It is when the people who claim to be satirizing their subjects actually embrace the very hypocrisy they purport to expose. Instead of skewering the ridiculous, they both perpetuate and validate it. In order to truly satirize a subject, one must actually be aware of the fact that what they are satirizing should be the object of their derision. The flaws, prejudices and hypocrisies of the subjects should be displayed and magnified so greatly that any veracity contained within such prejudices and hypocrisies is completely obliterated and the ridiculousness of the entire situation is amplified to the point of being painfully comedic.

Recently, Rick Murphy, the editor of the newspaper The Independent wrote a column under the pseudonym of YoMama Bin Barack. The column was titled “Why I Should Be Our Next President” and attempts to poke fun at Barack Obama, specifically his lack of political experience. But it also takes time to run through a number of black cliches and stereotypes that seem so misplaced, it is hard to believe that anyone would find the column funny. Murphy’s column is a perfect example of satire gone wrong.

I love satire, especially when it is done by someone who sees very clearly the many blemishes our society has. But I do believe that a satirists must really know his subjects. For instance, Lenny Bruce did several bits on racism. Some were so dead-on, they would have provoked tears had they also not been so smart and funny. But Bruce knew of what he spoke. Bruce had black friends, knew black musicians. He was not unfamiliar with the African-American culture. So, when he steps onto stage and says nigger twenty times in a row, most people are not offended because they know what Bruce is doing. They know that he is taking this cancer that has been festering within this country for so long and he is shoving it in the faces of the people who dare to watch and listen. And he does it in such a way that it can be digested with relative ease and not rejected and regurgitated because the pain of enduring it is too great.

On the other hand, people like Michael Richards and, I assume, Rick Murphy try to satirize racism but fail miserably because they don’t realize or truly believe that the people or issues they are attempting to lambaste are as absurd as they propose. If you hate something or someone then try to ridicule that hate by taking errant literary or verbal swipes at it, it only comes off as baffling and disingenuous. You can’t be a racist or a sexist or a homophobe then try to show others how ludicrous that type of mentality is. If Stephen Colbert were truly an ultra-conservative, fundamentalist stiff then his jokes would go from being bitingly funny satire straight to self-righteous blustering and rhetoric. But Colbert knows the difference. Richards did not and ,at least in this instance, it appears Murphy does not either.

Below are a few examples of when satire really works: