I had to take a break from writing about Jimmy Carr and his Holocaust “joke” because his supporters were infuriating me with their attempts at justification.

Their point was that, after uttering his shocking attempt at humour on the His Dark Material video, Carr told his audience (who had laughed heartily) that his joke was “****ing funny” and went on to say it was educational because some people don’t know Nazis killed gypsies too, along with homosexuals, disabled people and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Mention of Jehovah’s Witnesses led him to a secondary punchline about “Yeah, we don’t like JWs either.”

But how many people really don’t know that, while being the largest individual group, Jews constituted only slightly more than one-third of those killed in the Nazi Holocaust?

When right-wingers in the Labour Party were trying to expel me, one of their arguments was that I had accused other people of saying Jews were the only group of people to be murdered in the Holocaust, so I provided ample evidence of people who have made it quite clear that such is their belief – or at least, what they want you to believe.

So there is that aspect of it – misinformation by people (mostly Zionists, although certainly not always Jews – never mix up the two groups) who have political reasons for wanting you to believe a lie.

But a friend on Facebook makes an excellent point about this:

How many times have there been rows about the Holocaust where the focus on 6 million Jews, and the Nazis attempt to eradicate Jewish people as a ‘race,’ has been corrected by someone pointing out that the true number of victims of the Holocaust is between 12 and 20 million, and includes Roma, Poles, Serbs, Slovenes, Soviet P.O.W.s, Soviet civilians, communists, trade unionists, disabled people and homosexuals? This is not some new discovery made by Jimmy Carr, and making a joke of it is not the way to bring it to wider attention.

The other aspect of it is as a reflection of the way the travelling community are viewed in general. A commenter on This Site’s Facebook page stated:

I found this particular joke a pointed comment on how Gypsy’s and the Traveling Community are perceived in general by the wider population… That’s what the joke is tapping into, its a reflection of the bias and prejudice we all feel towards those not our own when coming into contact with them.

But another commenter pointed out:

I’ve listened to his ‘excuses’ after getting the racist laugh from a racist audience… I think you’d have to be racist to find it funny… The educational element is a little flawed if you first harvest a laugh based on racism, then merely tag on a line after that just says ‘based on a true story’… The problem here was that he crafted a racist joke that depended on a racist audience.

Personally, I like the response of a third commenter:

Just call him “the Nazi comedian” and if anybody complains just say you are being edgy and your comment is hilarious.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

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