discourse is now delivered by comedians,” he says. “I find that during and after the civil rights era, comedians began to appropriate civil rights discourse in order to deny racism in their comedy.”

For instance, this period saw the emergence of the ‘equal opportunity offender’ as a rhetorical strategy in comedy, he says.

“When a white comedian ridicules one particular non-white group, today we think this is racist. But if the same comedian ridicules a number of groups, it’s comedy.”

During his research—which involved seven months of comedy classes—Pérez observed many such rules regarding how comedians of different races must go about engaging in racial discourse in different ways. A white comedian, for example, would be taught to preface a joke with a disclaimer or explanation—i.e. ‘I’m not racist, but…’—while an African American or Hispanic performer is able to address racial stereotypes boldly while still generating laughs.

He also found that the more marginalized minorities could deliver more offensive material without ruffling feathers, and that they were often pressured to play up stereotypes associated with their own race.

Ultimately, Pérez’s findings indicate that, though racial discourse is shifting in public, stand-up comedy is serving as a vehicle to keep certain stereotypes and racial hierarchies alive, even in a society that likes to think of itself as ‘colorblind.’

“Sociologists who study race say that the solution is to be ‘race-conscious’—that we need to notice race to see that racism persists,” he says. “Well, there are many popular comedians who ‘notice race,’ but the ways in which many of them do so is by reproducing conventional racial stereotypes of non-whites as buffoonish, inarticulate, stupid, and so on.”

“Many people believe these jokes are ‘just jokes,’ partly because of the strategic way that racial ridicule is generally delivered today by comics,” he adds. “In other words, racial comedy today helps reinforce notions of ‘post-racism,’ while simultaneously reproducing dominant racial stereotypes. Once you look at this form of popular racial humor critically, you realize that it’s no longer funny and that it’s more than ‘just a joke.’ If you don’t believe me, ask Dave Chappelle.”

Pérez was recognized for his work at the American Sociological Association in Chicago this past August. He is now an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Denver.

—Bria Balliet, School of Social Sciences

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