Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

• Leviticus 19:15

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

• James 2:1-4

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.

• Acts 10:34-35

“The car of Rabbi Golden was stopped at the traffic light, waiting for the red to change to green, when the coupe driven by Father Mitchell crashed into him.
“At once, traffic cop Kelley hastened over. ‘Well now, father … How fast would you say the good rabbi was going when he backed into you?’”

• Leo Rosten, Leo Rosten’s Giant Book of Laughter

I use a bit of trepidation in using this joke and this book.  The book was published in 1985.  Leo Rosten (1908-1997) was born in Russia, but a part that is now Poland.  He was a social scientist, author, and humorist.  But he was also a Yiddish lexicographer, having been raised in a Yiddish speaking part of Russia (at the time) and moving to America at a young aged, living among other Jewish families in New York City, all speaking Yiddish.  Several of his books were about the young Yiddish man coming of age, and of course needing a translator at times.

I said “trepidation” in that someone might want to take his books and burn them because they are offended.

But the beauty of this joke (offensive from a religious point of view and an ethnic point of view) is universal so that whoever you wish to offend, you just change the names and occupations of the three characters.  You could turn it into a blue-collar versus white collar situation.  Maybe not nearly as funny, but if you are offended, you would not see the humor anyway.

But here we have the Jewish person obeying the law, and the Catholic priest, maybe even an Irish Catholic priest hitting a car that was basically parked.  Then, the Irish, probably Irish Catholic since he says “father”, asks the priest about the rabbi backing into him.

I have heard other jokes that changed the situation entirely.  The point is that the policeman shows partiality to the group of people that the cop identifies with.

The Scriptures say that God does not do that, and He demands that we should not do that.  The mechanics of this type of joke is that we feel a bit uncomfortable about the circumstances, but at the same time, we can relate.  Juxtaposition of the scenario, creating a surprise punchline, is what makes this joke funny.

What makes it offensive at the same time is that we will always have one group of people trying to get the upper hand over another group of people.  If they convince people that they have been oppressed, the narrative flips and the oppressor becomes the oppressed and the oppressed becomes the oppressor.  All critical theory is garbage in that, in their view, one stays the oppressor while the other stays the oppressed.  You cannot beat someone to a pulp and claim the one being beaten was the oppressor.  Even if that person oppressed anyone, two wrongs do not make a right.

But there are two groups, during my lifetime, that have simply decided not to be offended.  The Yiddish made money telling jokes on the Yiddish people.  And the person who wrote at least ten volumes of Texas Aggie Jokes (Texas A&M) was a Texas aggie himself.  The jokes were going to be told, why not make some money in the process?

Another instance of using a stereotype and getting buy-in with the audience was a fairly old comedy routine by Bob Newhart.  He sets up the driving instructor’s job being a hard one.  He places a chair on stage and he says that the student driver is a woman.  There is a chorus of “boo” from the audience.  He laughs his little patented nervous laugh (or maybe he should have patented it).  He excuses himself and says that it seems he had hit a nerve.  He would change it to a Chinese student driver.  He sits on the chair and turns to his left and starts speaking in what might have been Chinese.  After about a minute of this, he stops.  He apologizes.  He said the entire routine that he has been doing for decades won’t work for a Chinese driver.  He was switching back to the woman driver.  Just as “offensive” as before, but now no one gives him the boo-bird.  They are relieved that they will know what he is saying.

But the entire routine is made funny by the inflection of his voice.  If you have tried to learn any of a number of Asian languages or dialects, inflection is key.  Changing the inflection changes the word entirely.  I had a trainee in Shanghai one time who spelled his name “L-V”.  No one in class would say his name.  I had to guess at what he meant.  So, I said his name was Lu, but with the “U” I quickly reduced the tone and then increased it back.  If you try that, practice it a lot or you might hurt yourself.  The class erupted in laughter, but Mr. Lv was attentive all of the two weeks because I had figured it out and I tried.  But back to the Newhart routine, at one point, he tells the student to turn right.  Then says stop, then louder stop, then Stop, then STOP.  Then the nervous laugh for a while, “never mind stopping, the tree did it for us.  And it was all my fault.  I meant turn at the intersection, not into this guy’s front lawn.”  Then he rolls down a fake side window and yells, “Same to you, fella!” No, that would have gotten lost in translation with a Chinese student.

But there is clearly a case of prejudice on the policeman’s viewpoint.  And the police have been given a bad rap lately.  Most of them, maybe even nearly all, try to do their job fairly while the tiny fraction that are prejudiced get all the media attention.

Remember that if the media ever had nothing but good news, they would lose advertising dollars.  Thus, the media would not think twice about failing to mention the good, while headlining the minor issue which blows things out of proportion.  Why?  It sells airtime.

But what can we do about it in our daily lives?  We can take a step back and see how we deal with other people.  If we do not have their best interests at heart, we will favor our own interests, which compound the stereotypes.

In other words, we need to love one another.

And yes, I have been roasted for things that I did wrong, or were taken out of context for the humorous quality of the story.  The honorable man simply laughs at his own mistakes.  Once, I got up at the roasting, and I said, “They give the one being roasted a chance at a rebuttal, but some of these stories were at least partially true.”  And that line got the best laugh of the night.

And I hope to use another joke from this book tomorrow afternoon, but tomorrow’s joke involves two people of the same denomination.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.