I find it amusing. Most people do, including I suspect many black people. It’s just funny.
Blazing Saddles came out in 1974. In that period, 42 years ago, it was quite reasonable for most people to assume that the fortunes of black people in this country were on the rise. Mel Brooks was saying, in his frequent use of the N- word “look, I can’t stop ignorant people from saying that, but between you and me we know they are stupid and ignorant and ridiculous. Me, as a Jew, I know a little something about bigotry.”
Nobody who was an actual racist would find that movie funny. EVEN THEN most white people knew genuine racism was reactionary, ridiculous, unnecessary, unfair, and wrong. Not all, of course. From what I hear racism in most big cities, particularly Union cities like Chicago and New York, is still alive and well.
But most people in this country are happy to give everyone a chance. They were then, and are now.
But 42 years, and all that has changed is that movie could not be made today. It would be attended by protests, with fury, with outrage. And for what? That movie did not cost anyone their life, and has generated millions of laughs.
What has happened–ALL that has happened–is that fascist speech police have gradually made it more and more difficult to talk about the lack of black thriving, to talk about the real problems besetting black communities.
If people had been allowed to sort out their differences gradually, in person, at their own pace, the pervasive decency of the American people over time would have eradicated the functional lines between blacks and whites. We would not have black ghettos. Most of them would be middle class, would value education, and would not feel helpless and angry.
What intercepted and prevented this natural organic growth was the Democrats, who developed a codependent, enabling relationship with the black community, by promising them the moon and the stars, by making promises they knew they could never keep, and which would have been damaging even if they could keep them, because you never help anyone permanently by doing for them what they can and should be doing for themselves (as William Boettker put it around 100 years ago).
So today, the outrage when one sees that bigoted old woman say “Up yours, Nigger” can be seen for what it is: useless. It helps no one. No black child missing his father gets to see him more. No jobs are created for people who barely graduated high school. No crime is prevented. It is all for show.
Mel Brooks was and is a genuine humanitarian, who works to improve the world through comedy. None of the PC fascists are anything but unreflective and unhelpful haters.