OPINION:
One of the positives of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been the large dent the Donald has made in the movement to render everything politically correct. A large dent but, alas, not a fatal dent. Many people clearly have not got the memo.
Hillary Clinton is taking heat for a skit that she and Mayor Bill de Blasio put on Saturday night at a dinner in Manhattan. Some people called it “racially insensitive.” She walked onto the stage at the annual Inner Circle dinner and teased His Honor for “taking so long” to endorse her campaign for president. “Sorry Hillary,” Mr. de Blasio replied, “I was running on ’CP’ time.”
There were groans on cue. “CP” was taken as shorthand for “colored people’s time.” Leslie Odom Jr., a black actor who plays Aaron Burr in the Broadway smash hit “Hamilton,” pretended to be offended. “I don’t like jokes like that, Bill.” Hillary then stepped up to save the day. “’Cautious politician time,’” she said. “I’ve been there.”
Nearly everyone who was there, politicians, power brokers and reporters, laughed. But the joke soon made its way to social media, and the media, ever on the scout for scandal, leaped into action. The New York Daily News headlined it “Skit for Brains” on the front page. New York magazine, referring to the mayor’s African-American spouse, asked the mayor: “Does your wife, Chirlane, know about this joke?” Certain liberal journalists called it “cringe worthy.”
Mayor de Blasio, showing a sense of humor he usually keeps well hidden, defended it as “clearly a staged event.” He told CNN News that “people are missing the point here.” A Clinton spokesman said the campaign “agreed with the mayor.” But even one Republican blog site affected to be offended. “Now just imagine,” quoth GOPUSA, the blog site, “if a few conservative candidates did the same skit and talked about ’colored people time.’ Do you think it would be the same reaction and press coverage?”
Well, probably not. The media has no patience with satire and irreverence not its own, but has deep respect for cliches and stereotypes. Bill Clinton himself earned a reputation years ago in Arkansas for always showing up late, and when he got to Washington this was called “Clinton Standard Time.” He took frequent chiding for importing a bad habit from the old South.
The ability to recognize a joke, and take it with good grace and high humor, was once the norm in America and in politics, and ethnic stereotypes were often exploited. Fred Allen was once the most popular comic in the golden age of radio, poking affectionate fun at stereotypes, with characters like Titus Moody, the skinflint New Englander; Mrs. Nussbaum, the Jewish busybody; Falstaff Openshaw, the pompous intellectual, and of course, Sen. Beauregard Claghorn, the buffoonish senator who was so Southern he wouldn’t go near Yankee Stadium and only went to the Polo Grounds to watch the old New York Giants on the days a southpaw was pitching. Later on, the black comic Flip Wilson resurrected old Amos ’n’ Andy material to play a little dress-up as “Geraldine,” a snippy gossip.
Laughter was prized and nearly everybody laughed at the human foibles everyone is heir to, and offense was taken only when somebody felt left out of the joke. Hillary Clinton will never be anyone’s comedienne (if we’re allowed to use the feminine for “comedian”) and the joke she and the mayor indulged was only mildly clever, and of course we didn’t laugh, but cringed. Everyone else should chill out, and give the lady a break. She needs it.
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