What I said, again.

[Jonathan Lighter]

How about, "I'm white. [Pause.] My husband doesn't think so" ?

Funny? Racist? Surreal?   I don't pretend to have all the answers.

JL

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 3:29 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      What I said, again.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Spoken by an aspiring comedienne on Comedy Central:
>
> "I'm white. [almost-imperceptible pause]. My husband is Jewish."
>
> It got a decent laugh.
>
> Of course, "I'm white. My [significant other] is [in some sense,
> NOT-white]" lends itself to pre-interpretation on any number of
> levels, here in "post-racial" America. Indeed, even if the speaker in
> this instance had said only,
>
> "I'm white. [almost-imperceptible pause] My husband is white."
>
> it's very likely that the audience would have laughed just as hard,
> since, having primed itself to hear some form of [NOT-white], the
> audience would still have been caught with its prejudices hanging out.
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> –Mark Twain
>
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