READER LETTER | Seinfeld mocks Gaza genocide

A comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s recent show in Chicago, an audience member shouted about Gaza: “Twenty-two thousand Palestinians who are children now are killed with our taxpayer money, and you’re making jokes?!”

The comedian danced on stage and mockingly declared: “I am a racist. It’s a genocide. I’m into it.”

In their journal article, Genocidal Enjoyment: On the Weaponisation of Joyful Cruelty and ‘Dark Fun’ during Israel’s Genocide in Gaza , sociologists Raúl Pérez and Charles Thorpe define genocidal enjoyment as “the weaponised use of joyful cruelty in the service of state violence” against a dehumanised community.

Genocidal enjoyment reinforces moral hierarchies and portrays the targets of state violence as moral outsiders.

Seinfeld’s actions demonstrated genocidal enjoyment, as Palestinian suffering was made to seem like a fitting subject for laughter. — Terry Hansen, Wisconsin