The McBournie Minute: I’m moving to a new country

If I told a joke about someone a different race, religion, gender, etc. as me here, I might get some negative feedback. If I told a joke like that at work, it would be most likely a poor career move.

I’m not really one for that brand of humor anyway. Too much of it is misplaced. Humor is in misdirection and suprise, not in playing up stereotypes with bad impressions. (Hear that, Mencia?) So normally, I don’t think about this sort of thing, but last night, I had to.

I was out on the town, at an Irish Pub near me, watching Seamus Kennedy, an Irish folk singer (from Ireland, so you know he’s good) perform. It was there that I figured it out: foreigners can get away with way, way more than we Americans ever could. I’m not talking about the perceived white-people-can’t-make-jokes-anymore factor, just if you have an accent, you can say anything you want.

In the whole bar, there was one African American–from what I could see, anyway. Kennedy was interacting with the crowd, telling jokes, poking fun, as many entertainers do. After chatting briefly with the black man, he said, “If you had white hair, you’d look like a pint of Guinness.” It was one of the funniest things I heard all night.

Then I realized, part of it was that he was Irish, making a joke about an Irish beer, and incidentally, a man’s pigmentation. It wasn’t an insult, it wasn’t mean-spirited, it wasn’t a shot at anyone but that man, but still, I could never get away with saying that. Then again, I probably could not get away with a holocaust joke (no, it wasn’t about killing Jews), or gotten away with a song about farm animals with speech impediments, like he did.

So I have decided to move to another country, preferably one that speaks English, enjoys alcohol, and has money. Ireland meets the first two requirements, the third? Not so much. I’m open to suggestions on where I could go. I want to go someplace where I can say all the off-color things I want without fear of a public that’s afraid of itself. Oh, and no burning crosses.