Is this a racist joke?

[melonfool]

For me the test is not whether someone is actually offended, but whether they reasonably should have been. Some people might be very sensitive to certain words, even innocuous ones, and there should surely be a limit to how much we should have to dance around such over-sensitivities.

And who is the arbiter?

So when people claim that political correctness has gone overboard, it is often when someone almost seems to be trying too hard to find offence, such as with any use of the word "black". Then there is pushback and rightly so.

Except that doesn't happen, so it's a strawman (person....).

The other point, as Uncle says, is that one has to take into account the period in history. It can be a big mistake to assess the actions of one era by the moral standards of another.

No-one is assessing moral standards of one era by another - they are discussing whether it's OK to *make a joke* about something that is rather distasteful.

So, another strawman.

certainly not wallow in it or "play a race card".

Yeah, you lose any right to input to the debate when you use reductionist statements like that.

Mel

[Lootman]

For me the test is not whether someone is actually offended, but whether they reasonably should have been. Some people might be very sensitive to certain words, even innocuous ones, and there should surely be a limit to how much we should have to dance around such over-sensitivities.

And who is the arbiter?

See that "For me" in my sentence?

I was giving my view that someone merely claiming to be offended is insufficient for a valid determination that their position is justified. We all know those who get offended too easily. I submit the view that in such cases we are under no obligation to moderate our behaviour or words to suit their over-sensitivity.

You seem a little sensitive about this subject

[redsturgeon]

For me the test is not whether someone is actually offended, but whether they reasonably should have been. Some people might be very sensitive to certain words, even innocuous ones, and there should surely be a limit to how much we should have to dance around such over-sensitivities.

And who is the arbiter?

See that "For me" in my sentence?

I was giving my view that someone merely claiming to be offended is insufficient for a valid determination that their position is justified. We all know those who get offended too easily. I submit the view that in such cases we are under no obligation to moderate our behaviour or words to suit their over-sensitivity.

You seem a little sensitive about this subject

So if I make Jewish jokes in the presence of my Jewish friend and they tell me they are offended but I deem that they are just being over sensitive, is that OK?

John

[tjh290633]

And what if my Jewish friend tells me a Jewish story and I am offended, is he being racist?

TJH

[Howyoudoin]

And who is the arbiter?

See that "For me" in my sentence?

I was giving my view that someone merely claiming to be offended is insufficient for a valid determination that their position is justified. We all know those who get offended too easily. I submit the view that in such cases we are under no obligation to moderate our behaviour or words to suit their over-sensitivity.

You seem a little sensitive about this subject

So if I make Jewish jokes in the presence of my Jewish friend and they tell me they are offended but I deem that they are just being over sensitive, is that OK?

John

In my experience the least likely person to take offence at Jewish jokes is a Jew. There are plenty willing to take offence on their behalf though . . .

HYD

[maximan]

In my experience the least likely person to take offence at Jewish jokes is a Jew. There are plenty willing to take offence on their behalf though . . .

HYD
Quite right HYD.
The funniest jewish joke I have heard was told to me by a female jewish director when I was young.

[UncleEbenezer]

In my experience the least likely person to take offence at Jewish jokes is a Jew. There are plenty willing to take offence on their behalf though . . .

HYD

Perhaps they fall into two camps:
- Activists who are delighted at the opportunity to collect evidence of antisemitism.
- A silent majority who are embarrassed at any association with Israel, Zionism, or the weaponisation of antisemitism, and aren't going to stick their heads above that parapet.

That still leaves room for some to find jokes distasteful.

If only we could exercise commonsense, and distinguish between humour and malice. The joke of this thread is clearly funny, and its butt is an institution richly deserving of ridicule. A joke that is made Jewish merely by the contrived device of giving the butt of the joke a Jewish name[1] is more likely to be malicious (especially if it's also not even funny, as was the case with a pair of them posted to the jokes board here but subsequently deleted a couple of months back).

[1] Giving the butt an Irish name ought to be just the same, but is somehow commonly considered more acceptable.

[tjh290633]

Back in the days of the cold war, everybody had a nation which was the button of their jokes. We had the Irish. The Americans had the Poles, as did the Russians. The Poles had the Egyptians. And so on.

The Jews have the Arabs, who no doubt have their own.

It still goes on and will do until the end of time.

TJH

[kempiejon]

I don't like the slanty eyed Italians.

[Lootman]

So if I make Jewish jokes in the presence of my Jewish friend and they tell me they are offended but I deem that they are just being over sensitive, is that OK?

The opposite of that would be that anyone can elect to be offended by anything and we all have to accept that no matter how bizarre and exaggerated their claim is.

There are two extreme positions here. One is that every claim of offence is justified. The other is that no claims of offence are justified.

I am arguing for a moderate position between the two extremes. Some claims of offence are justified and some are not. There are people who are genuinely and appropriately offended, and there are others who express faux outrage at the slightest thing and doth protest too much.

You have gross bigotry at one extreme and petty card-playing political correctness at the other. Better to be be somewhere between the two.

[kempiejon]

I don't like the slanty eyed Italians.

No Italics.

[Gengulphus]

It was of its time. A time when personal servitude was still usual, much of the world looked up to white people, and notions of a grey area were different to today. But look at the relationship: if Defoe's story is about slavery then so is P G Wodehouse, and noone suggests references to Jeeves are offensive.

Correct me, if I'm wrong....I've not read P G Wodehouse, but wasn't the character Jeeves actually a paid servant?

Definitely so - I have read P G Wodehouse's books many times, and Jeeves is definitely a servant, not a slave. His initial employment by Bertie Wooster is related near the start of the short story "Jeeves Takes Charge" (the first in the "Carry On, Jeeves" collection) and it clearly recounts him offering himself for employment as Bertie's valet and Bertie telling him "You're engaged!" after drinking a clearly-much-needed hangover cure Jeeves prepares. And in the novel "Thank You, Jeeves", Jeeves resigns from the job in the first chapter because he finds himself unable to tolerate the prospect of living in close association with Bertie trying to learn to play the banjolele, and successfully applies to be taken on again in the last after Bertie abandons the attempts. These are not the ways slaves were dealt with!

And it's not even that he was a downtrodden servant - it's much more arguable that Bertie is the downtrodden master who doesn't even realise that he's downtrodden! One of the enduring themes of the stories starts with a difference of opinion between Bertie and Jeeves, who disagree about how something should be. Bertie tries to put his foot down, but then he gets into trouble of various kinds - often caused or made worse by Bertie following Jeeves' advice and it 'unfortunately' going wrong - and finally extracted from it as a result of following further advice from Jeeves or by more direct action by Jeeves, in gratitude for which Bertie feels he has no option other than to concede on the original difference of opinion. The possibility that there might be just as much call for the opposite of gratitude as for gratitude never seems to occur to him - at most he gets a bit peeved at the failure of Jeeves' advice to produce the desired results...

By the way, I'm not saying that P G Wodehouse's writings are completely free of racist attitudes: IIRC, some of his early (pre World War 1) books that I've read do depict them as perfectly normal, though I'd have to do some re-reading to be certain or cite particular examples. But Jeeves isn't remotely an example of slavery! (And UncleEbenezer's point would appear to be that Man Friday isn't one either: I'm not in a position to say whether I think him right or wrong about that because I last read the book quite a few decades ago and can't remember enough about it.)

Edit: I've spotted after posting that I failed to address the question of whether Jeeves is a paid servant. I'm pretty certain that in at least one of the stories, gratitude at the end causes Bertie not only to concede the original point of dispute, but also to say that there would be something extra in Jeeves' pay packet from then on. And money most certainly is mentioned quite a bit in the stories: Bertie himself is not short of it, but his friends often are and dealing with that in a way they're willing to accept is often a major plot point in them...

Gengulphus

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

It was of its time. A time when personal servitude was still usual, much of the world looked up to white people, and notions of a grey area were different to today. But look at the relationship: if Defoe's story is about slavery then so is P G Wodehouse, and noone suggests references to Jeeves are offensive.

Correct me, if I'm wrong....I've not read P G Wodehouse, but wasn't the character Jeeves actually a paid servant?

Definitely so - I have read P G Wodehouse's books many times, and Jeeves is definitely a servant, not a slave.....

Yeah, I thought so Geng. I've not read any PGW, in fact Mo Hayder is much more my speed currently!

I used to watch "Robinson Crusoe" when I was a kid (I'm 50 now, so you can do the maths!), and my (vague) recollection was that RC didn't treat MF particularly badly, and I think that MF may have been free to come and go as he pleased. But I think the dynamic was probably a little different than that between Bertie and Jeeves....

To be honest in my earlier posts on this thread, I wasn't exactly embittered, (re. "Black Friday"), but wanted to make the point that I can completely understand that other people in the world could well be and that we should, perhaps, respect them - and not expect them to change their mindsets.

In fact another book I'm half way through is "Redemption" by Stanley "Tookie" Williams, part of the death-row ex-Crips gang member's autography. After reading stuff like this, people may get to realise that some of issues surrounding racism/slavery will probably take many centuries to be fully buried. In my arrogant opinion!

Matt

[Gengulphus]

Correct me, if I'm wrong....I've not read P G Wodehouse, but wasn't the character Jeeves actually a paid servant?

Definitely so - I have read P G Wodehouse's books many times, and Jeeves is definitely a servant, not a slave.....

Yeah, I thought so Geng. I've not read any PGW, in fact Mo Hayder is much more my speed currently!

I used to watch "Robinson Crusoe" when I was a kid (I'm 50 now, so you can do the maths!), and my (vague) recollection was that RC didn't treat MF particularly badly, and I think that MF may have been free to come and go as he pleased. But I think the dynamic was probably a little different than that between Bertie and Jeeves....

I would beware of assuming that what you watched matches what the book says, especially with regard to things whose social acceptability changed a great deal between its writing and the making of what you watched!

Even things whose social acceptability hasn't changed can differ. E.g. the bit of "Thank You, Jeeves" I mentioned about Jeeves leaving his employment over Bertie's attempts to play the banjolele, then later returning to it is in the Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie "Jeeves and Wooster" TV adaptation, but with the banjolele replaced by a trombone - I'd guess because it was far easier to come up with some trombone-playing that sounded unbearable!

Gengulphus

[melonfool]

Back in the days of the cold war, everybody had a nation which was the button of their jokes. We had the Irish. The Americans had the Poles, as did the Russians. The Poles had the Egyptians. And so on.

The Jews have the Arabs, who no doubt have their own.

It still goes on and will do until the end of time.

TJH

Which doesn't make it OK.

Mel

[melonfool]

So if I make Jewish jokes in the presence of my Jewish friend and they tell me they are offended but I deem that they are just being over sensitive, is that OK?

The opposite of that would be that anyone can elect to be offended by anything and we all have to accept that no matter how bizarre and exaggerated their claim is.

There are two extreme positions here. One is that every claim of offence is justified. The other is that no claims of offence are justified.

So, if I say something offends me, my feelings are less important somehow than your feeling that I should not be offended?

It's also possible to know that something IS offensive without being personally offended by it.

I am arguing for a moderate position between the two extremes. Some claims of offence are justified and some are not. There are people who are genuinely and appropriately offended, and there are others who express faux outrage at the slightest thing and doth protest too much.

No, you are 'arguing' that you know better than other people what is offensive. As you said previously "for me....".

If you suggest 'some claims are justified, some are not' - again, who is the arbiter?

You have gross bigotry at one extreme and petty card-playing political correctness at the other. Better to be be somewhere between the two.

Most people are between the two, you are again simply setting up a straw man to create a debate that isn't happening.

There are also people who are genuinely offended for reasons that don't always make sense and which some people will never understand but you also have some other people who are able to apply some empathy and not decide in advance what other people are *allowed* to feel.

Mel

[Lootman]

So if I make Jewish jokes in the presence of my Jewish friend and they tell me they are offended but I deem that they are just being over sensitive, is that OK?

The opposite of that would be that anyone can elect to be offended by anything and we all have to accept that no matter how bizarre and exaggerated their claim is.

There are two extreme positions here. One is that every claim of offence is justified. The other is that no claims of offence are justified.

So, if I say something offends me, my feelings are less important somehow than your feeling that I should not be offended?

I would not treat you any differently than I would treat anyone else. If I say something and you express to me that you are offended, then I would ask you why you feel that way. I would then consider your response and make a determination about whether your claim is credible, reasonable and appropriate.

If I agree with you then I would express regret. If I disagreed with you then I would explain why. In the former case I would modify my future behaviour and in the latter case I would not. Or maybe something between the two if it was a grey area.

In other words it is not sufficient to merely claim to be offended. You must also have a reasonable basis for believing that. Not that you can help what you feel. But rather not all feelings are equally justified by the facts.

If I told you I was offended by pictures of cute puppies, or by children playing with a balloon or by flowers swaying in a summer breeze, would you give that the same credit as someone outraged by racism or antisemitism? I wouldn't. And not all claims of racism and antisemitism are valid either, just because many are.

[PinkDalek]

I would then consider your response and make a determination about whether your claim is credible, reasonable and appropriate.

Crap for short?

[Howyoudoin]

I would then consider your response and make a determination about whether your claim is credible, reasonable and appropriate.

Crap for short?

Genius.

HYD

[panamagold]

A guy was having a tattoo of an Indian warrior inscribed on his back.
Half way through, he said, "Excuse me pal, would you put a tomahawk in his hand for me."
The tattooist replied, "Sure, as soon as I've finished his turban."

Well, is it?

Moderator Message:
RS: I will let this one stand but please no more jokes on this thread. We have a jokes board.