Racism in Comedy

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Racism in comedy
This essay is going to discuss about racism in comedy and in addition to that it is also going to look at whether it is acceptable for comedians to use certain racial words for example when black comedians use the word “Nigger”. Also it is going to look at how different audience put up with this kind of material, but first of all it is going to look at the actual word itself and where in the blue marble that we call earth it originated from.

Make no mistake that slave owners came up with the word Nigger and it was only supposed to mean an individual, who is lazy, unwise, and good for nothing, but somewhere along the history lines of slavery the N word began to be used more as racial insult against the non-white Americans of that era. It would also be irrational for one to assume or to contemplate that slaves did not poke fun at their masters after a hard working day at the cotton plantations. That is why for that reason it should come to no surprise that the black African Americans invented comedy back during the slavery era. It is believed that “slaves were treated with favour for putting smiles on their master’s face by the way they performed and slave masters would take turns to send their slave performers off to a neighbouring plantation to amuse another family, as well as showing off the talented darkie the senders posed”(Littleton, 2006.p.7).

The N word has also been used to cause offense even to the non-black racial groups, for instance Jews have been called the white niggers; Arabs have been called the sand niggers and Japanese have also been called the yellow niggers. Back then the American country was dived into two halves meaning to say the whites were on top of the chain and the blacks were on the ve...

... middle of paper ...

...word should be used by comedians or not, the answer is it depends with the comedian or the person who is using the word after all it is just a word with different meanings to it.

to conclude this essay the origins of the N word and how it got to be used was looked at and who helped in bringing the word into modern day comedy and also how blacks and whites formed a long term relationship In order for them to be sharing stages even to this day.

Bibliography
• Helitzer, M (1992). COMEDY WRITING SECRETS. United States Of America: Library of congress. 17-103.
• . King, G (2002). FILM COMEDY. London: Wallflower Press. 7-152.
• Cashmore, E (1997). The Black Culture Industry. New York: ROUTLEDGE 5-134.
• Newland, P (2010). DON'T LOOK NOW. United States Of America: Intellect Ltd. 34-88.
• Littleton,D (2006). BLACKCOMEDY. New York: Library of congress . 4-120.

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