Racist, Sexist and other-ist Jokes

Actually this sounds more like a scottish variant, after all both the englishman and the irishman end the joke plummeting towards the ground without working parachutes.TTFN,WK

contracycle, Yes you did: If other people aren't incited to violence by the joke, then you don't have a point. There is no reason, implicit to the joke itself, that would lead anyone to be violent towards the Irishman. Ergo, an Irishman (or Englishman, for that matter) who isn't offended by the joke, who can look forward to no beating whatsoever, has suffered no harm. Told to me by one of my wifes & I's mutual friend, my wife is Scottish/Irish. No one was offended, they're not going to get anyone kick the shit out of them who may have been telepathically listening in, either. There was no harm done. /rant.YOU said "OTHER people who go on to perpetrate violence against them", not I. In fact, nowhere in the joke is there an inference that the Irishman's life was worth less, just that he was less intelligent. Interesting that YOU conflate the value of life with intelligence.Now answer the question. What harm has been done to our friend? She doesn't feel dehumanised or offended, no one holds her in contempt, in fact she is very well educated, holding a high rank in the NHS. She married an Englishman earlier this year, so he doesn't seem to have got your logic, either. Everyone English I met at the wedding seemed to have forgotten that they are supposed to hold the Irish in some sort of contempt, too. My dear old dad was a bricklayer for decades, the building site was the traditional Irish immigrants place of work. Strangely my dad hasn't a bad word to say about them, in fact I've been fishing with his workmates in days of yore. He manages to tell Irish jokes without treating as shit off of your shoe, though. Why is that? It would seem that your logic has failed.It is true there are anti-Irish Englishfolk. Yet in recent times this has diminished enormously. I recall a story my (Irish) uncle-in-law told me when he arrived in London in the '50's. The B&B's had signs on the doors, in this order, "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish". Today he suffers from exactly ZERO anti-Irish behaviour. Yet you you haven't made the case that this is in any way due to anti-Irish jokes, or simply racism that existed anyway. Given that the Irish I've met haven't been offended, that anti-Irish feeling has all but vanished, all without any decline in the popularity of the Irish joke suggests to me that your pissing in the wind.If no-one is offended, no-one gives a shit whether you think they have been dehumanised. Amazing as it may sound to PC twats like yourself, most of us have the ability to tell an intended joke from intended offensiveness. Moreover, we therefore also understand that because any given group is the butt of any given joke, it doesn't therefore follow that that group is inferior to us.That's why you have people like myself, & pretty much everyone else who has disagreed with you, as being anti-racist folks who can enjoy a joke without anyone getting hurt. That you think people are dehumanised to the point people take violent action against them because of this, is a comment on your fucked logic, not ours.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

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If other people aren't incited to violence by the joke, then you don't have a point.

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Actually, I DO have a point. I can predict that violence will be perpetrated without asserting that the joke itself constitutes actual incitement.

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There is no reason, implicit to the joke itself, that would lead anyone to be violent towards the Irishman.

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Quite true. The actual motive and opportunity for violence ae the occupation. The joke serves to dehumanise the victim and thus legitimise that violence.

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Ergo, an Irishman who isn't offended by the joke, who can look forward to no beating whatsoever, has suffered no harm.

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And consdiering that British troops are STILL in occupation of Northern Ireland, quite a lot do still face beatings, harrasment and violence.

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Told to me by one of my wifes & I's mutual friend, my wife is Scottish/Irish. No one was offended, they're not going to get anyone kick the shit out of them who may have been telepathically listening in, either. There was no harm done.

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... becuase you are nice and safe and comfortable and have that luxury. That does not in any way means it was not racist, and I now have as low an opinion of your friend as I have of you.

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What harm has been done to our friend?

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Why would you expect any harm to be done to your friend? Thats a red herring you keep resorting to desppite my having debunked it multiple times. Are you reduced to trolling?

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Yet you you haven't made the case that this is in any way due to anti-Irish jokes, or simply racism that existed anyway. Given that the Irish I've met haven't been offended, that anti-Irish feeling has all but vanished, all without any decline in the popularity of the Irish joke suggests to me that your pissing in the wind.

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As an outsider in London, my experience is radically different. The Irish and Welsh and Scotts I know complain bitterly of English racism, and rail against exactly these jokes. But they feel safe to tell me that stuff, because I won't call them oversensitive crybabies as the English will*, and I have a background in the politics of national liberation.

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If no-one is offended, no-one gives a shit whether you think they have been dehumanised.

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See the red herring swimming by again. You are trolling, aren't you Mark?* which of course is just another form of bigotted behaviour, blaming the oppressed for their oppression. It's exactly the tactic we have seen deployed here arguing that women are only oppressed by themselves. These are stock reactionary arguments.This message has been edited by contracycle, 08-10-2004 09:02 AM

contracycle, You have no point as you CANNOT predict the violence will occur because of the joke. When will I, my wife, & my friend be subject to a beating, then? You assert it, you have NEVER demonstrated the link in the past, let alone predicted it. Are you using the same dictionary as the rest of us? It goes something like this, SILLY IRISHMAN = LOWER FORM OF HUMANITY, therefore I can kick the shit out of him.It does not follow that I should inflict violence on a lesser being than myself, dehumanised, or otherwise. Point moot. Nope, the red herring is yours. You have failed to point to any instance, let alone demonstrated it to be the norm, which is what you are required to show, where alleged dehumanisation leads to someone being on the receiving end of violence after taking no offence to a racist joke. So, in fact the red-herring is claiming that there is a link & I should just accept what you say.DEMONSTRATE the link, & stop trolling. I wouldn't, but if she's come to no harm, then you have no point. Well whoopy fuckin' do, Che Guevara. Why wouldn't they be? They pay their taxes like the rest of the UK, they can expect protection from terrorists, too, can't they?Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

You realize of course that Che Guevara was just another of them Irishmen out to start a brawl.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

By Esteban Hambre, Framingham-Saxonville ClarionA recent joke posted on the EvC forum Monday has caused a paroxysm of outrage in an offended community. The joke read:

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This neutron walks into a bar and asks, How much for a beer?

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The bartender replies, For you, no charge.

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Neutrons worldwide have called for administrative action against the perpetrators of this hate-speech.I prefer to be called a nucleon, same as all other constituent particles of an atomic nucleus, says a neutron who wished to remain anonymous. That joke made me feel subatomic. You know how it feels when you’re absorbed by paraffin? That’s how I feel right now. I think people should realize that their words can hurt.Neutrons have traditionally been denigrated for their lack of charge, despite the fact that their mass is roughly equal to that of the more positively-regarded protons. Moreover, the term free particle has been interpreted as a slur against the alleged promiscuity of neutrons. The radioactivity of elements has been unjustly blamed on neutron irradiation, say neutron activists, and such caricatures as Nickelodeon’s Jimmy Neutron perpetuate unflattering stereotypes.We demand an end to our exclusion from hydrogen, claims one neutron activist, and we demand to be included in the atomic number of all elements. Furthermore, we want our contribution to isotopic diversity and stability to be considered more than just a law of physics or something. This totally denigrates our status and worth as particles. We’re also sick of being mistaken for neutrinos. The activist was subsequently captured by the nucleus of plutonium-239.

Now now MrHambre,Stop being activistist

contracycle responds to me:

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Part of the dehumanising of women is to ascribe to them an artificial passivity that is nonsense in a pack-hunting animal, and to label women who then do use violence as unnatural and unfeminine.

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And part of the dehumanising of men is to ascribe to them an artificial aggressiveness that is nonsense in a social animal and to label men who do not use violence as non-existent or effeminate.And thus, we see ridiculous statements like "All men are potential rapists."

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What appears to me misleading in the table you offer is that we do not know the frequency with which each type was employed. That is, for a given couple that reported Yes to male and female use of slaps, and yes to female use of a knife, the ratio of male slaps to female knife-blows may have been 1000:1.

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Incorrect. The numbers there are the incidents. In other words, the 3 incidents of using a weapon are 3, specific incidents...not that 3 people used a weapon, perhaps 27 times each. It's rates per year per 1000 couples. Thus, you'd find 28 instances of a husband throwing something at a wife and 52 instances of a wife throwing something at a husband.

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It seems essentially unremarkable to me that by the point violence reaches homicidal levels, women are more likely to restort to weapons given the male advantage in musculature.

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What a sexist comment.You mean being beaten doesn't count if you don't have to go to the hospital?Are you seriously saying that the 6 and 4 women who "beat up" their husbands didn't really beat them up?

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I would suggest rather that this indicates that for men, unarmed violence is sufficiently effective that it achieves their goals.

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Yep...I guess you are.It isn't really violence if you don't need surgery if you're a man.Sounds an awful lot like the whining from some regarding Kerry's Purple Hearts. It isn't like Kerry gave those medals to himself. If the Navy decided he was deserving under the rules, then he was deserving under the rules. The fact that he didn't lose a limb or have to have his spleen removed doesn't mean he wasn't injured in combat.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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And part of the dehumanising of men is to ascribe to them an artificial aggressiveness that is nonsense in a social animal and to label men who do not use violence as non-existent or effeminate.

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Exactly so.

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And thus, we see ridiculous statements like "All men are potential rapists."

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I too think its an exxageration. Whats that got to do with anything?

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Incorrect. The numbers there are the incidents. In other words, the 3 incidents of using a weapon are 3, specific incidents...not that 3 people used a weapon, perhaps 27 times each. It's rates per year per 1000 couples. Thus, you'd find 28 instances of a husband throwing something at a wife and 52 instances of a wife throwing something at a husband.

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I stand corrected

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It seems essentially unremarkable to me that by the point violence reaches homicidal levels, women are more likely to restort to weapons given the male advantage in musculature.

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What a sexist comment

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How so?But then you're not being serious, are you Rrhain?

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You mean being beaten doesn't count if you don't have to go to the hospital? Are you seriously saying that the 6 and 4 women who "beat up" their husbands didn't really beat them up?

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Step away from the magic mushrooms, dude. I don't understand how you possibly construct that from what I said. all I said was that I found the higher proportions of weapons usage unremarkable - whats that fgot to do with whether or not a beating is a beating?Are we leaping to assumptions, Rrhain?

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It isn't really violence if you don't need surgery if you're a man.

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Are you adamant unarmed violence never needs hospitalisation? How bizarre

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The fact that he didn't lose a limb or have to have his spleen removed doesn't mean he wasn't injured in combat.

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Uh, yeah. And like, just ebcuase you were obnly beaten with fists doesn't mean you didn't have to have your nose set. WTF are you on about?

contracycle responds to me:

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And thus, we see ridiculous statements like "All men are potential rapists."

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I too think its an exxageration. Whats that got to do with anything?

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Um, didn't you just agree that there is a dehumanization of men? Have you not noticed that there is a significant portion of those who seek to politicize the issue of domestic violence resort to a woman = good/man = bad equation? That in their defense of women, they seek to cast masculinity and the mere biology of being male in and of itself threats?

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It seems essentially unremarkable to me that by the point violence reaches homicidal levels, women are more likely to restort to weapons given the male advantage in musculature.

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What a sexist comment

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How so?

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But then you're not being serious, are you Rrhain?

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Get used to disappointment. I am being quite serious.It assumes that all men are bigger than all women. It assumes that women don't know how to fight. It assumes that all men are strong, battle-savvy individuals who would be able to fend off the pathetic blows of a weak woman.

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all I said was that I found the higher proportions of weapons usage unremarkable - whats that fgot to do with whether or not a beating is a beating?

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You said that the reason women would resort to weaponry is because they wouldn't be able to do anywhere near the damage of men to men due to the differences in musculature.It assumes that every man is bigger than every woman. That when put in a fight, a man will always be able to beat up a woman.It ignores the fact that men are beaten up by women almost as often as women are beaten up by men.

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It isn't really violence if you don't need surgery if you're a man.

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Are you adamant unarmed violence never needs hospitalisation? How bizarre

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Indeed...since it was my argument to you. You were the one saying that women are weaker than men and thus the violence they do against men isn't as bad...as if being hit by another person doesn't count if you don't need stitches afterward.

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The fact that he didn't lose a limb or have to have his spleen removed doesn't mean he wasn't injured in combat.

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Uh, yeah. And like, just ebcuase you were obnly beaten with fists doesn't mean you didn't have to have your nose set. WTF are you on about?

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Your post.Did you or did you not say the following (Message 83): How can this be interpreted to mean that when a woman hits a man, it doesn't cause as much damage? That the aftermath of a woman hitting a man isn't as bad?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!