The Unified State of America

You know the line, "Ain't nobody here but us chickens"?  A hipster used it, and I asked if he knew the joke.  He did not.  My dad told it in the 60s, but it's from minstrel-show days, as far back as the 1830s.  Someone was stealing a Southern farmer's chickens, and one night he hears a big commotion in the coop.  Gets his shotgun, goes out and says, "Come on out or I'll blast you."  Silence.  Says it again, and again.  Maybe he shoots into the air.  And from inside the coop, in Amos and Andy dialect, "Ain't nobody here but us chickens, boss!"  A racial joke -- the thief being very stupid.  

Bill Cosby said of the TV show, Amos and Andy, "It was very funny.  And we knew we had to get it off the air."  It wasn't racist, in my opinion, at all.  But as with all dialect and ethnic humor, it exploited stereotypes.  That of course is what very much humor does, but this was and remains a sensitive topic, so the broad social interests were not to be ignored.  Along my ongoing journey toward maturity, I am coming to understand that not everything that can be said, even if true, needs to be said.  

Remember the line, "What you mean 'we', white man."  I looked it up, via the convenience of the Internet.  A Bill Cosby joke.  The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by redskins.  "Well Tonto, looks like we're done for."  "What you mean 'we', white man?"  Again, a racial joke, the humor of which hangs on the presumption and rejection of subservient identification.  

You understand and approve the conditions governing your presence in this State.  You must submit to all inspections of physical, emotional and verbal hygiene.  You must at all times carry on your person proof of responsible social and medical conformity -- your Cards, or in your device. You must follow all posted and non-posted regulations. You will contemn all proscribed epithets and attitudes.  Failure to comply will result in loss of employment, reputation, courtesy, and permission to participate in any public gathering of more than three subjects.  You will conform.  You will obey.  

Remember that old line?  Went something like, "Live free or die."  Remember that joke? -- don't quite recall it, but the punchline was, "give me liberty, or give me death."  Well, that's the kind of thoughtless humor we just don't accept anymore.  Its time has passed.  Inappropriate for our frankly superior sensibilities.  Not cool.  Anyway, it's 'live free and die'.  It's 'give me liberty and death'.

J