http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdbGnJ52fjc
The link above is to a clip of Gabriel Iglesias doing a part of his stand-up. In the clip he talks about giving a "racist" gift basket to his black friend anonymously. The racist things in the gift basket are things that would supposedly be items that a black person would enjoy. Gabriel himself is latino and makes a joke at the end about how if his black friend would have given him a pinata stuffed with burritos and tacos he would have thanked him for it.
This situation turned out to be a funny one for both of them, but I wonder if there would have been a different interaction between them if Gabriel had been white. If Gabriel would have been black would this have not been as funny as just been more of an acceptable joke between them? I also want to ask....what type of items would you put in a white person's basket?
If you haven't ever seen this guy's other stuff it's really funny. This was an interesting story and it seemed that it was even okay for the person getting the gift basket until he saw the card with the three ghosts with sheets on. That changed his perception of the basket as a gift of things he liked into a derogatory racial insult. Many stereotypes can be confirmatory in nature, especially if one only uses a singular example of a person they saw that fit the stereotype. It is generally okay in comedy that we inflate stereotypes to make fun of them, but when people use the point to reinforce their prejudice attitudes it becomes an issue.
I also noticed the antilocution example in here where Gabriel and his friend were asking store employees to help them make the basket and they were more than willing to give their input. It reminded me of a time when I was working in a bookstore and a guy cam in asking me for a copy of Mein Kampf (My Struggle) by Adolf Hitler. I took him to the section to get him a copy and he asked if I ever read it. I told him no but stated that my friend had to for a class he was in. Apparently this was enough of a window where he felt comfortable to start talking about his White supremacist beliefs and asking me questions about my stance. I replied that I did not feel comfortable discussing such issues with him and asked him if he needed anything else. That was the end of the encounter and he left the store shortly after. I'm unsure how my statement about my friend reading the book made him feel okay with divulging his beliefs but I guess it shows how easily people will expose underlying prejudice if they feel they are in a comfortable situation.
I can't say if the interaction between Gabriel and his friend would have been different if he was White. Seeing as they were friends, it probably wouldn't have been much different for the two of them, but people's perception of the story may have changed. Also items that might be found in a white person's basket include:
Coffee, organic food, a yoga DVD, beer from a local microbrewery, an outfit for 80s night, a copy of Steven Colbert's I am America and So Can You!, a gift card to a sushi restaurant, vintage clothes, New Balance shoes, shorts, and macaroni and cheese. (Most of these were obtained from the Stuff White People Like website; for a full list of stuff white people like, go to http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/full-list-of-stuff-white-people-like/).
I have been thinking about what I would put in a white persons basket since we talked about it in class. Like we said there it is hard to place things for white people. Dans list seems like it would be good for a sort of upper middle class white guy. When I came up with lists I broke them down by different national origins or by different parts of the country, all stereotypes of course. Here are my examples.
South west: Cowboy boots, any product made of cactus, A jar of sand, a very large stake.
Pacific Northwest: Coffee, indi rock cd, organic food, and the basket would be a recycling bin
French: Old cheese, bottle of wine, an anti religion sticker, a sauce recipe book.
British: fish and chips, Indian food, a soccer ball, Eddie Izzard cd, old empire map.
I could keep going but that seems like enough for stereotyping for tonight.