What Humor is. What Humor is not

A series of circumstances have put me in the company of many stand-up comedians. Many are aspiring and do open mics some are headliners and are paid for their performances. All in all I have been very impressed by them all and wish them well. They have helped me through a difficult time in my life and have given me the opportunity to go back into comedy writing and performing an interest that I abruptly abandoned because of a bout with thyroid cancer. These comics all of them have given me the encouragement to start again in comedy and I will be forever grateful to them and their unconditional welcoming of me into their community. My mother was right as one door closes, the another one opens.
All of that aside, there is a split among comics as to what is funny and what is not. I am as much part of this discussion as anyone else so I will share my thoughts with you tonight. What comedy is: Comedy simply put is designed to make you laugh and the comedian will do what it takes to make that happen . From using the right combination of words to open up the flood gates of laughter to shock humor to shock your sensibilities to physical humor that gets us out of our seats.
I do not know any comics who is in disagreement with this. Where we disagree however is the delivery and the target. There are comics who think that comedy at someone else' expense is appropriate . There are other who believe that comedy should make everyone laugh and not pick on a particular segment of the population ( women, minorities etc.) just for a cheap laugh.
I recently attending a few shows where I saw both kinds of performers . One comic pick out two women in the audience and spent most of his set picking on them. The first couple of jokes were okay and people laughed but after a while both the ladies who were targets and the audience were sick of it . I was sick of it mostly because there was no point to it . Throughout the entire set he told two legitimate jokes the rest were attacks. In my opinion and the opinions of many comics that is not humor. Comics who tell jokes that put down minorities and are disrespectful to women make many in the audience leave with an uneasy feeling in the stomach.
What humor is: Call me old fashioned but I still believe in spreading the love and that comedy can be the ultimate love fest . A comedian can tell jokes about women and minorities that may offend but do not attack. Jokes that point out our differences and how they lead to the complex relationships we have as people. Instead of attacking women about their weight sexual activity or behaviors a comedian can talk about the complex relationships between men and women and how humorous they can be . To come on stage and call a women a "fat bitch" may get a few laughs from the misogynists in the audience but it will lose the women in the audience forever . To slam your minority audience may get you in the same predicament as Michael Richards (Kramer) who attacked two black hecklers and called them "niggers" . Not only did he get into hot water over the incident but received very few bookings afterwards. Attack humor is not only uncool at the moment it can alienate a segment of the population that you may never get back.
Comedy is not a club. One that you use to hit the audience over the head with or a white male club with few members. It is an open community open to many ideas and slowly but surely closing to hacks who think cheap shots are the key to quick laughs.