Unfunny consequences of racist jokes
Earlier this month, I had my first experience with making a Facebook post go viral. Less than 24 hours after I posted it, I was on two separate TV stations explaining my indignation at Española jokes with racist and classist undertones published in the Santa Fe Reporter’s “7 Days” column (dated July 27 and Aug. 9).
My initial post was an in-the-moment utterance of exasperation, a call for others to contact the editor of the Santa Fe Reporter, Julie Ann Grimm, to ask for the behavior to stop or, if she felt moved, to apologize to the Española community.
Unfortunately, the editor’s response was not to acknowledge any wrongdoing, but to double down on the position that the posts were part of an irreverent take on the news, just another joke in a “longtime rivalry between Española and Santa Fe” and that Españolans are “making a mountain out of a molehill.”
Oooh! Challenge accepted! These comments gave me all the fodder I needed to start crafting my response. Cue the knuckle cracking as I placed my fingers on my keyboard to let the adrenaline-fueled admonition commence. This is the kind of Sundaymorning writing that really gets my blood pumping.
Rivalry? Let’s talk definitions. All things being equal, a rivalry is a competition for attainment in a similar objective. I can assure you that engaging in tired stereotypes and racist and classist tropes is not an area of attainment where our communities should want to compete or excel. In the way that we would interrupt racist, sexist, heterosexist or classist jokes on a day-to-day basis, we should interrupt couching racism as pithy irreverence. It’s a lazy shield for biases that we see right through.
Mountains out of molehills? I’ve currently got a burrowing animal on my property, and that booger is destructive as heck. It’s like an iceberg: You only see 10 percent of the damage in the molehill, but the rest is underground. So yeah, let’s talk and reanalyze this cliché so we can engage in real talk about the deep, entrenched systems of oppression that are embodied in racist and classist jokes. The complex burrows beneath molehills are what sink foundations, cause damage to structures, destroy crops and allow the emboldened critters to maneuver though your yard with ease, or we could say, structural privilege. (Ahem.) So yeah, we see molehills and understand
the damage they cause.
Now I was really going. I was on a roll. I brewed myself some coffee, prepared some writing snacks, and battened down the hatches at my computer for some serious rhetorical analysis. I was in for the long haul.
I knew I had to express that these “jokes,” while seemingly harmless to the persons of privilege uttering them, not only have a cumulative psychological impact on the communities they are aimed at, but also create a socio-cultural narrative that impacts investment, the allocation of resources and funds in those communities, in addition to other detrimental effects that only continue the cycle of hardships that are being mocked.
Or, I thought long and hard about how to explain that New Mexico sits at the intersection of several racial fault lines. We are a complex place, y’all. And it is outrageous for any publication to put down or condescend to a community of color, but this instance is particularly alarming since the Santa Fe Reporter followed up with, “For the record, that joke cost us neither time nor money” when confronted with objections from the Española community. No means no. Consent matters when avoiding all types of violence.
I knew I had to say all of that, but my coffee got cold and my brain started to get fuzzy. That happens sometimes when you write. I was feeling taxed and overwhelmed. We’ve got a lot of work to do in our community, and it takes a lot of effort to address topics that people dust off as “jokes.” These issues are hard to address. It makes you a lightning rod. I decided to take a break; I stood up from my desk to step away for a while. I started to talk myself down from my high horse; who am I to say this? Maybe it is “just a joke.”
Then I turned on the TV and saw what comes from not saying it.
After hearing about the racialized violence in Charlottesville, Va., I sat down and reframed. I am serious about addressing rhetorical violence being directed at my city, but I realized the continued pitting of Española against Santa Fe is also violence and “rivalries” keep us in opposition. We are not enemies; we are neighbors. We need to disrupt the binary.
Española doesn’t want a rivalry with Santa Fe; we want a relationship. And in case you haven’t noticed, we are already in one. In many ways, our relationship is strong and we are interdependent on one another. (We enjoy your nice grocery stores, and we hope you appreciate the fresh produce and lowrider shows.) In other ways, we are being abused, and you need to hear that. Hold it for a while. It’s heavy.
At the core, this “joke” issue is about equity and the disparities of wealth and racial privilege that exist between and among our two communities. It is about justice for a community that is regularly maligned, and we are asking for your support. Not just for Española’s good, but for all New Mexicans. Because Santa Fe (and Santa Fe Reporter, I’m looking at you), when it comes to addressing the entrenched inequities that impact our locations in the world, we need you, we believe you can do better, and we are here to work at it together. It might even include a few laughs.