Postracialism pervades public discourse and positions race and racism as ancient history with little bearing on contemporary culture. This orientation impedes discourse on race in education, politics, media, and the workplace. As a consequence, postracialism thwarts the articulation of a successful politics of race and prevents movement toward racial justice. This essay identifies racial humor as an important site that might disrupt the impasse created by postracialism. Discussions of race have become labored in public discourse but humor has the capacity to counter the consequences of postracial ideologies. This essay considers the work of Stephen Colbert and his implicit critique of postracialism and Whiteness from the position of a White, male who ostensibly advocates postracialism. Although humor is always subject to varied interpretation, his political satire can be used to affirm progressive race-consciousness, reflect on the influence of racial constructions throughout history, expose White privilege, and refute reactionary White victim narratives.
America makes history. (2008, November5). USA Today, p. A1.
2.
BaumgartnerJ.MorrisJ. S. (Ed.). (2008a). Laughing matters: Humor and American politics in the media age. New York, NY: Routledge.
3.
BaumgartnerJ.MorrisJ. S. (2008b). One “nation,” under Stephen? The effects of The Colbert Report on American youth. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 52, 622-643.
4.
BaymG. (2010). From Cronkite to Colbert: The evolution of broadcast news. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
5.
BellD. (1992). Racial realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24, 363-379.
6.
Bonilla-SilvaE. (2010). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States (3rd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
7.
Bonilla-SilvaE.RayV. (2009). When Whites love a Black leader: Race matters in Obamerica. Journal of African American Studies, 13, 176-183.
8.
BoskinJ. (Ed.). (1997). The humor prism in 20th-century America. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
9.
ColbertS. (2008, August). I am a martyr (and so can you!): A guide to White male victimhood. Esquire, 150, 68-74.
10.
ColbertS.DahmR.DinelloP.SilvermanA. (Ed.). (2007). I am America (and so can you!). New York, NY: Grand Central.
11.
ColbertS.StewartJ. (Executive Producers). (2007, February8). Interview: Debra Dickerson [Television series segment]. The Colbert Report. New York, NY: Comedy Central.
12.
ColbertS.StewartJ.SilvermanA. (Executive Producers). (2008, February26). Interview: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. [Television series segment]. The Colbert Report. New York, NY: Comedy Central.
13.
ColbertS.StewartJ.SilvermanA. (Executive Producers). (2009, January20). Stephen realizes he’s black [Television series segment]. The Colbert Report. New York, NY: Comedy Central.
14.
ConnerlyW. (2000). Creating equal: My fight against race preferences. San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books.
15.
CrenshawC. (1997). Resisting whiteness’ rhetorical silence. Western Journal of Communication, 61, 253-278.
16.
CritchleyS. (2002). On humour. New York, NY: Routledge.
17.
DayA. (2011). Satire and dissent: Interventions in contemporary political debate. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
18.
D’souzaD. (1995). The end of racism. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
19.
DuffyM. E. (2003). Web of hate: A fantasy theme analysis of the rhetorical vision of hate groups online. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 27, 291-312.
20.
FeaginJ. R. (2010). The White racial frame: Centuries of racial framing and counter-framing. New York, NY: Routledge.
21.
FeaginJ. R.O’BrienE. (2003). White men on race: Power, privilege, and the shaping of cultural consciousness. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
22.
FineM. (1997). Witnessing whiteness. In FineM.WeisL.PowellL. C.Mun WongL. (Eds.), Off white: Readings on race, power, and society (pp. 57-65). New York, NY: Routledge.
23.
FloresL. A.MoonD. G.NakayamaT. K. (2006). Dynamic rhetorics of race: California’s Racial Privacy Initiative and the shifting grounds of racial politics. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 3, 181-210.
24.
FoxxR.MillerN. (1977). The Redd Foxx encyclopedia of Black humor. Pasadena, CA: Ward Ritchie Press.
25.
GavrilosD. (2010). White males lose presidency for first time: Exposing the power of whiteness through Obama’s victory. In HarrisH. E.MoffittK. R.SquiresC. R. (Eds.), The Obama effect: Multidisciplinary renderings of the 2008 campaign (pp. 3-15). Albany: State University of New York Press.
26.
GoldbergD. T. (2009). The threat of race: Reflections on racial neoliberalism. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
27.
GrossbergL. (2010). Cultural studies in the future tense. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
28.
HagginsB. (2007). Laughing mad: The Black comic persona in post-soul America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
29.
HagginsB. (2009). In the wake of “The Nigger Pixie”: Dave Chappelle and the politics of crossover comedy. In GrayJ.JonesJ. P.ThompsonE. (Eds.), Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the post-network era (pp. 233-251). New York: New York University Press.
30.
HallS. (1986). Gramsci’s relevance for the study of race and ethnicity. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 10(2), 5-27.
31.
HallS. (1997). Representation: Cultural representation and signifying practices. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
32.
HarimanR. (2008). Political parody and public culture. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 94, 247-272.
33.
HartiganJ.Jr. (2010). What can you say? America’s national conversation on race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
34.
JonesJ. P. (2009). Entertaining politics: Satiric television and political engagement (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
35.
JonesJ. P.BaymG. (2010). A dialogue on satire news and the crisis of truth in postmodern political television. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 34, 278-294.
36.
JosephR. L. (2009). “Tyra Banks is fat”: Reading (post-)racism and (post-)feminism in the new millennium. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 26, 237-254.
37.
KercherS. (2006). Revel with a cause: Liberal satire in postwar America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
38.
LacyM.OnoK. A. (Ed.). (2011). Critical rhetorics of race. New York: New York University Press.
39.
LaMarreH. L.LandrevilleK. D.BeamM. A. (2009). The irony of satire: Political ideology and the motivation to see what you want to see in The Colbert Report. International Journal of Press/Politics, 14, 212-231.
40.
LópezI. F. H. (2007). “A nation of minorities”: Race, ethnicity, and reactionary colorblindness. Stanford Law Review, 59, 985-1064.
41.
MalinB. (2003). Memorializing white masculinity: The late 1990s “crisis of masculinity” and the “subversive performance” of Man on the Moon. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 27, 239-255.
42.
McCluskeyA. T. (Ed.). (2008). Richard Pryor: The life and legacy of a “crazy” Black man. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
43.
MeyersM. (2004). Crack mothers in the news: A narrative of paternalistic racism. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 28, 194-216.
44.
MorrisonT. (1990). Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
45.
MukherjeeR. (2006). The racial order of things: Cultural imaginaries of the post-soul era. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
46.
NagourneyA. (2008, November5). Obama elected President as racial barrier falls. New York Times, p. 1A.
47.
NakayamaT. K.KrizekR. L. (1995). Whiteness as strategic rhetoric. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 81, 291-309.
48.
OmiM.WinantH. (1994). Racial formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. New York, NY: Routledge.
49.
OnoK. A. (2010). Postracism: A theory of the “post-” as political strategy. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 34, 227-233.
50.
ParameswaranR. (2009). Facing Barack Hussein Obama: Race, globalization, and transnational America. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 33, 195-205.
51.
ParkJ. H.GabbadonN. G.CherninA. R. (2006). Naturalizing racial differences through comedy: Asian, Black, and White views on racial stereotypes in Rush Hour 2. Journal of Communication, 56, 157-177.
52.
PierceC. P. (2007, August). The beauty contest. Esquire, 148, 64-65, 122.
53.
ReedW. L.LouisB. M.Jr. (2009). “No more excuses”: Problematic responses to Barack Obama’s election. Journal of African American Studies, 13(2), 97-109.
54.
RossingJ. (2011). Comic provocations in racial culture: Barack Obama and the “Politics of Fear.”Communication Studies, 62, 422-438.
55.
RothenbergP. S. (Ed.). (2008). White privilege: Essential readings on the other side of racism. New York, NY: Worth.
56.
ShomeR. (1996). Race and popular cinema: The rhetorical strategies of whiteness in City of Joy. Communication Quarterly, 44, 502-518.
57.
ShomeR. (2000). Outing whiteness. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 17, 366-371.
58.
SquiresC. R. (2007). Dispatches from the color line: The press and multiracial America. Albany: State University of New York Press.
59.
SquiresC.WattsE. K.VavrusM. D.OnoK. A.FeyhK.CalafellB. M.BrouwerD. C. (2010). What is this “post-” in postracial, postfeminist . . . (Fill in the blank)?Journal of Communication Inquiry, 34, 210-253.
60.
TwineF. W.GallagherC. (2008). The future of whiteness: A map of the “third wave.”Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(1), 4-24.
61.
VeraH.FeaginJ. R. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of the sociology of racial and ethnic relations. New York, NY: Springer.
62.
WatkinsM. (1999). On the real side: A history of African American comedy from slavery to Chris Rock. Chicago, IL: Lawrence Hill Books.
63.
WattsE. K. (2010). The (nearly) apocalyptic politics of “postracial” America: Or “This is now the United States of Zombieland.”Journal of Communication Inquiry, 34, 214-222.
64.
WellmanD. (2007). Unconscious racism, social cognition theory, and the legal intent doctrine: The neuron fires next time. In VeraH.FeaginJ. R. (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of racial and ethnic relations (pp. 39-65). New York, NY: Springer.
65.
WilliamsP. J. (1991). Seeing a color-blind future: The paradox of race. New York, NY: The Noonday Press.
66.
WinantH. (1997). Behind blue eyes: Whiteness and contemporary U.S. racial politics. In FineM. (Ed.), Off white: Readings on race, power, and society (pp. 40-53). New York, NY: Routledge.
67.
WinantH. (2004). The new politics of race: Globalism, difference, justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
