In my case, it's a new book I've spent the better part of the last two years writing and compiling. It deals with essays from various people involved, in some way, with the Native community and, in particular, its funny bone. Humour, by its very nature, is usually at somebody's expense, especially Native humour where no prisoners are taken, even at our own cost. Depending on the nature of the joke, our humour can be racist (but in a funny way), sexist (but in a funny way), nationalist (but in a funny way) and exceedingly self-deprecatory (in every way). It reflects attitudes towards us from outside the community and as a direct result, attitudes we have towards ourselves within the community. Part of the point of the book was detailing its nature, origins and characteristics for others to appreciate. Academics love stuff like that.

Janine Willie, an Aboriginal PhD student in Native literature says "If you think of Aboriginal humour as a residual impact seen as a scar from colonialism, it would seem ridiculous to prioritize removing the scar over healing the whole person. Making cosmetic changes to the humour is not useful in understanding underlying causes and oppressions. In fact, it actually blurs the cause of the humour (patriarchy, Christianity, colonization, heterosexism etc.) and actively works against or prevents an engaging, critical, feminist understanding of the humour. I think, ultimately, it could be counterproductive to a vital feminist, anti-oppression analysis of the subject matter. Hopefully, the humour would spark critical issues and questions for the students and hopefully the teacher would be able to facilitate a good critical discussion on it." Sounds good to me.

"This is Indian humour. If you change it to what is acceptable to her and her class, then you have taken away the Indian humour; what it has changed to is no longer Indian humour. The idea of this book is to talk and tell and share about Indian humour. It is not to talk about the values of well-schooled, middle-class White women and what they want to get across, even if it is politically correct.... This is not the place for anyone else to expound and use their privilege, prestige, power, position and advantages to push and promote their agenda. Let them do it in their own writings and speeches. Goodness knows, there's many more doors open for them than to us to share and talk about stuff. "