DAVID MARCUS: Harris and Walz’s bizarre skit exposes double standard on race
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz released a cringeworthy "interview" in which they poked fun at Walz for being a "White guy." Apparently, White men don't eat spicy foods and stick to tuna fish and mayonnaise. Why are such stereotypes OK?
In the late 1970s, "Saturday Night Live" ran a sketch with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor in which the Black and White comedians engaged in a word association game that consisted of them hurling racial slurs at each other, culminating in the racial slur.
It was hilarious and something that would never be broadcast today. But what can be broadcast today was the bizarre "White guy taco" comedy skit that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz released this week.
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In the clearly scripted and cringworthy clip, Harris asks Walz if, as a White guy, his tacos consist of mayonnaise and tuna. Then folksy old Tim chuckles and says something about how black pepper is the hottest thing he, as a White guy, eats.
Setting aside the fact that White people eat spicy foods like buffalo wings at a rate that boggles the mind, this bit exposes the hypocrisy of the progressive left’s view of race.
It is obvious to everyone that the Harris-Walz campaign would not release a video in which he jokes about Kamala eating fried chicken. This is because, in the 1980s and 1990s, new rules emerged under which races were not to be treated equally but differently, depending on their perceived place in the hierarchy of power.
This change meant that Chevy Chase could no longer use the N word for a joke, but Richard Pryor could still use "cracker." This is a double standard that many people have grown uncomfortable with, and we are seeing a lot of it from the Harris campaign.
In both the White women and White dude Zoom calls that were held in support of Kamala, the clear message was that White people are to blame for Donald Trump, and everything else they think is wrong with the country, and now White people must accept that guilt, and graciously hand power over to wiser people of color.
Just as in the case of cultural appropriation, where White culture is the only one that belongs to everyone, making White people the only group that can be the butt of derogatory jokes, or told their skin color makes them guilty of something, centers whiteness in exactly the way the left pretends to reject.
In a very real way, progressives are creating the white supremacy they say they oppose by making White people the only ones strong enough to handle a joke or to see their cultural traditions adopted by others.
Now, the Left will argue that Harris was "punching up," with her tuna and mayo joke, and that Walz would be "punching down" if he joked about Black or Indian food. But that is a perverse and un-American way to think about human beings. Nobody is above or below anyone else because of their skin color.
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The silly sketch from the Democratic ticket isn’t horrible racism that requires a march on Washington, but the Harris campaign picked that specific joke and it's not an isolated incident. Walz as the self-deprecating White guy, sitcom dad is clearly a theme they are pushing.
More and more Americans, especially those four generations removed from the successes of the civil rights movement, are not comfortable with this racial double standard, and for that reason alone we should knock it off.
From the 1950s through the 1980s, comedy was an essential tool in overcoming racism in America, but it worked precisely because, as with Chase and Pryor, everyone was subject to the jokes. That was equality.
The Harris campaign, much more so than the Biden campaign, is seeking to treat Americans not as equal and unique individuals, but as members of their racial group, with separate Zoom calls and rules about jokes.
It is well past time for Americans to reject this kind of thinking and return to the very simple and easy way of treating everyone the same way regardless of their race. Sadly, that is not something Harris and her campaign seem to want. Instead, they want us focused time and again on skin color.
For now, the Tim Walz White guy minstrel show goes on, but it is not funny, it is not helpful to anyone, and it is a show that deserves to be canceled.
