Back in College, my husband and I were obsessed with the show Scrubs. We would get together in his room with some take-out and watch episode after episode. Oh, good times.
In one of the early ones, Nurse Carla Espinoza, who is Dominican on the show, is condescendently called “Nurse Fajita” by one rude patient. This was SO hilarious, that the joke has lived on. I shared it with one of my friends recently, and she brought it back up after lunch today. She just couldn’t get enough of it. We went on to make fun of Nurse Fortune Cookie, or Nurse Chow Fun. We were clearly poking fun at this racial reference to ethnic foods in what was an insulting context on the show… but we laughed anyway.
My friend, who is of Philipino descent, asked why it seemed like more and more racial jokes have crossed over from the Taboo-zone of long lost inappropriate jokes, to our Earthly plane. I proceeded to share my theory with her:
In my home country there is a wide mix of races. There is no real clear distinction between black and white (most people are mixed), and racism is simply the farthest issue from our minds. Sounds too good to be true, huh? But that is how it is in most countries. So what does that kind of open and non-judgmental atmosphere do for the plane of acceptable jokes? The result is that it’s all fair game. I remember growing up having a black teacher whose skin was so dark, we would constantly make up names for him related to the color of his skin. It was of course no more acceptable and no less rude than calling a teacher any other name, but it never had a “racist” connotation. It was just plain rude.
In other cases, the color of someone’s skin is used to create terms of endearement. In fact, “mi negro” or “mi negrita” are two of the most used pet names in the Spanish language, which literally mean “my black man” and “my little black woman”, respectively (you don’t even have to be of African descent to use these).
TV shows in such countries are filled with stereotypical representations of other nationalities. I grew up watching hilarious skits where bakery-owning portuguese immigrants and pizza-shop owning italians would get into all sorts of trouble. Clearly racial, never racist.
I remember coming to this country being completely color-blind. It is very sad that over the past ten years I have been bombarded with “white vs black” connotations everywhere, and now I understand the animosity between the races. After all, blacks are constantly profiled and put in a terrible light by the media. At the same time, blacks continuously cry “racism” at the drop of a hat. We are the ones who make ourselves different by profiling ourselves and creating separate communities according to race. Why can’t we all consider one another part of the same community, even when we don’t share the same historical background?
Racism is simply destructive and unproductive. Case in point: I know of a certain school (name, city and state, shall remain nameless), where the student population was mostly black and hispanic, that purposely put black students in the same Spanish class as native speakers of the same grade, even though the black students were only at beginner level. Logic dictates that you should split students in language courses by skill level, but the school principal (who was black, if you must know) refused to do so, for fear of giving the impression that the black students were being segregated. The result was a class period full of students of varying skill levels where the teacher struggled to implement two different curriculums at once, in an impossible attempt to challenge every student, and not bore one half while discouraging the other. The only ones who suffered in this nonsense were the students, who were deprived of the opportunity to develop their full potential.
But I digress… we were talking about humor, right?
Nowadays we are starting to see more and more racial jokes become more acceptable on US TV. Does this make us more racist than before? Or are we really starting to enjoy each others’ differences and adding a little more humor to our lives?
The show Scrubs has gone a long way at helping whites poke fun at blacks, and blacks to do the same to whites. Add an over-the-top Dominican nurse, and you got yoursellf the most racially progressive show on television.
How do you think the US is doing in terms of race?
ina