Post by bluemaydie on Apr 9, 2008 8:49:36 GMT -5
OK. Here's a poser.
My extended family have been having a heated online discussion, begun over a bad Jewish joke my dad sent out. Not surprisingly, some were offended by the joke's being a Jewish joke (some were just annoyed that it was tasteless). But those same who were annoyed went on to say that some racial humor is okay--if it's "gentle" (whatever that means), tells more about the teller than the tellee, or is just darned funny. But Jew jokes are never okay, because my uncle's wife is Jewish. Polish jokes, on the other hand, are fine because nobody really hates the Poles. And Jews can tell Jewish jokes, because they're the only ones who have a right to be offended or not by them (likewise, blondes can tell blonde jokes and minorities can use their own racial slurs).
To which my response is, Huh? Racism is okay if it's funny? (According to whose scale of funny?) Or it's okay if it's spoken by members of the race in question?
My dad raised these questions in a snarky way and was accused of knocking down straw men and being a sophist. I raised them seriously and was told, "It's complicated."
So which is it? Does humor, as one cousin put it, "mitigate racist overtones?" Is it ever right (who cares about socially acceptable?) to make ethnic jokes? Am I being over scrupulous, insofar as I'm starting to think that even "gentle" (I'm still not sure exactly what my uncle means by that) ethnic, racist, or sexist humor is unacceptable?
Opinions, anecdotes, and random comments appreciated.
My extended family have been having a heated online discussion, begun over a bad Jewish joke my dad sent out. Not surprisingly, some were offended by the joke's being a Jewish joke (some were just annoyed that it was tasteless). But those same who were annoyed went on to say that some racial humor is okay--if it's "gentle" (whatever that means), tells more about the teller than the tellee, or is just darned funny. But Jew jokes are never okay, because my uncle's wife is Jewish. Polish jokes, on the other hand, are fine because nobody really hates the Poles. And Jews can tell Jewish jokes, because they're the only ones who have a right to be offended or not by them (likewise, blondes can tell blonde jokes and minorities can use their own racial slurs).
To which my response is, Huh? Racism is okay if it's funny? (According to whose scale of funny?) Or it's okay if it's spoken by members of the race in question?
My dad raised these questions in a snarky way and was accused of knocking down straw men and being a sophist. I raised them seriously and was told, "It's complicated."
So which is it? Does humor, as one cousin put it, "mitigate racist overtones?" Is it ever right (who cares about socially acceptable?) to make ethnic jokes? Am I being over scrupulous, insofar as I'm starting to think that even "gentle" (I'm still not sure exactly what my uncle means by that) ethnic, racist, or sexist humor is unacceptable?
Opinions, anecdotes, and random comments appreciated.