After sharing a rather harmless email funny fwd with the flower child, the other youngin’ appears with a printed copy of same. (guilty — I forwarded it). The jokes, “learn chinese in 5 min.” poke fun at the translation and you have to read them aloud. e.g. + Did you go to the beach? ……..Wai Yu So Tan + Your body odor is offensive …….Yu Stin Ki Pu + He’s cleaning his automobile ….. Wa Shing Ka.

Older sibling cautions younger sibling not to take those to school and young guy nods understanding. I realized that these kids have been fully indoctrinated on issues of racial sensitivities. Heck, when I was a school type we were just then getting the clue that laughing at black jokes was taboo. Italian and Pollack (er, uh — polish) jokes were okay though.

The topic dovetails nicely with my current nightstand read. (see my blog on Aug 31) In about 1860, Chinese peoples were performing nearly half of California’s low end menial jobs. Subsistence wage seasonal farming, ditch digging and railroad work. I remember my father showing me an early California livestock fence, constructed entirely of loose stone and rock. ‘The coolies built this…’. My book is giving me a flavor taste of what the climate was like. The economy or job employment at time was cyclically tough, as it is today. These laborers took the heat for it by whites and politians alike. They were recognized as a ‘problem’. I’m reading an excerpt from page 166 of an early Bureau of Labor Statistics report commissioned by the U.S. government circa 1883. The Chinese were thought to have been stealing jobs from whites, as they would eagerly work for less. The twisted logic of the author suggested: “Again, a protective tariff of the kind that I have referred to would affect the American laborer most beneficially. It would raise the Chinaman’s cost of living, thereby causing an increase in his pay, and in that manner the difference between the Mongolian’s and the white man’s wage would be lessened, and the latter would be the better able to compete with him.” (!)

Much of this kind of talk became actual law on the books. Witness: The Chinese Exclusion Actof 1892. The 1913 Alien Land Act. The 1922 Immigration Act. The verbiage contained therein is absolutely pathetic and unbelievable. It becomes clear why the backlash and furor over racial jokes and humor. Political types learned about 20 years ago that it is now political suicide to make raciest jokes in any context. This lesson has been passed on to our children. + That’s not right ……… Sum Ting Wong. + And yet, we still silently laugh at them, albeit with a tinge of guilt and remorse.