Personal Narrative: Unmasking Racism

Again, I can say that my experience related to race is substantially different from the American people (generalizing). Yes, I was raised in a culture full of racial jokes. These racial and cultural jokes come from all sides, where everybody makes fun of everybody; even people make jokes of their own race or culture. Carnival was and still is a prime moment of the year to put out there all your jokes and to dress up like others cultures or race and frankly, I do not remember anybody that ever got offended over a joke. Jokes were just a joke and everybody sees like that as well, no one takes it as a personal offense. However, after being here in the US I created my own barriers and afraid with respect not only to racial jokes but also to any comment about race or culture. I feel that I have to think twice before said anything, unlike to what happened before I moved here, because everyone here gets offended.
Nevertheless, after reading Muller’s article about Unmasking Racism I started to understand why people get offended. Right in the beginning the author describes a choice in Halloween costume made by a State Judge from Louisiana and I immediately felt insulted. The Judge chooses to dress as a black prisoner for a Halloween party. A Judge! He is a person in a position of power, dressing as an awfully negative stereotype only reaffirms his thinking’s in addition to reinforce or influence others opinions. Even though social events like Halloween, Carnival and Mardi Grass are considered an oasis where the “free expression of countercultural feelings are tolerated” (Muller et. all, 316) a limit should be observed with the aim of not causing major offenses and disrespect, after all, the idea is to have fun and not to cause social disturbance.
In contrast with the social events cited above, jokes are part of the everyday life and therefore it is easier to go unnoticed by the group who make the joke. Especially if the jokes came from only one side and it’s not part or a