Racist Obama Jokes: Can Jokes Be Told About a Black President and Not Be Racist?

Comedy Can Be a Social Lens

How many racist Obama jokes have you heard? Not too many, one would hope. Still, they're out there, circulating on the internet and in the break rooms, the coffee shops and the churches, the taverns and the living rooms of America. But get ready, because if you haven't heard but a few, there will soon be plenty more.

And don't expect racist Obama jokes to come from the national media, unless, of course, a shock jock like Don Imus slips up and calls the First Lady a "nappy-headed" you-know-what. Don't expect someone like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity to utter anything but pure circumspect racial innuendo, thereby skating a racist charge with their conservative verbalizations concerning race that can only be snickered at by the most coarse and asinine. And you won't see David Letterman or Jay Leno going into that territory, either.

But will there be a more politically correct form of joke-telling?

With a black president (Andrew Young, former ambassador to the United Nations, said on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" that Barack Obama was a "multiracial" president), the question must be asked: Does the fact that Barack Obama -- who happens to be a little more dark-skinned than any of his predecessors in the White House - is a black man change the dynamics of the telling of a joke about the president?

The answer should be: No, it does not. It should not matter. The joke should depend on the content material and have nothing to do with race other than what is socially acceptable.

For example, Conan O'Brien of "Late Night," while Senator Obama was campaigning in Iowa, quipped: "Over the weekend, Senator Barack Obama announced he's running for president ... Obama gave a speech in front of thousands of people in Iowa. During the speech, Obama pointed out his family in the crowd, which was unnecessary since he was in Iowa."

O'Brien's joke is socially acceptable and race-referent at the same time. However, it is not racially denigrating in any way. It is in reference to Iowa's predominantly white demographics and how few blacks there are in Iowa.