Talking Story 
by Polo

From The Asian Reporter, V19, #23 (June 16, 2009), page 7.

In our neighborhoods back home, everybody knows better than to brawl with orang Viet. They won’t quit. No joke, ask anybody. China tried for 888 years, France tried for 80 more. So imagine our tongue-clucking when big but not so discerning America got in the middle of Viet Nam’s awful family fight. Everyone knew it would not end well. Not for anyone.

Down the road at Woodburn’s Company Stores, best beware of Korean aunties when outlet mall doors unlock early Saturday morning. They arrive in crack units, brows focused and elbows sharp. Not a kidder among them.

In our local Indo community, we think of our Ambones as a folk generous to a fault; we talk about bangsa Bali as a bit ethereal, we see our Javanen as plenty disciplined but utterly humorless. And no one would argue that my Manado homeboys don’t rule. Totally.

Ethnic kidding is normal in our neighborhoods. Indeed in the state of Hawai’i, arguably the heart of gado-gado Asian America, stand-up ethnic comedy is regular nightclub fare.

Sociologists say cultural teasing takes the edge off the national and cultural rub so characteristic of diverse communities — and it makes the emotional room necessary for acceptance. And creativity. But what do they know.

I know for sure that on the American mainland, ethnic humor is real risky. Only the brave, the drunk or stoned, dare go there. Them and of course, the Richard Pryor, Eddy Murphy, Chris Rock, line of jokers.

Margaret Cho is in that comedic tradition. She tells us: An airline attendant is working her way forward asking "Caesar or Asian Salad?" … "Caesar or Asian Salad?" … until she looks into Ms. Cho’s rice eyes and abruptly removes the racial attribute from her greens. Not funny if a white comedian tells it.

Last chilly November, Ahmed Ahmed and the Evil-Doers collective heated up downtown’s center for the performing arts by making fun of Muslim parents and Arab names and American fears. And here again, it was a total insider job. Hilarious. But no outsider would’ve gone there.

Compare aaall that, to this:

I’m in court in a state where cultural homogeneity matches its dairy products. We’re before a white judge sworn to the Anglo-American law, she’s hearing testimony from a white court counsellor in a contest between a white mother and a black father over their mixed son. You guess which of the parents our firm represents.

I try and fail and try and fail to enter critical psychological evidence of the importance of this kid’s African-American extended family, their urban black community, their cultural traditions. Opposing (white) counsel objects and prevails every time I begin to mouth "Afff …" or "blaa …" For a fleeting moment, to be funny, I’m thinking about using the word "Negro," thinking at least I’d get the unspeakable into the room — but then I figure I better not. Not a lot of ethnic kidding goes on in Wisconsin.

"If you bring up those matters one more time," her Honor warns me, "I’ll sanction you." She means money or jail.

So I ask our judge if we can approach the bench for a quicky conference, because I’m looking really stupid in front of our client — he’s not a great dad but he is a famous Chicago jazz man.

I do my doggone best to whisper to our tight-lipped judge how much an ethnic minority young man ("OBJECTION," shoots opposing counsel, six inches from my face) — particularly how much an African-American teen ("OBJECTION, YOUR HONOR") needs a healthy ethno-cultural context in order to grow up "black and beautiful" (thinking she’ll dig my Angela Davis impression) in an overwhelmingly white mainstream ("OBJECTION") unable to deal with ("OBJECTION") our differences.

That judge’s right hand tightens, whitens, around her oak gavel. Her eyes slide over to mine, focus on mine. "Back away, Counsel," she says. "I have ruled on this and I have warned you. Now sit down and proceed."

Colorblindness is real big among some folks. White ones. Particularly those with power. No joke.

So how do we take dread out of cross-cultural communications, and get fun back into our contemporary urban lexicon? Here are some guidelines. Rules require congressional hearings, meaningful notice, due process.

1. Don’t try it in court. Don’t even think about it if there are only two eth-o-nicks in the courtroom, lunchroom, living room, classroom. Any room. Not funny.

2. It’s okay among people of color. It’s cool in Honolulu or San Francisco or Umatilla or anywhere there’re lots of street names with a lot of vowels, among families equally disempowered.

3. Don’t make apprehensive folk feel afraid, particularly if those people have the power to make you or yours miserable (please see Number 1). This guideline gives birth to two obvious offspring:

3a. For reasons hard to imagine, American mainstreamers are afraid of many-many things. This is so even though the U.S. owns our precious planet’s stealthiest strategic air force and history’s most ferocious army. Ergo: no ethnic humor in high ambient anxiety contexts: bank lobbies, airport gates, boys’ bathrooms, staff meetings, suburban malls, government buildings of any kind.

3b. For reasons everyone knows in their bones, healthy families are safe places to laugh and cry. To fight like dogs then to ask for angelic forgiveness. For most Asians, Arabs, Africans, and American Latinos (the A-groups), family gets how you are, family knows you belong, so yukking it up over skin shade or eye shape or awful accent is fine.

Now, if your family does not know you, and does not obligate you to familial interdependency and loyalty — then it’s likely you’re one of America’s chronically scared. And if all that’s so, chances are: Owning the power to control our funny world is probably a bigger priority than wondering about Asian salad, Hawaiian pizza, or grumpy Korean aunties.

And it’s best to skip ethnic humor altogether (please see Number 3).

The alternative is this:

Make familia with us. Our kitchen table expands. Two moosie Samoans, one at each end will yank it apart, and a smart-aleck Somali college kid will slap a laminate plank in the middle. Voilà! Bigger family. Better Portland. More fun.

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