EWWWW - you are soooo going to hell for that!
This. The attitude that many white people are secretly racist is at the heart of the matter.
Racists are everywhere, you see. They may present themselves as kind, openminded people who respect everyone regardless of race, but don’t be fooled. Benath their carefully orchestrated facades of tolerance lurk the hearts of monsters. They’re paranoid that jews control the banks, the courts, and the media, and that black men will seduce their girlfriends, wives, and daughters. Given the chance, they’ll kill all the jews and send all of the black people back to Africa so that they can finally live in peace.
:rolleyes:
While this perception is nowhere near as hurtful as what black people or jewish people have to deal with, it’s not nothing. It inspires a fear that even the most innocuous comment can get you labeled as a bigot and cost you your friends and your career.
Telling racist jokes under the circumstances such as those that Lemur866 described is (usually) an exploration or confrontation of this fear. It can even be a moment of bonding over sharing the same fear. Given that the OP’s sister had just lost her mother, she may have felt the need to deepen her friendships. It may seem twisted at first glance, but I suspect that she was doing just that.
What do you think of the Graham Chapman story told by Miller? It ridicules the Holocaust. I honestly believe there is nothing inherently wrong with that. What offends me is to call people “seriously fucked up” because you can’t fathom an inoffensive joke about a taboo subject.
I wish I knew what you are on about.
There’s a far distance between “innocuous comments” and a joke that denigrates someone based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Just because some people out there will find offense in the most innocent or inadvertent misstatements does not mean this is the normal penalty in American society. No, most Black people will not consider you a racist if you say “African American,” or vice-versa.
None of these things are exclusively the burden of White people. Black people can tell racist jokes about Latinos. White people can be the target in Jewish jokes (don’t know about you, but most Jewish people I’ve met in America are White). And it so happens I know a lot more LGBTQ people who are White than any other race.
Your hypothesis may be correct in some instances, but everybody’s got a line that they don’t want crossed. The jokes are funny until your ox is being gored. Then what?
The idea that Whites are so fearful of slipping up and being termed bigots, so to overcome the fear they say bigoted things defies logic to me. It’s like saying, as a man, I fear being labeled as a sexist, so I will say sexist things to “release the pressure” or bond with other men with the same fear. I find that logic ludicrous, so am I misunderstanding here?
Sir, given a choice between being accused of uppity prudishness (which would be astonishing to the people who know me), or besmirching both my own character and the memories of my ancestors and countless other murdered innocents, I’ll proudly, publicly, and with my head held high claim uppity prudishness. Any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
No one could ever think me reprobate for being a prude. What a pity that the same can’t be said for you.
Hmm…so I reckon that I’ll be claiming the moral high ground, too.
Are you fucking serious with this? You’re actually comparing the murders of innocent human beings to the “death” of a cartoon character–a fucking cartoon character?
Sweet. Baby. Jesus.
Uh, yeah…Alex, I’m going to stick with “Uppity Prudishness,” please. In fact, I think I’ll just run the category.
And, **Cattitude ** and Cowgirl: exactly. I don’t know why this continues to be outside the reach of some of the others in this thread.
Actually, I’m not sure that it does. Perhaps **Miller ** or someone else (a) who has more knowledge about the story and (b) whose sole interest in this thread isn’t in shoving their foot up my ass can clarify this.
Well, the ostensibly racist jokes were essentially works of fiction too… why wouldn’t this be comparable? Murder is horrible, rape is horrible, racially-motivated crime is horrible, etc., but many people make and accept jokes about them all the time. Consider, for an easy example, the famed Monty Python bits, for example, of no particularly notable controversy, about Hitler, the Spanish Inquisition, and so on; historically memorable precisely for being terrible acts of murder and torture, racial and religious oppression, but it’s possible to wring a laugh from them all the same.
SNORT!
For some bizarre reason, I find these funny (except for the stove one, not because it’s offensive, it’s just sorta blah). FTR, I’m a woman (never in a physically abusive relationship though. I’ll bet I’d think they were awful if I had been).
But if it’s a racist joke, I really hate them. And I truly despise the “N” word whether it ends in an “A” or an “R”(yeah, I know, I know, it’s supposed to
denote “ownership” and taking it back and all that rot, I still find it a harsh ugly sound).
I really liked the pilot joke, that’s a nice comeback to (with luck) shut someone up. Or if not, at least let them know where you stand.
Definitely seconded.
I wonder, Max the Immortal, can you provide examples of the innocuous comments that you think will get White folks into trouble? I am really, really curious as to what these could be.
No, I’m not, since I’ve yet to hear any racist joke about the murder of a real, live human being. Both the cartoon and the racist jokes are fictional.
Now you’re just being a jackass.
When come back, bring conscience.
:rolleyes: Or perhaps, now you’re seeing my point. I’m not in any way shape or form advocating the commission of any act joked about, nor would I be laughing when it stopped being a joke and started being an actual incident.
A joke is just that – a joke. Not meant to be at all indicative or suggestive of real-world action or real-world intent. Got it? Good.
We seem to be moving beyond the debate on ostensibly racist jokes and into a more general territory and argument which I am amazed by: specifically, I don’t understand this view that one cannot in good conscience be amused by a joke which happens to mention horrible, tragic events. I don’t find anything wrong with being amused by the following quickly gleamed from the current surface of The Onion, and I’d find it ludicrous if anyone suggested this to evidence my moral deficiency. Certainly, it would be a most boneheaded mistake to extrapolate from this that I somehow advocate for the tragedies which are references within.
Kent State Basketball Team Massacred By Ohio National Guard In Repeat Of Classic 1970 Matchup
133 Dead As Delta Cancels Flight In Midair
Sudanese 14-Year-Old Has Midlife Crisis
Nation’s Presidential Assassins Still Undecided
Baggage-Handling Mix-Up Sends Dirty Bomb To St. Louis
Christ Kills Two, Injures Seven In Abortion-Clinic Attack
Some of these I love (the flight-cancellation one is pure brilliance to me), while some of them I don’t necessarily think are all that funny; however, when the latter happens, it’s on the grounds that, well, the joke which was constructed just isn’t very clever or well-executed or simply doesn’t happen to hit my funny bone for whatever reason, rather than on the grounds that there’s something inherently wrong with joking about certain topics. And if someone else were to tell me they found one of the ones hilarious which I didn’t, well, it’d just be as though he found Will and Grace hilarious while I don’t; there wouldn’t be any dimension of moral superiority involved, we’d just have different tastes.
Good lord. That was the funniest damn thing I’ve read all week.
Just to add to this (which I agree with btw) is that jokes are not necessarily meant to be funny either.
Although we ‘laugh’ at jokes and riddles, for the most part they are actually designed to confuse and sometimes even shock rather than stimulate our funny bones. IOW, jokes aren’t all that funny at all. Look at the Chicken Crossing the Road series as a prime example of Not Funny, just weird etc.
Re the OP: I don’t see jokes depicting racial stereotypes to be indicative of an inherent racism in themselves. Sure, if your joke-teller also has posters of Stromfornt on their walls, then chances are they’re racist shitheads who need a good lobotomy to set them straight. But these people don’t ‘make’ the jokes up. Mostly they’re not that clever, really. 
Sicko jokes directed at a particular people (whether Nigger, Jew, Pole, Aussie, Kiwi, Yank, Pom, Abo, Swede, dead babies, German, Mexican, Scot or those fucken’ stupid Irish gits who sent their IRA boy to blow up a bus but the poor sod burned his lips on the exhaust pipe ) are just that. It does NOT mean you harbour any real belief that the folks depicted in the joke/s are beneath contempt.
It’s a way of normalising atrocious events and allowing them to be spoken of in ways that don’t entail eternal wailing and teeth-gnashing. It’s not condoning the lynchings or the Holocaust, it’s about acknowledging them and in some ways, keeping the memories alive in the public consciousness: if we are only able to talk about such things in solemn terms, they’d never be spoken of again by your average Joe.
Oh, and condolences on your mum’s passing Ensign Edison. I hope you travel well through the weeks and months ahead mate. Take care.
Q: What did one wall say to the other wall?
A: Meet you at the corner!
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side!
Anybody got any other unoffensive jokes?
No, he’s comparing the death of a human being with the death of a human being, and a joke with a cartoon.
God, but you’re a stupid, yappy pisher, aren’t you?
Now that’s a funny joke!
Oh, wait. You’re trying to be serious.
My bad.
ETR: Nevermind 
Ah, the retort of the vanquished.