I'm speaking here of where the people involved believe they are in private small-group purely social situations, completely insulated from anyone's commercial or professional lives or any sort of public forum, and mistakenly assume from context that everyone present is sufficiently like-minded (or at least sufficiently indifferent) that they feel free to make unguarded comments and jokes reflecting their true mindset. I'm NOT speaking here of the sort of openly racist jackasses who don't give a crap about offending people with racist jokes and huge confederate flags in the rear-windows of their pickup trucks; rather, I'm speaking of otherwise respectable upper-middle class professionals and business folks (many of whom are "pillars of their community" types who carefully avoid showing any overt signs of racism in their professional and business lives).
You may ask: how exactly did these folks "mistakenly" assume I was like-minded enough to be comfortable telling a viciously racist joke about Michelle Obama to a small group in which I was present? [more after the fold]
You may ask: how exactly did these folks "mistakenly" assume I was like-minded enough to be comfortable telling a viciously racist joke about Michelle Obama to a small group in which I was present? a) I was "invited" into this group by a mutual friend, without any misrepresentation or attempt to go "incognito" about my progressive political nature; b) the friend who "invited" me is one whom I was close friends with through childhood until sometime during our college years, when we fell out of contact for three decades until I recently came across him and we rekindled our friendship. My discomfort isn't simply about how to handle this aspect of an otherwise still-fine, enjoyable friend, but rather the reason he felt comfortable bringing me into this wingnut circle: we both came from a very similar small-deep-southern town background, and when he knew me back then, it dawned on me that my mindset was still very similar to what his apparently is now. (I did, after all, vote for Nixon in 1972 - my own sea change in outlook toward the progressive end came about a year later). Because our basic personalities hadn't changed on the surface and we had such an easy time hitting it off again after all these years...well, I hadn't expected him to turn out to be a wingnut any more than he expected me to go the other way.
My friend did not exactly tell me the "joke" himself. Rather, we traded email addresses, and he soon included me on a handful of private email lists (each with one to two dozen of his various friends from various places) whose apparent purpose was to swap funny absurd situations, jokes, interesting stuff, etc. There had been a few heavy-handed anti-Obama jokes and remarks traded within a couple of these email lists, but I let 'em go, since most of the emails were generic funny (sometimes corny) stuff. I realized that getting bogged down in political debate with this crowd in this setting would be as productive as spitting into the wind, and would wind up cutting me off from my old friend, whom I could more productively engage face to face over a couple of beers next time. But then came the joke about Michelle Obama (told by someone else, but passed on by my friend).
The joke goes (original with photos that undoubtedly are all subject to copyright, so they're not relayed here):
I was at the store yesterday, and I ran into Tarzan! I asked him how it was going, and had he been in any more movies recently.
[Picture of Tarzan in jungle]
He told me that he could no longer make any more movies as he had severe arthritis in both shoulders and could no longer swing from vine to vine.
[Picture of Tarzan with Jane]
I asked how Jane was doing, and he told me she was in bad shape, in a nursing home, has Alzheimers, and no longer recognizes anyone. How sad.
[Picture of Tarzan, Jane, and Boy with Cheetah in background]
I asked about Boy, and he told me that Boy had gone to the big city, got hooked up with bad women, drugs, and alcohol and the only time he ever heard from him was if he was in trouble or needed something.
[Picture of Tarzan, Jane, and Cheetah with Cheetah prominently in foreground]
I asked about Cheetah, he beamed and said she was doing good, had married a Lawyer, changed her hair style, and was now living in the White House!
[Side-by-side pictures of:
- Cheetah with hugely pursed lips
- Michelle Obama with pursed-lip expression]
I'm not sure at all how to deal with this:
a) break off the friendship;
b) find as constructive a way to confront him about it, in as likely productive a setting as possible;
c) ignore it, because he's not going to change, and I'm only going to see him very occasionally anyway
(?)
BTW: he is one of my VERY best friends from childhood, someone I'd long-regretted losing touch with. And he is a very fine fellow, other than being right-wingey politically...but the part reflected in the M. Obama joke (even though he didn't exactly tell it himself) is...discomforting to say the least.
The large majority of genteel folks I'm referring to would NOT themselves make the sort of unguarded mistake that George Allen did in his "macaca" moment, or SC-Gov candidate Jake Knotts "raghead" remarks. Nonetheless, the fact that Allen and Knotts socially swim in a private mileu of superficially genteel people who carefully avoid saying or doing anything racist-tinged in public gatherings or their business/professional lives, but who in private small-group settings accept such jokes being told in their midst, are facilitators for the likes of George Allen or Jake Knotts, who do one day slip up in a public forum. And I worry that unless I find a way to deal with my friend, I become an unwilling accomplice to this mindset.