Humour and hatred: the racist jokes of the Ku Klux Klan

The article examines the links between humour and hatred - a topic that is often ignored by researchers of prejudice. The article studies three websites that present racist humour and display sympathies with the Ku Klux Klan. The analysis emphasizes the importance of examining the 'metadiscours...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Discourse & society 2001-05, Vol.12 (3), p.267-289
Main Author:	BILLIG, MICHAEL
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	African Americans Capital punishment Disclaimers Discourse Discourse Analysis English language (Modern) Hate Hatred Humor Humour Internet Jokes Ku Klux Klan Language Lynchings Racial violence Racism racist language Secret Societies semantics Stereotypes stylistics U.S.A Violence Web sites Words
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Summary:	The article examines the links between humour and hatred - a topic that is often ignored by researchers of prejudice. The article studies three websites that present racist humour and display sympathies with the Ku Klux Klan. The analysis emphasizes the importance of examining the 'metadiscourse', which presents and justifies the humour, as much as studying the nature of the humour itself. The meta-discourse of the sites' disclaimers is studied in relation to the justification of a joke being 'just a joke'. It is shown that the extreme racist humour of the KKK is not just a joke, even in terms of its own meta-discourse of presentation. The meta-discourse also suggests that the extreme language of racist hatred is indicated a matter for enjoyment. The sites portray the imagining of extreme racist violence as a matter of humour and the ambivalence of their disclaimers is discussed. As such, it is suggested that there are integral links between extreme hatred and dehumanizing, violent humour.
ISSN:	0957-9265 1460-3624 1460-3624