It’s a two page thread. You really can’t work up the energy to go through my posts and back up your claim that I’ve been aggressive and outraged? If not, fine, I honestly don’t care. But stop making assertions without backup, otherwise you come across as a twat.
I don’t think “concede” means what you think it does.
I haven’t “picked a battle” or wanted a “confrontation”. I’ve just stated my opinion on a minor piece of stupid news, which I’ve never made into anything more than it is.
FWIW, here is a selection of newly hired Car Talk staff, and you can see a veryvery long page of similar name jokes on their website. I don’t think they have anything to do with ethnicity per se, just some fun with proper nouns.
Class Attendance Monitor Julie Verley
Director of Vengence Ewell Rudy Day
Ponzi Scheme Operato Shirley W. Money
Seasonal Adjustment Disorder Specialist Mahmoud S. Bleak
Snowboarding Instructor Soren Dekeester
Used Car Salesperson Meg Meehan Hoffa
Werewolf Studies Specialist Harriet Knight
and of course, the head of the working mother support group is Erasmus B. Dragon, always my favorite.
When I first heard that joke – and it was oh, many moons ago, too! – the uinchline (“Mahatma Coat”) was the same, but the setup was “What do you call a Hindu holy guy who moonlights as a coat checker?”
At least that version makes some kind of sense, while I don’t get the one this guy’s in hot water for telling, at all.
Still doesn’t seem to make much sense I’m afraid, at least not the sense I presume you meant.
If you actually want to prove I’ve made contentious posts, it’s not hard. Quote me.
I’m interested. This is a man who dominated the TV during my youth and adolescence. It’s interesting to see him embarrass himself on national radio in the UK. There are other, more interesting, things going on in my life today, but I have time to spare on this.
Your first post, in response to Mijin, directly repudiating his OP:
In response to ColdPhoenix, rejecting his assertions, suggesting that only toddlers enjoy name-based humor, and questioning the relevance of his Indian wife’s opinion (while your own opinion is relevant, we are to assume):
In response to Thudlow Boink, expressing “incredulity” at his holding an opinion that opposes yours, and making “liberal” “use” of “sneer quotes”:
The remainder of your contribution has largely consisted (and, I suspect, will continue to consist) of your denying that you were being aggressive or contentious when posting the responses I’ve just quoted. Which is, admittedly, a matter of opinion. I’ve offered mine, I anticipate yours, and other readers are free to form theirs.
You are welcome to the last word; I have a shoe of much greater importance that needs lacing, and thus will not return. Good day, sir.
I think that anyone that attempts to characterize such an innocent pun as an example of racism trivializes racism to the point of meaninglessness.
Do people get up in the morning and set out to be as vociferously counter-productive as they can manage?
Where’s all the outrage over “Carrie Micote”?
If people regularly take offense where none is given, all they’re going to accomplish is encouraging people to equate people who raise issues about cultural sensitivity as petulant, humourless little wankers who should concentrate on getting a life. This may come back to bite them in the ass when they are trying to draw attention towards something that actually is offensive.
Yes, puns are a low form of humour, and silly name puns are one of the lowest forms of puns. There’s no percentage in going the mental gymnastics required to turn a silly joke like that into something to be indignant about, though.
“What do you call a French man in sandals?”
“I don’t know, what do you call a French man in sandals?”
“Philippe Philoppe.”
“How can you be so ignorant? How can you impugn such a noble culture? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
Again, anti-South Asian sentiment was the norm in Britain until very recently. As recently as 1970, Enoch Powell, a sitting Member of Parliament and former member of the Cabinet, suggested that Britain would be racked by a race war because 10% of the population might be immigrants or the descendants of immigrants by 1985.
My brother’s best friend (a white guy) married an Indian girl, and my brother married a white girl, at more or less the same time.
I was totally shocked; I was fairly comfortable with the idea of interracial dating, but my brain couldn’t encompass the idea of interracial marriage. Not because I thought it was wrong, but because I thought my brother and his wife, and to a lesser extent his best friend and his wife would be totally ostracized by their families and by anyone else they knew.
To some extent, I was right; both couples got fairly intense abuse from strangers both before and after their marriages, and this was in Richmond, one of the more cosmopolitan areas of London.
The current attitude towards racism in Britain is inconceivably removed from what it was 15 years ago.
So, I can totally understand why PM and others might feel strongly about this.
Oh, it’s Picov Andropov, and Picov is a real surname, if not a first name. But there are other unlikely names on the list: Spanish gerontologist Senor Moment, for example.
Erm, OK, but my point was in contrast to yours, so I’m a bit confused that that was the point.
I was saying that the language of Fawty Towers is plainly not socially acceptible any more, and that the language of OFaH, while also not acceptible IMO, is not so obviously unacceptible.
Ergo, it’s conceivable that DJ thought it was still OK.
I’ve heard people (usually older people) in daily life tell jokes like the Mahatma one. And sometimes they actually tell these jokes to people of South Asian descent, honestly thinking that the person they’re talking to will think better of them for knowing such a joke :smack:.
But I’ve never seen someone use the n-word without being aware it is offensive.
I’ll go with you on that one… my recollection of Powell and his speeches is somewhat hazy, since he was long since out of Parliament and out of the public eye by the time I was old enough to be watching the news.
Please dont try to put words into my mouth,argue against what I’ve said not erect strawmen.
People who have been the victims of racial abuse whether physical or verbal KNOW whats happened to them.
Unlike third persons who choose to assume that they know better what a member of an ethnic minority thinks and feels in reaction to something that the third person believes that the ethnic minority SHOULd feel.
