Why Are We Laughing?

Muslim education in the public domain is on a slippery slope. In the age of information satire with the popularity of Jon Stewart, Colbert, and other media projects aimed to point out the absurdity in public opinions or long held racist stances, much humor also permeates Muslim education. The need to provide some levity to dense topics isn’t new. Edutainment is a method employed in schools, the computer and toy industry, and other media companies. Students learn when they’re having fun. Given that many Muslim youth are enamored with matters other than those of a religious nature, scholars need to get their attention. While our history has seen jokes involving certain marginalized groups as no longer tolerable, there are times where we aren’t aware of our participation in provoking the erasure of the line between humor and offense.

Of course there are the Desi accent jokes that abound in every mainstream Muslim setting. Not being Desi, I often wonder how those with such accents feel when the room erupts in laughter. I see them laughing alongside everyone else. Yet, I can’t help but think that they have no choice but to accept to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. Some might even go far as to say, well it’s their own people doing it so its okay. They understand.

Then there are the ones that are bit more hard to swallow. In explaining a behavior from one of the stories of the prophets one scholar used the example of a “plantation woman” and then preceded to mimic what he felt was the behavior of such a woman at the time. In another setting I listened to a religious scholar use Rodney King to jokingly explain the seriousness of a beating in the context of what he was lecturing on. What are we really saying when these comments are spoken? Why do we need to say them? And why are we laughing? There is a need to interrogate the way we operate in popular culture. It’s not strange to leave a lecture and hear “He’s so funny!” from participants. Humor is used to relate to the youth. To show them that scholars understand and are ‘down’. But at what and whose expense? When one is up on the stage and trying to keep relevant, it seems its possible to be get caught up in the lights.

This type of blindness doesn’t only pertain to race. I recall a lecture where the religious scholar was advising women on the things they need to know about men. In one instance, in a non-joking manner, he gave an example of super model who found her husband watching pornography and divorced him as a result. The morale of the story, look, it even happens to ‘beautiful’ women, so don’t be concerned ‘when’ your husband looks at another woman. What exactly is the message here? Are we indirectly endorsing popular notions of beauty? Encouraging women to accept the status quo of male behavior and taking responsibility for a roaming gaze? Though this wasn’t a joke, statements of this nature, and those jokes previously mentioned are triggers that can cause us to maintain positions of discrimination and inhibit our ability to speak up against injustice. Telling people that it’s just a joke and they need to lighten up or that they need to develop a thicker skin, or accept the way the world is, doesn’t make it acceptable. Who decides who the onus is upon to change their disposition?

Thus, we see some religious scholars unequipped with teaching acumen and a lack of nuanced understanding of vital social sciences needed to engage with different communities. This is a dangerous combination not only because their reach is massive, but also given that they have the badges of religious authority and legitimacy, which allow for their words to be internalized by the devout individual. Has our need to amass a large following, measured by red hearts or blue thumbs on social media, pushed us to ignore what’s being said and its implications, all for a good laugh? Are we missing the message? Humor shouldn’t obfuscate the issues at hand, where we passively have a good laugh. It should however force us to think critically about vital issues impacting communities and facilitate our ability to see a reality we may not have previously been aware of.

I’m not advocating that we strip our lives of humor. However, I’m asking that we reexamine from where our need to make certain kinds of jokes stem and what sort of existing demoralizing power we maintain when certain examples are given. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t claim to be a model people in possession of a much needed moral compass, but resort to the same tactics that may have an adverse impact on what is trying to be accomplished. And for other groups, we can’t claim to eschew ‘western’ this or that, but wholesale adopt methods of education or public engagement, without critical analysis. Our moral disposition must stem from a prophetic ethos that is not superficially about emulating specific behaviors. It must go deeper in recognizing on whose behalf the Prophet ﷺ spoke in order to change the status quo, imbuing society with a different essence. It’s far time we had a look beyond the surface. While we may continue to query the reason for laughter, “What’s so funny?” I would urge us to take a step back and force another question to the surface, “Why are you making this joke?”

Originally published at https://almadinainstitute.org on December 22, 2014.