It's the top-rated local morning radio show -- two deejays bantering over coffee and the latest country hits. I was just pulling into the parking lot when one of the pair mentioned that two Italian astronauts were flying aboard the space shuttle.
"You can recognize them," he said, "by their pin-striped space suits and the violin cases they're carrying." His partner groaned and chuckled before cuing the traffic report. As a country music fan who has frequently confronted stereotypes about that demographic group, I headed for the phone. "Whose point of view was he representing?" I asked the station manager. "Can you assume that there are no Italian Americans in your audience? Even if there aren't, do you think it's OK to suggest that they're all gangsters?"
The manager was polite: "Thank you for taking the time to call. But don't you think we need to lighten up a little about this stereotype stuff?"
First it made me mad -- I guess I had wanted him to reprimand my offender. Then I asked myself if he might have a point. I've never trusted people who take themselves too seriously. Maybe my line of work had oversensitized me to even harmless wisecracks. ("How many multiculturalists does it take … ?") Maybe I had unwittingly joined the humor police. The idea had disturbing implications. I've read that among the first victims of totalitarianism are the comedians.
Ancient wisdom, modern science and Reader's Digest agree that laughter is good medicine -- it stretches our lungs, relieves tension, improves circulation and prompts our brains to release endorphins. In the social arena, laughter helps cement relationships and define common ground, and it's the surest sign of fun. The people we call "good-natured" are the ones who can laugh at propriety and adversity and other solemn targets, including themselves. Dictators fear laughter because it breaks boundaries and subverts authority and uncovers the truth. I almost decided the station manager was right.
But his reply was too easy.
Healthy laughter, of course, is only half the story. The other kind -- the laughter of stereotyping and ridicule -- is an implement of exclusion: A colleague tells an AIDS joke. A candidate for president comically mispronounces foreign names. A black comedian demeans women. A white supremacist newsletter publishes caricatures of blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians and Jews. I wonder if -- by small increments -- bad laughter can drive out good. "Lighten up" is great advice, as long as we can tell the difference.