The Newsroom

I’m old enough to remember when I was a teenager and my friends, and I made jokes about everything that would likely get a laugh from our peers. I don’t know when humor first became part of the human experience, but I’ve read that in the late 1800s, some humor was found by archeologists in Iraq on ancient Sumerian clay tablets, circa 2000BC. The joke reads: “A dog walks into a bar and says, ‘I cannot see a thing. I’ll open this one.’” Scholars have studied the joke and didn’t get it, so they concluded that it may have been funny 4000 years ago, but it has not evolved very well.

That brings me to the current state of humor and how it has evolved in only a few decades. Most adults can remember when humor was acceptable as long as it could evoke laughter. Psychologists have tried to explain what exactly makes people laugh, and they learned that the concept of humor is elusive. In addition, depending on the individual’s temperament, a joke can cause a mere smirk, or it can result in explosive laughter. Comics used to be able to tap into any segment of human emotion in order to get their audience to respond with guffaws. One of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s was “All in the family.”

During the so called “Civil Rights Era,” tensions between blacks and whites erupted into rioting in the streets and many lost lives. All in the family dealt with the tensions by creating a bigoted character named Archie Bunker, who used various racial, ethnic, and gender pejoratives to illustrate the ignorance of using stereotypes to define people. The show illustrated how irrational and ignorant some people can be when their deep-seated prejudices are exposed. When Archie Bunker referred to blacks as “the coloreds,” or “you people,” he was showing his lack of refinement in ways that decent people would be loath to emulate. Although the show was a big hit, it also made Archie Bunker a name that has become synonymous with racists and bigots.

Moreover, it gave people a reason to laugh at that type of humor without feeling guilty. That’s because they were laughing at the ignorance of the main character, while not agreeing with his crude behavior. When Archie’s black next-door neighbor, George Jefferson, once began a sentence with “you people,” referring to whites, Archie’s response was, “whatta ya mean ‘you people?’” “You people are you people!” The irreverence of that show, which made a mockery of prejudice, created a bridge that allowed access to some of the taboos that had hitherto been inviolate. During those years, I was a cop, working in the Bedford/ Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, with my black partner, Leroy Spivey. “Hey Bob,” he said, “did you hear about the drunk white guy who was driving at 60 MPH and hit a black guy, sending his body flying about 30 feet down the road? When the cops came, they arrested the black guy for leaving the scene of an accident.” We both laughed hysterically at the absurdity of the joke, while recognizing that there was some validity to it.

Neither that joke, nor “All in the family” would be acceptable today. It seems that people have become much too sensitive about words or actions that once elicited belly laughs. That sensitivity was amply demonstrated at the 2022 Academy Awards, when Will Smith walked onstage and slapped comedian Chris Rock for a comment he made about Smith’s wife. The audience initially laughed at the joke, before Smith’s reaction to it was met with boos and groans from the astonished onlookers. Although Smith did a mea culpa some weeks later, the violence against humor was a foreboding message about the future of comedy.

During the recent campaign for President, Donald Trump often used derisive humor during his very well-attended rallies. Whether he was mimicking President Biden’s clumsiness when walking or climbing stairs, or using sarcastic references to Kamala Harris’s intelligence, Democrats and the MSM media characterized him as offensive, crude, and even cruel. Yet, they didn’t seem to mind calling Trump “Hitler, fascist, dictator,” or other hyperbolic appellations. I suppose the difference between humor and gross exaggeration is that jokes can be backed up by some connection to reality. During President Reagan’s presidency, humor was present at every one of his speeches. I’ll never forget that Mic Drop moment during his 1984 campaign against Walter Mondale.

When the moderator mentioned Reagan’s age compared to his opponent, Reagan’s comeback became legendary. “I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Even Mondale couldn’t help joining the audience in raucous laughter. During the enormous stress of such campaigns, humor can be the soothing ointment that brings people together. With politics dividing us, causing fear, anguish, and other emotional conflict, our country needs humor now more than ever.