[Sunake]

Q: How did they improve the transportation in harlem?
A: Move the trees closer together.


Q: What's the difference between a Jew and a Pizza?
A: The pizza doesn't scream when you put it in the oven.


Q: What do you call a bunch of white guys sitting on a bench?
A: The NBA

Q: Why can't Mexican be firemen?
A: They can't tell Jose from Hose B

Q: How do you know when a baby is dead?
A: The dog plays with it more.

Did you hear the one about American Airlines new deal? They’ll fly you straight from the airport to the office!

Now I post these jokes, not to start a joke thread, but a thread about jokes. This is spawned from the NY Post cartoon and the Att. General threads. Sure we all know several distasteful, often racial jokes, and despite what any one of you say, I'm sure you find at least one type of joke funny. The question is, why can't anyone just get over it? Tell that black joke in public and you'll have Al Sharpton (whom I suspect fashions himself as the new MLK) picketing your house the next day. Tell a Holocaust joke and people will shun you saying, "Too soon." (the way I see it, since the victims of the Holocaust would be the dying generation now, its late enough) Same with the 9/11 joke. I don't know anyone that would make a fuss about white guy jokes, but Mexicans seem to be off-limits too. Dead baby jokes are always uncouth, but does that make it wrong to tell one? Do we have to keep tiptoeing around such issues? Should we have to put up with them, or do people have the right to be as uncouth as they want? Do we have to CTSO now that we have an ethnic president?

[Vaal Satori]

You have a right to tell offensive jokes, but others have a right to be offended by them. It sounds like what you are asking for is to be as rude as you want without having to deal with any consequences. I'm sorry but that's not how humans operate. If the community is put off by your contentious behavior they will ostracize you, and I really wouldn't blame them.

[Sunake]

Vaal Satori, on Feb 20 2009, 04:03 PM, said:

You have a right to tell offensive jokes, but others have a right to be offended by them. It sounds like what you are asking for is to be as rude as you want without having to deal with any consequences. I'm sorry but that's not how humans operate. If the community is put off by your contentious behavior they will ostracize you, and I really wouldn't blame them.

Not necessarily no consequences, you can tell me straight out if you didn't like any of those jokes and you certainly can call me a racist pig, but I'm talking about people getting so upset that they actually go activist. Like Al Sharpton. He's a guy that has a stick up the $@! of the stick up his $@!. I admit one should not continuously tell offensive and dirty jokes, as everything is better in moderation, but is it worth getting up on your righteous indignation high horse just because of one joke?

[edikroma]

Question is, how many of these jokes do you tell straight to the face of the people they make fun of? In my experience, most of these jokes are told to a close group of friends, and almost never directly at, say, a black person.

If you choose to exercise poor choice when it comes to telling offensive and distasteful jokes in public, you should fully accept the consequences when people are offended.

That being said, I don't think the NY Post cartoon was a distasteful joke. I don't think the artist, or the newspaper would be stupid enough to post something that was deliberately racist. They simply can't afford to. In this case, they were saying that the stimulus was so poorly written, that it could have been written by monkeys. Of course, I don't think the media is used to having a black president still, and I guess they forgot how else the symbol could be interpreted.

[Andy Rooney]

Ethnic humor doesn't bother me. I'm of Irish ancestry and can tell all sorts of Irish jokes and limericks and I laugh when I hear Paddy jokes and all. Mostly because the jokes resemble at least one of my relatives.

Now, what I don't care for are the Al Sharpton types who will condemn a white guy for telling a black joke but if Sindbad or Chris Rock or etc. tell jokes that are FAR worse then the shakedown artists like Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are totally silent.

[Lord GVChamp]

I don't see a problem with any of those jokes, other than the Jew one because it's over-used.

Also, I don't see why we can't argue social norms either. Sure, you're free to say the jokes, and people ARE free to ostracize you. I don't see why we shouldn't be arguing against the ostracism anymore than we argue against racism.

[Sunake]

Lord GVChamp, on Feb 20 2009, 06:22 PM, said:

I don't see a problem with any of those jokes, other than the Jew one because it's over-used.

Also, I don't see why we can't argue social norms either. Sure, you're free to say the jokes, and people ARE free to ostracize you. I don't see why we shouldn't be arguing against the ostracism anymore than we argue against racism.

Like I said, if your social group ostracizes you for a joke that might have been slightly over the top that's their prerogative, but they shouldn't go picketing your house for being a racist.

Also, I was trying to pick some of the less horrible jokes out of the bunch. Could have gone with the one about the 9/11 jumpers, but even I felt that was in incredibly bad taste (although funny).

[deja]

All of these jokes are not only acceptable in the company I tend to keep, but are probably considered pretty tame.

[Vaal Satori]

Sunake, on Feb 20 2009, 11:16 AM, said:

Not necessarily no consequences, you can tell me straight out if you didn't like any of those jokes and you certainly can call me a racist pig, but I'm talking about people getting so upset that they actually go activist. Like Al Sharpton. He's a guy that has a stick up the $@! of the stick up his $@!. I admit one should not continuously tell offensive and dirty jokes, as everything is better in moderation, but is it worth getting up on your righteous indignation high horse just because of one joke?

No, ideally it's not really worth getting upset over. Usually those jokes say more about the person who uses them than about the people they are directed at. However, we are only human, and most of us cannot help but feel hurt when someone treats us disrespectfully.

I also feel it pertinent to remind you that there are a lot of non-black people who are exactly the same as Sharpton, and that you should not only focus entirely on him. In fact, for people who condemn whining and righteous indignation in others, conservative pundits certainly do a lot of it themselves, perhaps even surpassing those they are accusing. I believe Jesus had something to say about that.

Sunake, on Feb 20 2009, 12:25 PM, said:

Also, I was trying to pick some of the less horrible jokes out of the bunch. Could have gone with the one about the 9/11 jumpers, but even I felt that was in incredibly bad taste (although funny).

Do you think that's perhaps because it hit closer to home for you than the others? Perhaps you don't find the Black or Mexican jokes to be in bad taste because you are not a Black or a Mexican? If so then I would suggest you try to put yourself in other people's shoes, as that can be a useful skill for social creatures such as us to have.

This post has been edited by Vaal Satori: 20 February 2009 - 11:53 AM

[Kenadian_2006]

I don't thing it's wrong in any respect to tell distasteful jokes among friends who don't care or even do it with you. Nowhere else. Why? You can and likely would offend someone. It's just tactless and stupid otherwise. The only people who get away with it are comedians like George Carlin (RIP him) or other dark humour comedians.

On the flip side, if you say these jokes with the actual intent of malice or ridicule (IE: Using that Mexican firefighter joke as a slur against Mexicans) it is wrong.

Other than that, just watch who you say them around.

For the record, I laughed at every single one of those.

This post has been edited by Kenadian_2006: 20 February 2009 - 11:51 AM

[Lord GVChamp]

Sunake, on Feb 20 2009, 11:25 AM, said:

Like I said, if your social group ostracizes you for a joke that might have been slightly over the top that's their prerogative, but they shouldn't go picketing your house for being a racist.

Also, I was trying to pick some of the less horrible jokes out of the bunch. Could have gone with the one about the 9/11 jumpers, but even I felt that was in incredibly bad taste (although funny).

It is their prerogative, just like it is my prerogative to not like because your user-name begins with the letter "S".

Or, to sum up my point in demotivator form:

[Kenadian_2006]

Lord GVChamp, on Feb 20 2009, 12:54 PM, said:

It is their prerogative, just like it is my prerogative to not like because your user-name begins with the letter "S".

Or, to sum up my point in demotivator form:

Pretty much this.

Discretion is a very valuable asset.

[Sunake]

Vaal Satori, on Feb 20 2009, 06:46 PM, said:

Do you think that's perhaps because it hit closer to home for you than the others? Perhaps you don't find the Black or Mexican jokes to be in bad taste because you are not a Black or a Mexican? If so then I would suggest you try to put yourself in other people's shoes, as that can be a useful skill for social creatures such as us to have.

Q: What was the last thing to go through the mind of an employee in the 90th floor of the WTC?
A: The 91st!

Happy now? I know we have a lot of international members, but death is rarely seen as funny. If we can't get over the Holocaust after over sixty years then how will we expect to get over 9/11? Is it somehow right to laugh at fun poked at an event with twelve million casualties, yet is somehow wrong to laugh at a measly 2,752 deaths? Maybe we should ban 9/11 jokes. Maybe I'm an insensitive prick, but I can give you the web page with the 9/11 jokes and truthfully tell you I laughed at every one.

[America]

Vaal Satori, on Feb 20 2009, 05:03 PM, said:

You have a right to tell offensive jokes, but others have a right to be offended by them. It sounds like what you are asking for is to be as rude as you want without having to deal with any consequences. I'm sorry but that's not how humans operate. If the community is put off by your contentious behavior they will ostracize you, and I really wouldn't blame them.

They have a right to be offended, but unless it is "a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action[citation needed] against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability," they can't do anything. Otherwise, I am going to start suing record labels for using the N word because I'm offended.

[deja]

I'm not going to lie, for some reason I never found the Holocaust jokes funny. I wasn't offended or anything (I'm nearly impossible to offend), but I just never really got the humor. Probably because they just typically aren't as clever as a lot of women jokes or racist jokes. And really, things are funnier when they're making fun of things that at least have some sort of grounding in an observable stereotype. I thought the joke about losing a Jewish cop by taking the toll road was funny, but I never got what was funny about the oven joke other than that it was just trying to have shock value.

[Vaal Satori]

America, on Feb 20 2009, 02:01 PM, said:

They have a right to be offended, but unless it is "a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action[citation needed] against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability," they can't do anything. Otherwise, I am going to start suing record labels for using the N word because I'm offended.

They have the right to boycott your products, protest in the streets, and sue you in civil court. Freedom of speech is designed to protect you from government prosecution. As long as your fellow citizens don't break the law there are plenty of things they can do to make your life miserable. In certain areas with lax noise pollution laws they can even picket your house, provided they are on public land and don't trespass.

[Ejayrazz]

Those individuals whom clearly do not possess a sense of humor mine as well just dig themselves a hole. People have the right to be offended, of course, but we label these people as 'uptight', you know, the type of members in society we try to avoid. Of course, other mitigating factors come into play, but seriously, a joke is a joke. However, if you are going to tell a black joke for instance to a black person and do not know them, mine as well ask permission to be conservative. If the intent is malicious, well that is another story. There are many different circumstances, but the main point is: Chillax.

[Sunake]

Vaal Satori, on Feb 20 2009, 09:38 PM, said:

They have the right to boycott your products, protest in the streets, and sue you in civil court. Freedom of speech is designed to protect you from government prosecution. As long as your fellow citizens don't break the law there are plenty of things they can do to make your life miserable. In certain areas with lax noise pollution laws they can even picket your house, provided they are on public land and don't trespass.

"Boycott my products?" The only product I produce is spite, and you get that whether you like it or not. I'm a private citizen, and any protest on my lawn will be interpreted as an unwelcome excursion on my property. You get one warning and ten seconds to get off my lawn. Then the lead goes down range.

[Aeternos Astramora]

I lol'd at every one of those jokes, especially the 9/11 one.

edikroma, on Feb 20 2009, 10:17 AM, said:

Question is, how many of these jokes do you tell straight to the face of the people they make fun of? In my experience, most of these jokes are told to a close group of friends, and almost never directly at, say, a black person.

From my experience, a lot of racist/Jewish/white/Mexican jokes are told to people of that characteristic.

As long as they're only in humor and there's no intentional malice, I'm okay with them.

[Wargarden]

I personally have a sense of humor that circles around the tasteless and obscene. Really, I've told jokes that I'm still ashamed of telling years later. But I still do, I still laugh and I don't think there's anything wrong with me. I adore bad taste.

And people talking about "its okay if it just humor" vs "its not okay if its malice or prejudice"....so now we need to define what is acceptable free speech? Not a huge fan of that. Someone using a joke in a malicious way is really showing their true colors. I'd rather hear an outright bigot telling a stupid, unfunny racist joke and be able to know who he is and stay away from him. When you wear it on your sleeve, its one thing, when you wear it in your heart, its a darker more sinister thing.

The failsafe in all of this is if your offended, don't listen, leave, turn the channel, stop reading, whatever. If your an offender, expect people to be offended and leave or boo you or whatever. But noone should ever, ever have the right to silence you for any reason.

anyways. yeh.