Humor along racial lines.

• Author: Cepeda, Esther J.
• Position: Editorials

Byline: ESTHER J. CEPEDA

'Let's make fun of white people.''

Are you jarred by that proposition? Or do you feel it is, if not entirely merited, at least worth a laugh?

And can you ever imagine it being socially acceptable for whites to make fun of black people, Asians or Hispanics and it being seen as hip, funny and click-worthy?

Some context: In the last few months I've been seeing a lot of what I call ''Let's Make Fun of White People'' viral videos.

Last week I ran across one called ''If Latinos Said The Stuff White People Say,'' produced by BuzzFeed.

In it we see a Hispanic guy and a Hispanic gal approach several situations with the same you-are-an-exotic-species awe and interest that many a minority has felt in a majority-white situation.

''My nanny was white, so I totally get it,'' says the young Hispanic woman to a white peer, nodding with the self-satisfied look of having made a cultural connection with an unfamiliar being. ''Like, I feel like I'm part-white because of my nanny.''

''You're white, right?'' says the same young Hispanic woman to a young blond woman. ''I hooked up with a white guy once, he was craaaa-zeee!''

Yes, the guy has lines, too, but I found the young Hispanic woman's exclamations particularly amusing.

In flawless, obviously native English she asks her white peer: ''How do you say your name again?'' The girl responds: ''Macy.''

''I love how you pronounce it. One more time?'' says the Hispanic girl, with a bug-eyed, smiling expression. ''God, I could never say it like that!''

BuzzFeed must like this angle, because other videos on the site explore the same terrain: ''If Asians Said The Stuff White People Say'' and ''If Black People Said The Stuff White People Say.'' But BuzzFeed certainly is not alone in its examination of whites' uncomfortable flailings in a multicultural society.

Flama, a humor site by, for and starring young Latinos, takes things a step further in a different direction.

In a series of videos, ''Spanish Words White People Can't Say,'' Flama gets admittedly monolingual Caucasians to try reading words in Spanish. Words like the rolled-r ''perro'' for ''dog'' or ''idea,'' which has the same spelling in both languages but is pronounced differently.

One woman -- who said that half of her family is now ''Spanish,'' though she almost certainly did not mean they were from Spain, and she can't speak a word of it -- is presented with ''refrigerador.''

''This is 'refrigerator' and I'm not going to pronounce...