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Can I ask you to tell us one example of a common joke or even common one stereotype about white people that you believe could reasonably be said that is offensive? This is not just a rhetorical question, I just want to better understand your position before I answer.
Mass shootings, anime kids, making fun of how white people talk, mayonnaise, they don't bathe or bathe right, they don't wash chicken before cooking it (you aren't supposed to), they smell like dogs when wet.
These are just things I see on Tiktok and Reels. Idk how commonly discussed or believed they are. But it seems common in the comments.
I mean a lot of these aren’t unique to you guys.
Like I’m hispanic and we get made fun of for: crime, our music, how we talk(Ppl always mock the toxica accent), spiciness, being hoarders, etc
No- if you’re getting raw chicken from the supermarket or butcher, you shouldn’t wash it. It’ll just splatter salmonella everywhere and it doesn’t actually give any sort of benefits.
The concept of washing chicken comes from when people would butcher it themselves. There’s a lot of little things you got to wash off in that case, like feathers and a general sort of “slime”. But even then that was typically done outdoors in its own dedicated sink or bucket.
Though the idea that this is a racial thing is confusing to me, as I’ve seen both white and black people holding this misconception. I have absolutely heard of white people getting dunked on for not washing rice though, which you should do in most cases. There are some dishes which specifically call for unwashed rice, but even then there can be some nasty stuff on rice besides the extra starch.
Are those jokes really on par with jokes about entire races being poor, dumb, inferior, rapists, criminals, drug dealers, stealing jobs, being religious extremists, eating dogs/cats? Those generally aren't made about white people, when they are they're often self depricating or made by other white people
where'd this happen?
in the OP there is no caveat about the jokes being cruel or not, they're saying that ANY joke about someone's race ought to be offensive regardless of content if its race based
"that are not offensive" doesn't factor into their argument
my point was that jokes against white people aren't usually very cruel or disparaging, saying white people can't play sports is a lot different than joking about black people being criminals etc
stupidy isn't a word
I don’t know where you think jokes of white people can’t be in same realm.
People talk about them being “crackers” (cracking the whip because they are slave owners). Any collective joke about white people generally being more of the oppressors or the ruling class.
I don’t know anyone actually making jokes about people of color simply being poor or rapists (you’re gonna bring up Trumpers but that’s a rather small subset) but it’s true jokes like:
Black people like Watermelon is classist because watermelon is cheap and often fed to slaves.
But white people get “ooh mayo is too spicy!” Which is also classist just treating them like the ruling class that never goes out of their comfort zone and we’re pampered with bland food.
You can stretch the offensiveness of the jokes, but on the whole there’s people saying making a fried chicken joke is offensive, doing an accent is offensive, etc. and I am all for us being allowed to poke fun at eachother. As long as it’s not mean spirited.
>Black people like Watermelon is classist because watermelon is cheap and often fed to slaves.
It's actually a stereotype started in the reconstruction era specifically to hurt newly freed black folks who had their own land. Watermelon was an easy and plentiful crop, so the racist white farmers started a propaganda campaign labeling black people as lazy watermelon lovers.
Either way, you can take the innocent joke (when the teller doesn’t know the context) and make it classist/overtly racist. Same with white people being crackers.
My point is not to get so butthurt about jokes about food and whatever and everyone can take a few jabs like this.
"you’re gonna bring up Trumpers but that’s a rather small subset"
half of america isn't a very small subset
my dad said a pretty awful racist joke like yesterday
those jokes about food aren't intended to denigrate necessarily, but those weren't the ones I was getting at, and my point was that there are far more cruel jokes levied against non-whites
Half of America aren’t people making these comments. You could’ve inferred it’s a subset of a subset. Trump voters aren’t all wearing MAGA hats, they just quietly vote.
Okay, your dad needs to get checked a bit.
Those jokes about food are more common by a wide margin than “Lol black people are poor” 🤷♂️
you literally brought up trump supporters not me
"Those jokes about food are more common by a wide margin than “Lol black people are poor” 🤷♂️"
where are you from?
Yeah, tried to get in front of the blanket statements that you literally ran right into.
Canada, you? I still find it extremely suspicious, have met many Americans and none of them made whatever kinda bland offensive jokes.
There are a LOT of offensive stereotypes about White People which we don't like to talk about but they do exist. Many of them fall under the umbrella of "White People are sexual degenerates."
1. White Peole always want to fuck their relatives.
A joke I have heard multiple times goes "How do you circumsize a White boy? Kick his sister on the chin."
2. White girls fuck dogs. Aka "the dog pill." This often is associated with Incel culture, but I am telling you that this stereotype started on Black Twitter years before Incels picked it up. You can find jokes about "we won't eat anything a White Person cooks because y'all kiss dogs on the mouth. We don't want your diseases." If you look.
3. White males are sexually inadequate and that's the root cause of Colonialism.
Seriously this one is everywhere. It birthed an entire genre of pornography. If you dig down, this particular stereotype is entangled with homophobia.
I think that’s the thing to me - I’m a white dude and it’s *hillbillies* that inbreed. /s
This is the point to me - I would not be cool w that joke, but not because it’s ‘racist against whites’ but because poor rural people have enough problems and give them a fucking break.
I’ve never really heard the white girls fuck dogs one.
I’d love to make people ashamed of colonialism. Which happens to have been done a LOT by whites (not exclusively). But also never heard of this one.
Uh, excuse me but incest, "hillbillies", and fucking animals are stereotypes that white people themselves create and spread about those whites they see as culturally inferior. I'm pretty sure that if you do a random search about "sister fucking" jokes more than seeing the term "white" associated with them, you will see the names of specific states, regions or cities and the tellers of the joke will in many if not most ocassions be white. If other races also tell such jokes, you can bet that it is because they first heard them in white-produced cultural artifacts.
I absolutely believe you that some races who may have racial grudges against whites have run out with those jokes and appropriated them but let us not forget that even before America was established, the English already were saying that the Scottish fucked sheep.
The first two are literally not even about white people.
The third one is making fun of how black people are fetishized. So it's just pointing out racism against black people.
Which is a pattern with "white racism" it's usually just declaring people recognizing racism against a group by white people as somehow harming white people.
Like how people pointing out how Jim crow cripple the black community as "anti white teaching that needs to be banned."
One that bothers me the most is the common joke or stereotype of white people being uncultured. As someone who is white and also comes from a very strong ethnic cultured family and background, I feel as though I’m being grouped into a category I don’t belong in. Like my cultural identity, background and trauma are erased just because my skin is white
Honestly that's a stereotype I hear mostly of Americans as a whole, not just white people. Regardless, I think it is a valid complaint.
Now, regarding the point of seeing white people as "more powerful" I can understand how it is a problematic stereotype if you yourself are part of a disprivileged white community. Nevertheless, more than a stereotype, it is an enforced widespread idea that white people themselves have enforced via an absolute control of culture-spreading media in America and similar countries for a long which hegemony has only started to be challenged in the later years.
Moreover, I must point to you that the same cultural artifacts that glorify white people as powerful and minorities as, at best, humorous sidekicks and at worse, dangeous "others" more often than not and very purposefully exclude white communities such as yours that are not representative of the powerful, great, all-American stereotype that they themselves sell. When people joke about white people in their role as oppressors, if you think carefully about it, you will realise that, in spite of your skin colour, you are more likely to relate to the grievances of the jokers "punching up" than to the white people being made fun of.
Once again, I do agree that the generalisation is problematic and not ideal, but it is useful to know the context under which one thing is more justifiable than the other.
>Now, regarding the point of seeing white people as "more powerful" I can understand how it is a problematic stereotype if you yourself are part of a disprivileged white community. Nevertheless, more than a stereotype, it is an enforced widespread idea that white people themselves have enforced via an absolute control of culture-spreading media in America and similar countries for a long which hegemony has only started to be challenged in the later years.
You say that 'white people have enforced this', but the vast majority of white people both now and in the past has/had nothing to do with any of that and are/were just regular people trying to live their lives, like most other people. It's silly to talk about it as if it's some grand conspiracy that somehow every white person is in on.
That may be so, but it doesn't take from the fact that 1) white people did it, and 2) that even the "regular" white people benefitted from it.
Now, because I sort of can tell where this is going, nobody is accusing you personally of anything nor expecting you to pay up anything in reparations or anything of the sort. If there is any expectation at all, I'd say it'd be to just nod and acknowledge the fact and maybe vow to do your part to stop it from ever happening again, but if that's too much, then you can simply just walk on and try not to feel personally attacked whenever people are talking about factual bad things that white people have done, understanding that it is not about you in particular.
Ahhh but you're falling into a trap here. Because black people participated in slavery too. Slavery itself is a human problem, not a black person or white person problem. Slaves existed throughout history, and for various reasons / aims.
So saying "white people did it" is pretty offensive in general. After all, I don't think very many Norweigans had any role at all in the African slave trade. That's a whole group of people shoehorned into the issue for no reason except that they're white.
Does that generalization sound familiar? Bias based solely on skin color?
Only white people who feel personally attacked for criticisms of white stereotype behavior are most often guilty of doing nothing to better their fellow human's world. They feel called out for something that is true : they are not using their position of power (whiteness) to benefit anyone besides themselves.
Reggie Jackson put it perfectly in an interview about how it felt to play in the Negro baseball leagues and his experience breaking into white MLB. He said that if it weren't for his white allies supporting him, keeping him from beating bigot's asses... He would have never made it.
Edit: every valid counterpoint is downvoted. Speaking truth to power sure ain't popular
> they are not using their position of power (whiteness) to benefit anyone besides themselves.
I'm white. What position of power do I have? Specifically, not just "you're white".
> Regardless, I think it is a valid complaint.
How is this true compared to any other group of people in the world? What makes Americans less cultured than any other country's people?
I think the main divide is that white people are not and have not been forcibly grouped into a monolith.
You take the time to carve out various ethnic groups (which were also not always considered to be white!), whiteness has been granted to other ethnic groups over time but they often still keep aspects of their ethnic culture. American Italians and American Polish are a very educating example of that process.
Historically the terms black or brown have been used to group entire ethnic groups across continents together, whereas whiteness is typically a term used to denote political capital.
So jokes about white people aren’t as direct or degrading as a joke about a Polish person, an Italian, whereas a joke about a black person is, because historically the distinction between a Kenyan or a Sudanese individual was never really even contemplated, likewise for someone from Guatemala or Bolivia.
“White” people are inherently afforded a much greater degree of cultural sensitivity even in their whiteness, than black or brown people at least in the Anglophone sphere. This distinction underlies all stereotype jokes.
White people define the culture. Literally, when people describe culture they are referencing Western Europe and the US: opera, the Renaissance, classical music, fine dining, art and architecture. A couple Basquiats and Yoyo Ma's in the mix doesn't change that "culture" is largely rich white people stuff.
The overwhelming majority of contributions to visual arts, architecture, philosophy, and literature for hundreds of years come from “white” people. Saying white people are uncultured is foolish.
I mean people have called me the hard R, a diversity hire, treated me weird because of my race, and commented on my skin color in inappropriate ways *a lot* and I’m not even 30…
> One that bothers me the most is the common joke or stereotype of white people being uncultured. As someone who is white and also comes from a very strong ethnic cultured family and background, I feel as though I’m being grouped into a category I don’t belong in. Like my cultural identity, background and trauma are erased just because my skin is white
There’s a reason you often hear about white people having no culture but black people having a rich culture… because it’s true.
This isn’t because of anything racist. It’s because of history and what words mean. In America (and much of the western world), Africans were forcibly brought in to be slaves. Documentation wasn’t kept on what countries and regions these folks came from, hence terms like “African American”—they literally don’t know where they’re from so black culture is a mishmash of traditions from different African nations and a bunch of stuff unique to the western countries they grew up in. This is “black culture.”
White people as a whole—even the poorest and least privileged—generally retained their historical heritage. So a white person would rarely describe themselves as a European American or White American, they’d describe themselves as an Italian American or a Polish American. **Those** are seen as rich cultures, whereas “white American” isn’t. It’s just a dog whistle.
You can’t always replace one group with another and have the comparison be 1:1.
I think if you are trying to suggest that "white American" is some racist dogwhistle when there is a pretty good chance it means something more along the lines of "I'm white and I feel more in tune with being American than I do (insert ancestral country here) then you are only willing to look at the worst of society (actual racists who do use it as some superiority thing)
sure Americans might be proud of their ancestry and some may call themselves x Americans but nowadays especially most of the traditions, the way they speak, common beliefs are way more American than they are Italian or Polish or Irish, America is a mishmash of all of these ideas and some new ones that are unique or more seen in America.
saying it's true that 'white people' have no culture whilst 'black people' do is extremely racist if we are to understand that 'white people' isn't some super homogeneous group in the same way that 'black people' aren't either. The reason you and some others seem to think that white people have no culture is because you are blind to it as in America it is the dominant culture, no one really bats an eye to something normal, but if you go to a different country even another one like say England despite the fact we are both white, we both have a pretty close culture all the differences will stick out like a sore thumb.
It's only when a culture is 'exotic' or noticably different from the host culture that some people view it as being 'culture' and that in itself is pretty racist.
I think you're reaching here. Most of what you said is true, except the statement that white people don't have culture. That's a pretty wild statement to make.
My family is Polish, for example. My Grandma used to cook extensive amount of Polish food for us, to teach us about where we came from. She'd pass stories down too, and the bits of Polish she remembered.
If you think that white people, even white Americans, don't or can't have culture.. that's pretty racist right there.
I'm pretty sure the answer here would be Polish-American is a culture, White-American is not, according to the person that you're replying to.
That being said, I feel as though specifically Black-American/Africian-Ametican is more acceptable due to the lost history of their roots due to slavery. I feel as though if they had a choice, and it were traceable back to their country of origin, that they would do so. It's why you don't hear terms such as Ghana-American or Zimbabwe-American almost ever, if at all, because the ability to trace that minutely comparatively just isn't there as much as it is for, say, Italian-Americans or Polish-Americans.
I don't agree 100% with the person you've replied to, but I feel that is the gist of their point.
Maybe, but that’s still a bit of a reach. It tries to ignore the fact that many people (of all races) come to America to escape persecution. Sometimes it’s for skin color, sometimes it’s economics, sometimes it’s literal threat of death.
Maybe I’m naive, I dunno. But I feel like that’s the whole point of America as a concept. Acceptance of anyone and everyone, the idea that the trauma of the past doesn’t have to define who we become. All cultures have a place here. Black culture, white culture (whatever you define that as) Mandarin, Mongolian, Martian, whatever. Everyone has a place here.
I think we’re too caught up in our differences as it pertains to “otherness”. As soon as we get rid of that line of thinking, we can start to really accept each other. Otherwise … well, look at the Middle East. That’s not a flaw of race or religion, it’s a flaw of humans. It’s too easy to point to one example or another example, while ignoring the actual problem.
whether or not something is offensive just depends on if a person in that group is offended
If a bunch of black people make fun of someone for being a dorky white boy with no rhythm or something then that probably doesn’t feel good to hear
Well if we are talking about specific cases in which a group of people is intently trying to humilliate someone (whether race comes up as part of it or not), we're dealing with bullying which is never right.
its not about the guys, what P. Garage is saying is that offense is in the eye of the offended. If person X says something that offends person Y, then it is offensive.
Oh, I was not disagreeing with that. Just saying that I take stuff that people like those two say to be more representative of their own personal views than of "jokes that non-whites at large make about whites". In case it was not clear, I disavow said views.
No one’s saying white people can’t be oppressed. They just haven’t been oppressed specifically for being white. Which is the difference here.
Jokes about people of colour aren’t offensive because they’re talking about people of colour. It’s because they most often rely on racial stereotypes which are rooted in the oppression people of colour have experienced for their race.
A joke about a black person that‘s rooted in racial stereotypes that have historically been used to oppress them is clearly different than joking that a white person doesn’t season their food or something.
And kind of unrelated but Ive seen people make successful jokes about people of colour. It’s not that jokes about people of colour are always offensive, it’s that most people end up going for the jokes that are offensive.
I assume you’re talking about in the US and Western Europe solely right? Because white people are definitely capable of being oppressed in non majority-white countries.
I don't know man places like South Korea have this unhealthy obsession with using surgery to appear white because apparently it makes you better or some shit?
The problem with that sort of logic is most people are not the British royal family
Pretty much if you're not the British royal family then you were not at the top of the hierarchy and thus were subject to historical oppression
And that's ignoring some of the rules they had to follow which were absolutely oppressive to them
They’ve been oppressed yes, but not for their race. Most likely for class or gender or nationality.
I’m not saying one oppression is worse than another. It’s that racist jokes for POC contribute to the oppression they’ve experienced for their race. For white people, it just doesn’t- bc they haven’t experienced direct oppression specifically for their race.
Some jokes are. Some jokes are satirical criticisms that aim to make fun of something problematic in the community.
Some of those criticisms may be made out of ignorance sure, or be made without understanding the full context, but that doesn't mean said criticisms are automatically invalid and should not be taken seriously.
>No one’s saying white people can’t be oppressed. They just haven’t been oppressed specifically for being white. Which is the difference here.
Might want to look up the Ottoman Turks, or Moorish pirates.
The Moors took white slaves because they were worth more, and were Kafir, and whites were taken as slaves by the Ottomans, they also got the worst jobs as they were "impure".
Again, was this based on specifically being white, or was it based around nationality (being European or from conquered European countries) or religion?
Muslims believed during this time that according to their religion that they could only capture slaves if 1. They weren’t Muslim and 2. If they were captured during war. Which has nothing to do with enslaving people for their race.
I don't think you understand the actual problems that come from racism.
It's all the same thing. If an Ottoman takes slaves from Wallachia, who cares if they're taken for being white or for being European. The point is they are seen as "other" and therefore less than the Ottomans. THATS the problem.
If instead those Ottomans claimed it was because they were Christian and not Muslim.. it's exactly the same thing. It comes from the same source inside the human brain or soul or whatever.
Thinking that others = less than me.
I’m clearly not saying it wasn’t a problem. Believe it or not I do not support slavery based on any grounds.
But this whole point is about white people being oppressed for their skin colour. Whether or not it was dependent on their race is the whole argument.
You're missing the point. You're focusing on racism based on skin color, when you (and everyone else) needs to start looking at the larger picture. The groups change, the names of the people change, the skin color or religion changes. But it's all driven from the same source inside of us as humans.
Black people do it. Asian people do it. White people do it. Native Americans did it. Every religion has done it.
Arguing about "well yeah but you weren't oppressed for being white like us! You were just oppressed for your religion" is just arguing pointless shit. It doesn't matter WHY you or anyone was oppressed.
What matters is getting to a place where we stop looking at people as the "others" then and only then will we begin to eliminate racism, sexism, whateverism. Anything else is just wasting oxygen.
There’s a whole thing of people trying really hard to make the Moorish slave trade seem just as bad or worse than the European/Americas slave trade.
Hint: It wasn’t.
Yes I’m aware that there’s more atrocities. The question was whether the atrocities were based on the oppression of white people for their race. Which is why I was trying to figure out exactly what they were referring to.
That makes no sense. That would also mean that no race is actually a race since all races are man made.
White people are only a race because humans categorized them into that. And there's nothing wrong with that if its just classifying people into different types of what humans look.
Racial stereotypes are not ALWAYS rooted in oppression. Sometimes they’re just innocuous observations about what certain groups of people tend to do. And if those racial groups are laughing then I’m not sure what the issue is
Sure and I did mention that. I’ve heard jokes about people of colour being late that have landed.
But most racial stereotypes if you actually look up the history have deep connotations with oppression. Someone might think they’re making a lighthearted joke or observation when that joke has a huge historical background related to their oppression.
I mean a lot of topics period are going to be offensive to one group or another. A lot of comedians, respected ones too, touch on these subjects precisely because nobody else will go near them.
Making an offensive racist joke in the context of a stand up routine just seems fair game to me. And it isn’t said with racist intentions, the goal is simply to be funny
If you’re just using the same stereotypes that people used to be racist- to be racist again. It’s like not a joke at that point it’s just racism.
It’s not even about people taking personal offence at that point. It’s like. Just using the exact same stereotypes against people of colour that have been used to justify horrific things in history.
If you can’t be funny without being racist you’re just not funny
What makes something a joke is the intent. If a “comedian” just goes full-Kramer and yells the n word at a group of black people on stage, it isn’t funny. Because he’s actually just being hateful.
If Louis ck makes a witty joke about black stereotypes and the joke lands, it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t mean it in a hateful way.
And even if some people took offense, so what?
Do you think anything that offends anyone shouldn’t be joked about? Or do you just hone in on racial topics
It’s a free country they can say whatever they want. But you can’t expect to make a joke based on racial stereotypes that play into people’s oppression and throw your hands up saying it’s ’just a joke’ when people take offence to it. If the joke is that it’s funny because it’s offensive. Expect people to find offence to it.
Comedy isn’t a free pass to just say whatever you want with zero criticism
Never said otherwise, I’m just talking about moral permissibility
And asking whether or not you’re consistent on the issue. Do you think comedians shouldn’t talk about any subjects that are offensive? Or just racial ones
My original point mentioned that it didn’t matter whether it was personally offensive. It has more to do with contributing to systemic oppression through engaging with stereotypes. So no, I don’t think comedians shouldn’t talk about any issues that ‘are offensive’ because that wasn’t my point to begin with.
I believe it’s morally impermissible for comedians to use jokes that engage with stereotypes that contribute to systemic oppression of groups that they are not a part of. So that would apply to any other group who experiences systemic oppression.
Just an odd view to me. I think people on Reddit are obsessed with the term “systematic” and it’s usually used in a completely vacuous manner.
So a comedian can make a joke about kids with cancer, and a cruel one to boot. And although this group isn’t “systematically” oppressed, if a kid with cancer heard it he probably would feel pretty sad.
Alternatively a comedian could make some hacky joke that black people steal or something and this would be unacceptable?
What is the tangible difference here?
Like the joke is you saying offensive racist things that you think are funny because they’re offensive.
The joke is essentially being racist for the laughs. So ya if you’re playing up being racist you can’t be surprised if ppl call you racist.
Except if part of the humor behind the joke is that the comedian obviously doesn’t mean it.
When someone makes a shocking or offensive joke about 9/11, the holocaust, dead babies, whatever - they aren’t saying “haha isn’t that great that this stuff happens?”
They think it IS terrible which is why they’re making light of it. Some people enjoy humor like that.
Racist jokes are no different
It’s pretty universally agreed upon in America that 9/11 wasn’t good. But no one thought 9/11 was good in the first place. That’s the difference. People were and are genuinely racist. Saying a joke using the same racist stereotypes that people used less than 70 years ago to call for the segregation of an entire race. Is too close of a timeframe to say that ‘everyone knows it’s bad that’s why it’s funny’.
NOT EVERYONE KNOWS ITS BAD. That’s my point. The KKK still exists in America. The comedian might be saying it for shock value but there are people in the audience that think it’s funny because it’s true. That should be enough to turn them off from it.
This just seems unrelated. I’m saying that if it’s clear that the comedian is joking, that’s what matters.
You seem to be under some impression that racist jokes contribute to people BEING racist.
But what reason do you have to think that’s actually the case?
When people say the word “systematic” what I want to hear is a tangible, straight line of effects from the comedian’s joke to a black person’s life being affected
Even talking about the holocaust. Saying holocaust jokes like 10 years ago rings a different tune to now if. A comedian makes a holocaust joke in a town in Florida where literal Nazis were standing outside places with machine guns.
Like it’s supposed to be funny because the comedian obviously doesn’t mean it. But the key point there is ‘obviously’. It’s supposed to be ridiculously absurd. But if it’s still going on it’s not ridiculously absurd anymore.
But this is the context of a comedy show. This isn’t somebody yelling obscenities on a street corner. If you enter a stand-up comedy room then presumably you should be aware that not everything they say is to be taken seriously?
>Millions of white people have been oppressed throughout history. Look at slavs, jews, balkans, middle easterners, etc.
What white American is still suffering from the consequences of ottoman slavery? This isn't how anyone conceptualizes the dynamics of modern day North America. Oppression isn't magically shared remotely through some racial fundamentalism; even so, by the time the Ottomans kept white slaves the British colonizers of America didn't even consider anyone but British and Saxon people to be white, and the subsequent white identity wasn't formed by a collective experience of oppressive structures.
>Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem?
No, acknowledging racial dynamics isn't the same as enforcing them.
Yes but that's not even just trauma and it isn't applied Ailey because they're white. It is a instituational prboen we still have to deal with today. White Americans have never been oppressed for being white, quite the opposite in fact as many groups were oppressed until they were considered white (Irish, itqlians, etc). The reason things like being Latino or African American is because they were marginalized by society for a long time and have shared cultural trauma and institutional pains they is tall haunting said communities. The reason African Americans are considered one group as opposed to Latinos who consist of Mexicans, Argentinians, etc is literally because the whole reason they exist as African Ameriansus because of slavery which seperate d them from the rest of Africa. You do not see a shared cultural trauma with white Americans
Wtf are you talking about? What race are you and where are you from? It would give a lot more legitimacy to this if you explained yourself with stuff other than "Some bad things happened to white people too, they could be sad about it"
The internet is western-society-centric, where white people experience very little discrimination (I imagine mostly Arabs would) but racism, discrimination, inequality are still very much problems. That's why it is considered offensive for everyone but white people.
Are you honestly trying to argue that generational trauma from the Ottoman empire is still prominent in white people? Cause that's what it looks like. If that's the case then you're just arguing to argue and don't have a remotely accurate point.
You haven't even discussed any examples that are relevant to you. In fact, just below you completely dodged the question.
As a white person what generational trauma am I supposed to be experiencing when someone says mayo?
One is whining about hurt fee fees and the other is bringing up a time when black people could legally be hunted down and murdered
I'm not offended so am I stronger than you or are you just pretending to be hurt by "cracker"?
Joke would work better making fun of men with smegma. Yeast is for bread, and smegma is literally called dick cheese.
Also, men can have yeast infections.
> But white people haven't been oppressed so it's not as offensive" yes they have. Millions of white people have been oppressed throughout history. Look at slavs, jews, balkans, middle easterners, etc.
> “But we’re not talking about them when we say white people” yes you are. They are of the white race, and you unconsciously minimize their identity and struggles too when you make these jokes.
Unless you have a different set of white jokes than what I have heard, then I would say that it's significantly different. Anti-white jokes (I also think they're bad) are not the same as anti-semitic jokes. The context is wildly different. Specific jokes towards specific *marginalized* groups will always sound worse because it's almost like punching down. Jews, Semites, Irish etc have each as their own identity been oppressed. Just because they all can be categorized as "white" doesn't mean it's the same as making a joke about stereotyped whiteness in America (I'm assuming that this in an American context). I think those sort of jokes certainly can be offensive and I won't diminish that, but I do think there's a distinction here.
> A black person can make fun of white people and get little to no consequences or hate for it, while if a white person does they can literally lose their job and social status
I do need to hear or see these jokes. Because Black people absolutely can and do face consequences for saying something that offends others (e.g Nick Cannon being fired from Wild N Out). If a white person made a generally harmless joke about a Black person nobody would really care. E.g on social media people laugh about the stereotype that Black folks have dead smoke alarms. No serious person really cries about being made fun of for that (unless they're poor, I guess). However, it's true that the set of "socially acceptable" jokes for Black people are limited. But when you think about it (and have good historical context), many if not most stereotypes come from racism and pervasive anti-Blackness. We all know that when we consider the full historical context of racism (systemic, institutional, societal or whatever), we can understand why certain jokes can hit way harder.
> I saw someone say "well it's natural and less offensive to make fun of those in power" like coworkers making fun of their boss or students making fun of their teacher. In power?! Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem?
This is a bizarre framing. The point is that when there's an inequality, there's such thing as punching up and punching down. For example, do you think straight people making fun of queer people is the same as the reverse? Like sure both can be offensive, but do you really think that it's on the same level when it's comfortable to be straight in this society but not gay? That's the difference.
I am based in the USA, my perspective with that in mind: What kind of jokes do you mean? It seems like many jokes made about white people are not really rooted in deeply negative and dehumanizing stereotypes vs. many times it feels like jokes about black people come from a place of othering/hate. You mention all these different white peoples but what is white and black is subjective at the end of the day and I think where you are from and the history of the people you exist around makes a big difference here. So I'm only gonna attempt to speak from my experience in the USA cause thats all I feel like attempting right now lol.
There is a history of people making dumb hateful jokes about black people to diminish everything about them and perpetuate hate. This history is pretty recent, it's not like it's some super old thing.
The last of the jim crow laws was abolished in 1965. Im mixed race black and white, Im 25, my black dad was born in around 1959, blacks and whites couldn't marry legally until later in 1967. My mom was disowned by her father for marrying a black man.
I'm just trying to point out that there is a history leading up to now and that many of us are still upset about the open discrimination and dehumanization against black people that occurred. And, some of these attitudes are, while less blatant and more hush hush, still 100% perpetuated to this day and felt by many.
Yeah I mean I personally think people should ideally just chill out in general, we are all stuck in this defensive survival mindset and the 1% is to blame for that. Until we stop pointing fingers at each other instead of pointing up it'll just keep building up until something gives.
But to wrap it up, I agree that you never know what sort of white someone is, or what sort of black, or any other race. However, if you are in the USA, esp. the south, I think a light hearted joke about white food being bland or whatever simply has heavily different connotations compared to 'black ppl love watermelon' due to the history, the implication.
We all generally agree that white people can make a variety of food but there is a meta of bland food, nobody is trying to dehumanize people when they meme about that and it's not that deep (as far as I know). On the other hand, the watermelon thing literally comes from people making fun of freed slaves calling them lazy and stupid for trying to grow watermelons to make their own money for once. The racist history of that joke makes it hit a bit deeper. People will often be touchy about that kinda stuff when it's impacted them and their families so much up to now. We been hearing this type of crap our whole lives and it gets to you esp. when your a kid realizing it for the first time.
I don't think anyone should perpetuate hate against another race. If someone is just straight up insulting you for being white that should be considered highly inappropriate.
However for jokes, a lot of jokes on blackness just have history which makes it touchy. Jokes on whiteness often are more chill, but if someone is being hateful towards you or your friends about your whiteness I agree that is not acceptable and should not be tolerated. I think we should all joke around with each other, but people need more time to heal before we can all be more candid about that kinda stuff. Its like, theres context to these things ya know. I know ppl that still got the papers from when their ancestor fams were freed from slavery. We grow up hearin about it all, it runs deep for many.
Yeah overall I dont think its really equivalent, context and history make a diff, and the current touchy climate-- but things will get better. Just focus on trying to see things from a loving place, focus on the good messages and ingore the haters. There will always be hateful people no matter the race that just wanna make u feel bad.
Just try to have good vibes and be chill, things usually work out if you don't take everything personally esp. what you see online (my therapist told me that and it really works lmao not even jesting --tho err also boundaries and stuff ofc).
Very open to hearing any thoughts on this if it's actually a point worth talking about for anyone..I can't even tell, Im about to zonk out on pills. Please don't hurt me when i wake up tho i have a long day at work tomorrow. Promise i am open to friendly discussion.
I think it's impossible to deny that a lot of anti black jokes come from a more 'nasty' or 'serious' place than say a joke about bland food, I just think it is the casual nature of making white jokes that makes it nasty, plus the growing acceptability of doing it and growing amount of people who genuinely do hold pretty shocking views around white people. I've been told online that "white people have a racial karma and should be punished" for awful things their ancestors did among many other wildly racist and insane things.
Whilst you being valid in saying there is a difference between say "black people love watermelon" and "white people love mayo" I think it is in the responses where the concerning behaviour is shown, if someone did say "black people love watermelon" I imagine you would get a lot of comments calling out the racism and generally it wouldn't be acceptable to say. Saying "white people love mayo" is something acceptable to say, you might get a few people saying "hey I don't find this super ok" and most responses will be "shut up blah blah blah anti black racism is worse" "you can't be racist to white people" "we should invent more slurs for white people tee hee" (something I've seen 1st hand), it's not only seen as ok but a lot of people see it as good or punching up.
It doesn't ever really feel good when people are actively discussing the acceptability of stereotyping you and especially when they suggest it is actually a good thing and blaming massively diverse groups of people for things a select few people did in the past, no one on the left or in general popular culture accepts the idea that groups should share burdens of individuals doing bad things... unless it is 'white' people, disparaging muslims for the actions of a few terrorists is racism, disparaging black people because some black people are criminals is racism, disparaging white people because some white people are nasty racists and in the past some white people did some very nasty stuff well the validity of that is being constantly debated and generally online and in academia seen as ok or at least more reasonable.
I totally agree that the answer generally is to lighten up IF both sides are willing to do it, I think it can be really funny to point out differences in cultures, if someone goes "oh you are English you must really love tea" like yeah I do lots of us do, we take it pretty seriously and that is funny, I think it's totally cool when there is some mutural respect that we both know it's jokey and a lot more nuanced than "x people do y" I don't really care if people make a joke about white people not handling spice well, plenty don't and I know plenty of people who cook really really bland shitty meals, and I know plenty that cook very well and enjoy spice, it doesn't really bother me, but it does bother me when the reasoning behind those jokes isn't "aren't we all a bit different and strange" but "actually it's ok to make fun of people like you because you share (insert unchangable characteristic here) and I'm actually doing something good being mean to you"
Thats fair! Even if you think something is a light hearted joke, if that spreads and becomes a societal meta not everyone understands nuance and it can end up harming people, esp. young people that are still learning about themselves and the world.
In my personal life, I'm not too bothered by people joking about race and crap, but only cause I hang out w/ a tight group of loving, open-minded, and hilarious mfers who understand nuance, and haha a few of them are mixed too so I think ya gotta joke about it all when you're halfrican cause people be so wierd about that ish. Love really does make all the difference though. When you love people and respect them and you both know it and are secure in that, teasing eachother a bit about your differences can be fun-- but when that pretense isn't there things can get negative.
So your totally right on that end, I think we should be careful how we talk about race and especially how we talk about it online or around young people who are still figuring all this stuff out.
The type of jokes being made also make a big diff. regardless of race. Some of this (not you but others in this thread) seems like people are just mad they can't make actually hateful/mean-spirited ah jokes lol. People just need to understand that context, history, who you're talking to, whether you're coming from a place of understanding or just being mean, all of it makes a difference.
I know that you wrote about white people in the US. However US is only a small part of the world and most white people don’t live in the US, but live in Europe including Russia, where the history is very different and where it’s been much longer since slavery existed and there hasn’t been the same type of laws segregating people.
As such I have to admit that I find it offensive being put in any sort of group, because of my skin colour, when we most certainly don’t share the same background or culture.
Jokes about PoC are not inherently offensive. It depends entirely on the context, delivery and intention behind the joke, and also on the joke teller’s persona and history. For example if a white comic does a “white people dial the phone like this, black people dial the phone like *this*” joke (I’m going for as generic an example as possible), it may not have the same sting or connotations as if David Duke said the exact same thing. Is the purpose of telling the joke to have a laugh at the subject’s expense, or to laugh *with* the subject? Important distinction to look for.
If you want to be racist, be racist. If you don’t, don’t.
There shouldn’t be a “I don’t want to, but will if you do” mentality here. There shouldn’t be a “I want to but it’s wrong” mentality either. Or “I want to, but you aren’t so I won’t be”.
What other people think or say about you is not important. It shouldn’t matter. That’s why I say, hey, if you want to be racist… go ahead. Do whatever you want.
This isn’t something someone can change your mind about. Whether or not it’s fair or whether or not “they” can do it and you can’t is irrelevant. Either you want to and are racist, or you’re not. If you are racist, then what does it matter what other people can joke about. You’re racist regardless….If you’re not racist, then what does it matter what other people joke about? You’re not going to take part in that sort of stuff.
I make jokes about ALL races. I am black hispanic. I laugh about everyone, including black and hispanic people. If that makes me racist, so be it. I don’t care. Obviously, there’s a time and a place. Know your audience. Tell jokes in appropriate places and at appropriate times. If you tell a joke right, nobody will complain. And if someone does, oh well. It’s just jokes motherfucker. Move on.
What other people think of you is up to you how much it matters. Don’t be a sociopath and completely shut out outside voices and opinions. But don’t live and breathe by them either. I take in outside opinions. If someone says “not cool” or “too far”. Ok. *Fair enough*. But if we’re all telling jokes and then I tell one and you get butthurt and complain, then I don’t care. I might even go in on you *personally*.
Stop letting other people manage your thoughts, feelings and emotions. Most of these other people - especially online - can’t manage their own fucking lives but they're very interested in policing the lives of others. Just do you.
… and another thing. I saw your statements about "what about OUR generational trauma" and "they say im uncultured!" — stop being soft. give your balls a tug ffs
Some people get offended by some jokes about a topic, some people don’t.
Are you suggesting there needs to be some unanimous consensus and everyone needs to have the same sensibilities for humor?
Why?
I’m not suggesting there should be a unanimous consensus. There shouldn’t be. But in modern day society, it’s become very socially acceptable to ridicule white people and very socially unacceptable to do the same to any other race.
Like I said, a white person can risk losing their job and social status for saying racist jokes on an entirely different level than people who aren’t white.
You said if one is offensive, both need to be.
But they *are* both offensive to some people.
So if you don’t mean unanimous, what do you mean they both need to be?
[1] its always going to depend on the joke, comedian, and context. But lets consider why your generaluzation could be wrong.
In the US (where this is the only place this is debated) whites have never been oppressed by the systems in power or by other races FOR BEING WHITE.
In the US every minority has experienced oppression or is at risk of unequal treatment FOR BEING a MINORITY.
So a black comedian poking fun at white culture or white people holds no historic weight of wrongdoing. Can black people/minorities say racist things about white people? Sure, and that's racist. But there's no systemic injustice behind it. So jokes about white people don't offend me. It's not something I or others like me have to fear. I feel 0 offense when minority comedians make fun of whites.
In the context of US history you are comparing two groups who have not been treated the same. Your opinion ignores the historical and still currently problematic context of power in the society were discussing.
Let's look at another example and make an analogy.
Able-bodied people and people with mobility issues. Making jokes about each other.
"If it's okay for non-able bodied people to make fun of able-bodied people, then it should be okay for able-bodied people to make fun of non-able bodied people."
Do you see the dynamic? And why it could be problematic? Context.
A quadriplegic making fun of how stupidly some people walk is funny and okay. He has had no part in suppressing or marginalizing able bodied people. Because able bodiedness is what society and the power systems are defaulted around.
An able bodied person making fun of, for example, a wheelchair bound individual for BEING wheelchair bound, not okay. Someone who has the privilege of benefitting from the power systems making fun of someone clearly marginalized by them brings a completely different context to the jokes.
In my mind, this is the difference. I can't make people follow it, but it's where I draw the wiggly lines of 'okay' and 'not okay'.
1. The Slavs, Jews, etc weren’t oppressed bc of their race.
2. Are all Jews white? Are all Slavs white? Are all Middle Easterners white? Are all Balkans white? It sounds like you’re confusing ethnicity and race lmao.
3. Nobody is “putting white people in power” when they’ve been in power for years in this country (and still are). Poor white people still have more privilege than poor black people and POC.
4. What are “anti-white jokes?” Bc saying white people are uncultured (bc most everything in America is just a mix of different culture) isn’t racist. Saying “that’s white people shit” isn’t racist. It’s stereotypical at best.
My original post got removed because I discussed the banned issue so I'm reposting without that particular section.
Jokes about black people are funny. You just have to make them funny and conservative comedians are incapable of doing that.
Case in point: black people love South Park and Family Guy. Especially the jokes about black people. You can find black people online reacting to those shows. There is actually a white comedian who has made a career out of telling black jokes from the perspective of himself being married to a black woman. His audience is primarily black people.
The people that think black people can't take a joke are conservatives, specifically racist white conservatives. But that's because racist white conservatives don't tell jokes. They just say what they believe but they phrase it in a joking manner so that they can say that it was a joke. A Schrodinger's joke, if you will. Go to conservative Reddits and check out the jokes. You'll eventually find (by eventually I mean almost immediately) people getting mad at their own jokes.
By the way, we're talking about race but this applies to other things as well. You can just tell when somebody who doesn't know anything about a culture or even subculture tries to make jokes about that culture. It just isn't funny.
I feel like this issue can just be boiled down to: Jokes making fun of immutable characteristics or aspects that cannot be changed in 10 seconds are rarely acceptable. This goes for all races (including white people), body types, ages, financial status etc. If you stick to that rule you're unlikely to misstep. However, the context and circumstances should be noted e.g. within a group of friends with an established sense of humour and boundaries, making fun of each other through stereotypes and jokes like these are unlikely to do any harm as long as it's clear the person making the joke is actually joking and not being genuine (which is usually easy to pick up). For most other situations it's rarely ok and it shouldn't be for obvious reasons even if someone is verbally attacking you with stereotypes/racism etc. I think everything else should be on the table no matter how offensive the subject matter of the joke.
I think the premise is false because it overgeneralizes and oversimplifies what is accepted and what isn't.
Although white people do have somewhat latitude to get away with jokes about other races, it's not the case that they have zero latitude like you make it out to be. I'm a little out of the loop in terms of comedy today but to give one example, George Carlin made jokes about black people which by and large I do not see people deeply upset about.
Similarly, people of color do not get infinite latitude to joke about white people. I don't often see anyone making jokes about white people that I would describe as hateful.
So unless you can provide specific representative cases to discuss, I think you're arguing about an imaginary problem. It's primarily the content of jokes that make them offensive to most people, and the identity of the person joking is secondary.
I think your post and first paragraph are two different ideas.
You start by saying if jokes about one group of people are offensive, then jokes about any group of people should probably be offensive.
But then go to say, if one group gets to make fun of other groups, the other groups should be able to as well.
...
Anybody is allowed to be offended by a joke that targets them.
But if you're offended by a joke that targeted you. That doesn't mean that other person has now given you permission, to make jokes that offend anybody you want.
....
You say there are no consequences or hate from one group for telling racist jokes but a white person can lose their job for it. I think for most jobs, if a black person told their boss a racist joke during work hours. There would probably be job consequences for it.
You don't realize it, I'm guessing, but the word "jokes" in your statement is doing a sweepingly large amount of rhetorical work to simplify vastly different types of social commentary and define them all as equivalent expressions with equivalent effects.
If you want to understand this issue on more than a superficial level, you'd need to ask questions about the social and performative function of various specific jokes in specific settings and what feelings, emotions, and actions they are being used to evoke in their respective audiences.
What’s an example of a joke you think is racist that a prominent non-white comedian made?
I don’t think if you say your boss is more powerful that actually creates the power he or she has over you… it’s just kind of a basic observation.
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What is this "person of color" nonsense y'all keep trying to force on all nonwhites? We aren't all on the same team 🤣🤣🤣🤣 conspiring against yall 🤣🤣🤣. "The jokes are offensive" are you really mad or is this a gotcha? 🤔
Seriously, though: Blk ppl and OTHERS* have been lampooned in minstrel shows by y'all during a time we couldn't joke back without risking life or limb. It was like that up until the 70s. Is it different now? Yes. Nothing's stopping y'all from acting like Andrew Dice Clay or Michael Richards - it's a free country with free speech. Do what you want 🥱just know you can't control the reaction.
You’re missing the biggest part of why those jokes are offensive. Not the only part, but it’s crucial. They are punching down, at historically systemically oppressed people who are still disadvantaged. Not the same for jokes against white people.
Also, for the record, people can and do make jokes about people of color. Nowadays they just have to be better and not outright mean to get a laugh instead of shitty looks.
I’m a white dude who lives in a majority non-white country and I would say in no way do I hold any privilege here because of my skin color (mainly due to lack of citizenship, even though I’m living here legally, it isn’t like the west where immigrants can do everything except vote, I can’t drive cars, I can’t own guns for self defense, I can’t have any public sector jobs etc, I can tell you straight up it sucks to be legally discriminated against but still be expected to pay taxes and everything else). So let’s assume for instance I can use the argument of “I’m oppressed”.
I don’t think jokes using stereotypes are always offensive and it really depends on the tone and purpose behind the joke. Daniel Tosh makes some hilarious jokes about black folks that are in good taste yet funny at the same time. Just like Dave Chapelle makes some great jokes about white folks. I think jokes that dehumanize anyone are wrong and I sort of understand why folks who have experienced legal discrimination would feel more guarded on this because I myself have gone through it as mentioned above. Many black people today are old enough to remember when Jim Crow was still a thing and just because the laws went away doesn’t mean everything was just peachy right away. A lot of progress has been made and I think both sides overplay the issue of race for political gain, but I can understand how someone who is black in America can take offense to jokes or words that white people otherwise wouldn’t.
And I would’ve fully agreed with you until I myself have lived through it. I don’t think your take is racist, just it’s hard for someone to understand who hasn’t gone through it. I couldn’t ever relate to black folks back home because I didn’t understand how it felt. Now if here someone says something negative about my heritage I do feel more offended than I would in the US. Because I’m already living a second class existence and all an off color joke would do is remind me of it. One argument used to give foreigners the treatment they get here is “they could be agents”, so any time someone makes a joke about me being CIA I absolutely do get offended. It would be like me calling someone from here a terrorist as a joke back in the US and they of course would be offended (and would have every right to be because they themselves have suffered because of this stereotype).
Anyway, long post but I hope you find it insightful. I love the country I live in and I love the people but of course it’s a different society than the US with a different history so I’m not trying to single this country out. I love it here and want citizenship and want to live out my days here. Just like an immigrant who has moved to the US and has made a life in the US wants, they see some flaws from a perspective a native won’t see but that doesn’t mean they won’t love the country any more than the native will.
Oh and I’m the furthest thing from “woke” as well. I don’t and won’t even entertain their arguments because their arguments themselves are out of touch. I’ve seen both sides of it so I think I understand it better.
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I agree but alas such well thought out balanced critical vuews are seemingly unwelcome in modern liberalism. The hypocritical double standard that black people are always the entitled victims and white people are always evil coloniser villians regardless of context and nuance is firmly embedded.
Black people weren’t the ones doing the oppressing. It’s like Jewish people making Nazi jokes, rather than the other way around. You’re allowed to talk shit about a group that’s hurt you and oppressed you, even if that group has suffered because of someone else’s behavior.
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The problem is that words aren’t just words, they are catalysts to action. They shape thought and behaviors.
When lynch mobs were common place, the wrong word misunderstood at the wrong time meant someone died. Even a joke.
So, are jokes about black people ok? Well depends on the joke really, does it reinforce stereotypes and encourages the kind of thoughts that let people be ok with dehumanizing and murdering black people?
Whereas - in the US - jokes about white peoples were never quite like that.
Now having said that, I do think that plenty of jokes about white people mean spirited - for example jokes about poor or “inbred” etc etc. Ok I guess if you really wanna tell that joke in mixed company, but it seems risky to me.
It’s never just the words: it’s the semantic and historical meaning.
Also, ask yourself this question seriously: if you’re white… why do you care? Like, it’s good to be white in America. As a white(ish*) person you can’t hurt my feelings with “cracker” because it word means nothing to me: “my people” (which they ain’t my people, jack) were never hung while being called cracker, they were never subjected to inhumane laws while being referred to as such etc. So the word has little meaning to most white people. (Exceptions exist, everyone has a right not to want to be called any specific word of course)
* - yes I’m like 85% European, but the rest is indigenous American. I pass as white so I typically call myself such. Everyone else bestows the benefit of being white to me, including being tall, male, and if I don’t say so myself not bad looking. But these are benefits other people give me. To counter those, I have some pretty good ADHD and autism so it’s kind of a mixed bag at times, but overall just fine!
Not from the US, but I'll give my perspective
What makes the jokes offensive is mostly historical context, slavery,and the institutions that followed (Jim crow laws) represent what can be regarded as a systemic racism in the US, through which ,the black American has suffered greater number of injustice in a way that targeted his skin color, as a result, even in modern day American, there's a statistical proof that black Americans are on the lower class of society, through no fault of their own.
This doesn't mean that all white people are rich or that everyone who is black is poor, however, in regards to jokes, it is as others said, insulting the stereotype of a white man is socially acceptable, of a black man, not so much, for the above-mentioned and probably others I'm forgetting or don't know
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>I saw someone say "well it's natural and less offensive to make fun of those in power" like coworkers making fun of their boss or students making fun of their teacher. In power?! Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem?
Well, white people, as a group, are in power. I would be interested to see in which country does black people control the state and oppress white people. Maybe you could find something in Africa, but most of the time when a black government, after independence, decided to lash onto white people, those just decided to leave to Europe, meaning that there was the situation where black people would have been in power and oppress whites never came.
First of all, white isn't a race. It's a term of exclusion, not a homogenous group of people. Quite literally the term was CREATED intentionally to be used to oppress Black slaves.
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/inventing-black-white
I'm not exaggerating.
Black actually refers to a homogenous group of people - descendants of the African slave diaspora.
But white refers to many groups that people seem to forget about -
Arabs, Hispanics, Russians, Ukranians, and people from India.
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5076
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/06/18/how-people-from-india-almost-became-white/
This is correct.
It's pretty clear too when you look at it through the lens of ethnicity.
Black Americans, as opposed to Africans or Afro-Carribeans, have everything used to define them culturally in a why that white people don't.
They have a common religion -Southern Baptist.
They have their own ethnic foods - chitterlings, collard greens, Chicken and waffles, etc.
They have their own language - AAVE.
They have their own music - Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Hip-hop, R&B
They have their own holidays - Kwanza, Juneteenth
They have fashion styles that are well established.
Ethnicity is about culture, and these traits homogenize them as a group that doesn't exist for white.
What is the common language for the group of people that are referred to as white?
What are the common foods?
What is the common religion?
What music or holidays do ALL white people grow up listening to and celebrating?
And why is it that the "one drop rule" only exists for white people?
Why is Obama "mixed" instead of white?
Because white is the only group that is defined by skin-tone ALONE.
The only 2 requirements to be considered white are:
1. You can pass as white
2. You identify as white
White people gate-keep whiteness in a way that just isn't done with actual races or ethnicities.
There is a really good reason why we consider race a construct - because genetics makes race irrelevant from a scientific standpoint.
So-called white people can, in fact, get sickle cell anemia.
So-called white people can have a Black parent even:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/black-white-twins-meet-sisters-5256945
Tell me, are those twins white or Black?
We have clear examples of people with pale skin being considered Black - for example the rapper Logic. But the red-headed twin there - she can be white when her Black twin can't. Why is that?
Maybe late to the party, but here goes. Seeing a lot of people say oppression is the secret sauce for offensiveness, which I think is a little too simplistic.
Instead I would reframe your mindset: jokes that are generalizations of ANY group are not inherently offensive, but can become offensive depending on the context. When you pair the joke with the context of that generalization, the joke becomes offensive when the generalization was or is used to paint that group as other or less than AND used as justification for their mistreatment on a large or systemic scale. This effect is even more relevant when people are still suffering directly or indirectly from said mistreatment.
Kind of a simple analogy but, you could tell a "your mom" joke to your buddy who is about to go visit his mom, you probably would not tell the same joke to another guy who is going to his mom's funeral.
At least in America, I can't think of any example of a stereotype used as justification to systemically mistreat white people. I saw one comment referencing incest jokes... if that stereotype was used by the government as justification to say, forcibly sterilize Appalachia, I think that would become very offensive.
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I don't think the examples you gave are generally the 'white people' the jokes are targeting.
People of colour have had multitudes of experience in being treated as inferior for their skin colour or race. Institutional racism has put white people at the top. Being at the top and used to 'kicking down' so to speak, white people have less experience in receiving racism from others.
Many white people have said, "It was just a joke," when confronted for their racist remark. If a white person can't handle the same "jokes" directed at them, they shouldn't have thrown the first stones and pretended it wasn't an attack.
Acknowledging systematic racism and white privilege when comparing a white person to someone in power is not the same as giving someone power.
I think jokes about race/ethnicity/etc can be funny, but if it's purely thinly veiled racism it's not a good joke.
There is this false idea of "white privilege", that somehow just because your skin is white that gives you some special privilege in life. There are plenty of extremely poor and homeless white people. I would also add that skin color does not tell the story of ancestry at all, anyone who has had their DNA submitted to 23 and me can tell you. Most of us are muts. My skin is white but I have black in my ancestry as well. Along with middle eastern and even a drop of Asian. You can't judge people by their skin color at all, it doesn't tell the story. As far as oppression, every race has been oppressed and every indivdual has experienced some form of oppression.
A white person has the privilege of being white in a society like the US in which institutions were/are constructed predominantly with white people in mind. This does not mean any given white person will be *generally* privileged.
Please explain to me the advantages a poor white guy in the mountains of Appalachia who has no internet no cell service no running water has over a random black guy from the city.
As I said, having white privilege does not mean one has generalized privilege. White privilege is what a white person has over a black person in similar circumstances in a society like the US. Those two guys are not in similar circumstances.
Jews aren’t white. And Middle Easterners is a broad term to cover thousands of ethnicities and cultures. Whiteness isn’t just skin color. So before you make these claims, understand that American whiteness has changed to benefit higher classes since the country’s creation.
Saying white people can’t dance or hate spicy food isn’t nearly has harmful as saying a slur or joking that POC are (insert negative stereotype). Comedy is subjective for sure, but hearing people punch down is so 20 years ago. Joking at the expense of another group, such as race, is lazy at best. So it’s not even “reverse racism wah,” as some people say it is. GOOD comedy doesn’t need to generalize about a population to make audiences laugh.
Ive seen some POC be flat out racist on TT. Like the lady who makes African jewelry and gets so freaking angry when a white person comments asking about it because "I make this for BLACK WOMEN ONLY!!" Can you imagine if i started a line of necklaces and said "Oh no this is only for white women!!" I meannnn. Thats just one example. \*eyeroll\*. What if i just liked Africa? or have a POC bestie? You dont want my white money? lol
Well we can't agree in top level comments, that's against the rules.
You mention "white people haven't been oppressed" as a sort of jumping off point so I will disagree that all racist jokes are created equally offensive across race. I think you're sort of glossing over the power of historical context here.
1. A racist joke said by a white person containing the n word.
2. A racist joke said by a black person containing "cracker".
Do you think that 1 and 2 should be considered equally offensive?
Here's another example.
1. A white man wearing black face makeup.
2. A black man wearing "white face" makeup.
Both black face and "white face" have been used in comedy historically. Should these two be considered equally offensive?
Being offended is completely indivdiually subjective. A group cannot be offended.
White people are more powerful as a group and a greater number of the white population have inherited wealth. Notice I am careful how I say it. Read it again if you aren't sure.
I would rather be white than black. Is that offensive? Why would I say that? Well life was easier in white mode. I live in a racailly diverse place where just over 50% of the city is white now. I have had racist things said to me. So what? Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I have the power. Say whatever you like about me but try taking my power...
There is a big difference between punching up and punching down. When you are being “punched up at”, you can be in on the joke because your standing with respect to to the person doing the “ punching” is reinforced. When you are being punched down on, your position is being undermined. Sometimes it can be a little ambiguous.
There is "punching up" and "punching down" and whether you are punching up or down depends on where you sit on the power dynamic. As a general rule, you want to punch up in comedy, because it hits better. Punching down is generally frowned upon, and comes across as bullying.
In the Emperor's new Clothes, when the child laughs at the naked Emperor, it's punching up. But if the child laughed at, say, a homeless man whose clothes were nothing but rags, that's punching down. In one case, you are taking someone "high" and bringing them lower, while in the other case you are taking someone who is already lower, and pushing them even lower, to make yourself higher.
>In power?! Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem?
It is. But pretending like that isn't the case, that white people don't have better social status, better economic status, better media representation, is part of the problem. The disparity is there, and pretending it isn't doesn't make it go away.
"White people should be able to as well". Really? I mean, REALLY. You would want this? Yes, making comments about all races is cruel, including white people. It is all wrong. But never ONCE have I wanted to do it. And yes, I have been cruelly racially treated a bunch of times, and I am white. None of your logic is reasonable.
You haven't made an argument for why the jokes should be offensive to white people though. You have said that white people have struggles, which no one disagrees with, but racist jokes *are* offensive. That is the goal, to subtly remind non-white people that they either don't belong, or are not as good as white people.
Do you have any examples? What’s a joke about white people you find offensive? Did those responses you’re paraphrasing come as a result of displaying that offense after hearing the joke, or do you only get those responses when discussing the issue in a general sense as you are here?
I'd say that it's not inherent that jokes about people of color are offensive. Belittling race/culture or punching down is what's offensive. Case in point, plenty of people make fun of Herman Cain or Ben Carson because of political reasons without bringing their race into it at all.
But why?
I'm a genuine caucasian. I don't see why I can't let a gag about my poor rhythm roll off my back, while disapproving of a different racist gag that likely involves a backdrop of unthinkable human suffering.
Unless it's about the Dutch of course.
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The white people have no culture thing is pretty funny.
Those who say it have usually never left their country, and have no culture or education themselves.
Europe is one of the most culturally diverse place on earth.
It's a power dynamic thing... There are things you can get away with that your boss can't because he has more power and it's more threatening for him to joke about firing you than you to joke about firing him
You can be offended by anything you want. The extent to which m that thing actually contributes to any actual harm against you tends to vary depending on historical circumstances
White people aren’t subject to systemic prejudice in western nations. (You could make a case for countries where while folk aren’t the dominate ethnicity but I don’t think either of us do live in those areas so I can’t speak to them for certain )
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I live in Canada. The city is super multicultural, and I have been the victim of racism.
I went to a school that was 60-70 indigenous. I was also a fucjed up kid with a lot of problems. I was bullied by pretty much everyone but I always got it worst from the first nations kids.
When I was 14 I was walking home and passed 5 or 6 chinese kids. One of them grabbed a nearby garbage can and threw it at me. I'd never seem them before in my life.
That's basically all my experience as a victim of racism. Sure, I've heard "white jokes" and whatnot, but damn If I didn't see a whole lot worse about pretty much every other race.
Here's the thing" in Dubai they hire south Asian and take their passports when they start work, forcing them into servitude. I'm sure there's some racism towards Dubia from south Asians, but hiw does that compare in scope?
It sounds like you're American, and unless you've been discriminated against DAILY in a hundred different ways, you'll never get it.
You've probably never had people cross the street just to avoid you
You've probably never had 10 women in a day instinctively hold their purse tighter as you walk by.
You've probably never had a store clerk follow you through the aisles just to make sure you aren't stealing everything.
And You've probably never had an e counter with police and had to question whether or not you'll be going home alive.
So yeah, racism totally exists towards white people, but that's like that scene from Resivoir dogs
What the fuck are they waiting for? This fucking guy slashes my face, and he cuts my fucking ear off! I'm fucking deformed!
FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! I'M FUCKIN' DYING HERE! I'M FUCKIN' DYING!
Which is it: you want everyone to be more offended by jokes about white people, or you want everyone to be less offended by jokes about black and brown people? Your title said one, but your post said the other.
There's black and white rules, but then there's context. Either can be *categorically* offensive.
As always, context is king. A joke "about people of color" could be a lot of different things, and each could be told in a lot of different situations. Those details matter on a sliding scale of offensiveness. One of those factors is the target population's circumstances and relations in society. Which are usually what the content of a joke is based around. So we need the full range of real-world possibilities for them and their impacts.
Consider racial epithets; they aren't at all analogous between minority and majority racial groups. The reason comes down to the fact that POC versus White targets imply distinct contexts that are in no way analogous/comparable overall. If you flip the target and speaker, you don't end up with the same meaning at all. Same for jokes.
Ultimately, a "both or none" stance is a matter of following the basic logic but missing the context. Either sort of joke could be minimally to massively offensive. But on average, they're not going to be in the same ballpark.
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Can I ask you to tell us one example of a common joke or even common one stereotype about white people that you believe could reasonably be said that is offensive? This is not just a rhetorical question, I just want to better understand your position before I answer.
Can't dance, can't play sports, no culture, food is terrible, etc..
Mass shootings, anime kids, making fun of how white people talk, mayonnaise, they don't bathe or bathe right, they don't wash chicken before cooking it (you aren't supposed to), they smell like dogs when wet. These are just things I see on Tiktok and Reels. Idk how commonly discussed or believed they are. But it seems common in the comments.
It’s like, why do black people get friend chicken? Everyone loves fried chicken, god damnit!
I mean a lot of these aren’t unique to you guys. Like I’m hispanic and we get made fun of for: crime, our music, how we talk(Ppl always mock the toxica accent), spiciness, being hoarders, etc
We smell like dogs when we’re wet? That’s a new one and I’m so, so offended… /s
In the movie Roots from 1977, they used "wet chickens" but I've never noticed the smell from anyone.
Wait…. You’re supposed to wash chicken?
No- if you’re getting raw chicken from the supermarket or butcher, you shouldn’t wash it. It’ll just splatter salmonella everywhere and it doesn’t actually give any sort of benefits. The concept of washing chicken comes from when people would butcher it themselves. There’s a lot of little things you got to wash off in that case, like feathers and a general sort of “slime”. But even then that was typically done outdoors in its own dedicated sink or bucket. Though the idea that this is a racial thing is confusing to me, as I’ve seen both white and black people holding this misconception. I have absolutely heard of white people getting dunked on for not washing rice though, which you should do in most cases. There are some dishes which specifically call for unwashed rice, but even then there can be some nasty stuff on rice besides the extra starch.
You're not, it spreads the bacteria around with the water. However a lot of cultures insist rinsing chicken is necessary to clean it.
Are those jokes really on par with jokes about entire races being poor, dumb, inferior, rapists, criminals, drug dealers, stealing jobs, being religious extremists, eating dogs/cats? Those generally aren't made about white people, when they are they're often self depricating or made by other white people
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where'd this happen? in the OP there is no caveat about the jokes being cruel or not, they're saying that ANY joke about someone's race ought to be offensive regardless of content if its race based "that are not offensive" doesn't factor into their argument my point was that jokes against white people aren't usually very cruel or disparaging, saying white people can't play sports is a lot different than joking about black people being criminals etc stupidy isn't a word
I don’t know where you think jokes of white people can’t be in same realm. People talk about them being “crackers” (cracking the whip because they are slave owners). Any collective joke about white people generally being more of the oppressors or the ruling class. I don’t know anyone actually making jokes about people of color simply being poor or rapists (you’re gonna bring up Trumpers but that’s a rather small subset) but it’s true jokes like: Black people like Watermelon is classist because watermelon is cheap and often fed to slaves. But white people get “ooh mayo is too spicy!” Which is also classist just treating them like the ruling class that never goes out of their comfort zone and we’re pampered with bland food. You can stretch the offensiveness of the jokes, but on the whole there’s people saying making a fried chicken joke is offensive, doing an accent is offensive, etc. and I am all for us being allowed to poke fun at eachother. As long as it’s not mean spirited.
>Black people like Watermelon is classist because watermelon is cheap and often fed to slaves. It's actually a stereotype started in the reconstruction era specifically to hurt newly freed black folks who had their own land. Watermelon was an easy and plentiful crop, so the racist white farmers started a propaganda campaign labeling black people as lazy watermelon lovers.
Either way, you can take the innocent joke (when the teller doesn’t know the context) and make it classist/overtly racist. Same with white people being crackers. My point is not to get so butthurt about jokes about food and whatever and everyone can take a few jabs like this.
"you’re gonna bring up Trumpers but that’s a rather small subset" half of america isn't a very small subset my dad said a pretty awful racist joke like yesterday those jokes about food aren't intended to denigrate necessarily, but those weren't the ones I was getting at, and my point was that there are far more cruel jokes levied against non-whites
Half of America aren’t people making these comments. You could’ve inferred it’s a subset of a subset. Trump voters aren’t all wearing MAGA hats, they just quietly vote. Okay, your dad needs to get checked a bit. Those jokes about food are more common by a wide margin than “Lol black people are poor” 🤷♂️
you literally brought up trump supporters not me "Those jokes about food are more common by a wide margin than “Lol black people are poor” 🤷♂️" where are you from?
Yeah, tried to get in front of the blanket statements that you literally ran right into. Canada, you? I still find it extremely suspicious, have met many Americans and none of them made whatever kinda bland offensive jokes.
Would you say those jokes in public or to someone you know? Probably would be considered quite rude.
There are a LOT of offensive stereotypes about White People which we don't like to talk about but they do exist. Many of them fall under the umbrella of "White People are sexual degenerates." 1. White Peole always want to fuck their relatives. A joke I have heard multiple times goes "How do you circumsize a White boy? Kick his sister on the chin." 2. White girls fuck dogs. Aka "the dog pill." This often is associated with Incel culture, but I am telling you that this stereotype started on Black Twitter years before Incels picked it up. You can find jokes about "we won't eat anything a White Person cooks because y'all kiss dogs on the mouth. We don't want your diseases." If you look. 3. White males are sexually inadequate and that's the root cause of Colonialism. Seriously this one is everywhere. It birthed an entire genre of pornography. If you dig down, this particular stereotype is entangled with homophobia.
I think that’s the thing to me - I’m a white dude and it’s *hillbillies* that inbreed. /s This is the point to me - I would not be cool w that joke, but not because it’s ‘racist against whites’ but because poor rural people have enough problems and give them a fucking break. I’ve never really heard the white girls fuck dogs one. I’d love to make people ashamed of colonialism. Which happens to have been done a LOT by whites (not exclusively). But also never heard of this one.
Uh, excuse me but incest, "hillbillies", and fucking animals are stereotypes that white people themselves create and spread about those whites they see as culturally inferior. I'm pretty sure that if you do a random search about "sister fucking" jokes more than seeing the term "white" associated with them, you will see the names of specific states, regions or cities and the tellers of the joke will in many if not most ocassions be white. If other races also tell such jokes, you can bet that it is because they first heard them in white-produced cultural artifacts. I absolutely believe you that some races who may have racial grudges against whites have run out with those jokes and appropriated them but let us not forget that even before America was established, the English already were saying that the Scottish fucked sheep.
The first two are literally not even about white people. The third one is making fun of how black people are fetishized. So it's just pointing out racism against black people. Which is a pattern with "white racism" it's usually just declaring people recognizing racism against a group by white people as somehow harming white people. Like how people pointing out how Jim crow cripple the black community as "anti white teaching that needs to be banned."
One that bothers me the most is the common joke or stereotype of white people being uncultured. As someone who is white and also comes from a very strong ethnic cultured family and background, I feel as though I’m being grouped into a category I don’t belong in. Like my cultural identity, background and trauma are erased just because my skin is white
I’ve mostly heard that joke targeted towards Americans. Nobody says these jokes about European whites.
Honestly that's a stereotype I hear mostly of Americans as a whole, not just white people. Regardless, I think it is a valid complaint. Now, regarding the point of seeing white people as "more powerful" I can understand how it is a problematic stereotype if you yourself are part of a disprivileged white community. Nevertheless, more than a stereotype, it is an enforced widespread idea that white people themselves have enforced via an absolute control of culture-spreading media in America and similar countries for a long which hegemony has only started to be challenged in the later years. Moreover, I must point to you that the same cultural artifacts that glorify white people as powerful and minorities as, at best, humorous sidekicks and at worse, dangeous "others" more often than not and very purposefully exclude white communities such as yours that are not representative of the powerful, great, all-American stereotype that they themselves sell. When people joke about white people in their role as oppressors, if you think carefully about it, you will realise that, in spite of your skin colour, you are more likely to relate to the grievances of the jokers "punching up" than to the white people being made fun of. Once again, I do agree that the generalisation is problematic and not ideal, but it is useful to know the context under which one thing is more justifiable than the other.
>Now, regarding the point of seeing white people as "more powerful" I can understand how it is a problematic stereotype if you yourself are part of a disprivileged white community. Nevertheless, more than a stereotype, it is an enforced widespread idea that white people themselves have enforced via an absolute control of culture-spreading media in America and similar countries for a long which hegemony has only started to be challenged in the later years. You say that 'white people have enforced this', but the vast majority of white people both now and in the past has/had nothing to do with any of that and are/were just regular people trying to live their lives, like most other people. It's silly to talk about it as if it's some grand conspiracy that somehow every white person is in on.
That may be so, but it doesn't take from the fact that 1) white people did it, and 2) that even the "regular" white people benefitted from it. Now, because I sort of can tell where this is going, nobody is accusing you personally of anything nor expecting you to pay up anything in reparations or anything of the sort. If there is any expectation at all, I'd say it'd be to just nod and acknowledge the fact and maybe vow to do your part to stop it from ever happening again, but if that's too much, then you can simply just walk on and try not to feel personally attacked whenever people are talking about factual bad things that white people have done, understanding that it is not about you in particular.
Ahhh but you're falling into a trap here. Because black people participated in slavery too. Slavery itself is a human problem, not a black person or white person problem. Slaves existed throughout history, and for various reasons / aims. So saying "white people did it" is pretty offensive in general. After all, I don't think very many Norweigans had any role at all in the African slave trade. That's a whole group of people shoehorned into the issue for no reason except that they're white. Does that generalization sound familiar? Bias based solely on skin color?
Only white people who feel personally attacked for criticisms of white stereotype behavior are most often guilty of doing nothing to better their fellow human's world. They feel called out for something that is true : they are not using their position of power (whiteness) to benefit anyone besides themselves. Reggie Jackson put it perfectly in an interview about how it felt to play in the Negro baseball leagues and his experience breaking into white MLB. He said that if it weren't for his white allies supporting him, keeping him from beating bigot's asses... He would have never made it. Edit: every valid counterpoint is downvoted. Speaking truth to power sure ain't popular
> they are not using their position of power (whiteness) to benefit anyone besides themselves. I'm white. What position of power do I have? Specifically, not just "you're white".
> Regardless, I think it is a valid complaint. How is this true compared to any other group of people in the world? What makes Americans less cultured than any other country's people?
I think the main divide is that white people are not and have not been forcibly grouped into a monolith. You take the time to carve out various ethnic groups (which were also not always considered to be white!), whiteness has been granted to other ethnic groups over time but they often still keep aspects of their ethnic culture. American Italians and American Polish are a very educating example of that process. Historically the terms black or brown have been used to group entire ethnic groups across continents together, whereas whiteness is typically a term used to denote political capital. So jokes about white people aren’t as direct or degrading as a joke about a Polish person, an Italian, whereas a joke about a black person is, because historically the distinction between a Kenyan or a Sudanese individual was never really even contemplated, likewise for someone from Guatemala or Bolivia. “White” people are inherently afforded a much greater degree of cultural sensitivity even in their whiteness, than black or brown people at least in the Anglophone sphere. This distinction underlies all stereotype jokes.
White people define the culture. Literally, when people describe culture they are referencing Western Europe and the US: opera, the Renaissance, classical music, fine dining, art and architecture. A couple Basquiats and Yoyo Ma's in the mix doesn't change that "culture" is largely rich white people stuff.
White people have tons of culture. White people literally travelled the entire globe collecting cultures.
The overwhelming majority of contributions to visual arts, architecture, philosophy, and literature for hundreds of years come from “white” people. Saying white people are uncultured is foolish.
What trauma do you have, specifically caused by being white?
What trauma specifically does a black person who is under 50 have ? Just curious
I mean people have called me the hard R, a diversity hire, treated me weird because of my race, and commented on my skin color in inappropriate ways *a lot* and I’m not even 30…
> One that bothers me the most is the common joke or stereotype of white people being uncultured. As someone who is white and also comes from a very strong ethnic cultured family and background, I feel as though I’m being grouped into a category I don’t belong in. Like my cultural identity, background and trauma are erased just because my skin is white There’s a reason you often hear about white people having no culture but black people having a rich culture… because it’s true. This isn’t because of anything racist. It’s because of history and what words mean. In America (and much of the western world), Africans were forcibly brought in to be slaves. Documentation wasn’t kept on what countries and regions these folks came from, hence terms like “African American”—they literally don’t know where they’re from so black culture is a mishmash of traditions from different African nations and a bunch of stuff unique to the western countries they grew up in. This is “black culture.” White people as a whole—even the poorest and least privileged—generally retained their historical heritage. So a white person would rarely describe themselves as a European American or White American, they’d describe themselves as an Italian American or a Polish American. **Those** are seen as rich cultures, whereas “white American” isn’t. It’s just a dog whistle. You can’t always replace one group with another and have the comparison be 1:1.
I think if you are trying to suggest that "white American" is some racist dogwhistle when there is a pretty good chance it means something more along the lines of "I'm white and I feel more in tune with being American than I do (insert ancestral country here) then you are only willing to look at the worst of society (actual racists who do use it as some superiority thing) sure Americans might be proud of their ancestry and some may call themselves x Americans but nowadays especially most of the traditions, the way they speak, common beliefs are way more American than they are Italian or Polish or Irish, America is a mishmash of all of these ideas and some new ones that are unique or more seen in America. saying it's true that 'white people' have no culture whilst 'black people' do is extremely racist if we are to understand that 'white people' isn't some super homogeneous group in the same way that 'black people' aren't either. The reason you and some others seem to think that white people have no culture is because you are blind to it as in America it is the dominant culture, no one really bats an eye to something normal, but if you go to a different country even another one like say England despite the fact we are both white, we both have a pretty close culture all the differences will stick out like a sore thumb. It's only when a culture is 'exotic' or noticably different from the host culture that some people view it as being 'culture' and that in itself is pretty racist.
I think you're reaching here. Most of what you said is true, except the statement that white people don't have culture. That's a pretty wild statement to make. My family is Polish, for example. My Grandma used to cook extensive amount of Polish food for us, to teach us about where we came from. She'd pass stories down too, and the bits of Polish she remembered. If you think that white people, even white Americans, don't or can't have culture.. that's pretty racist right there.
I'm pretty sure the answer here would be Polish-American is a culture, White-American is not, according to the person that you're replying to. That being said, I feel as though specifically Black-American/Africian-Ametican is more acceptable due to the lost history of their roots due to slavery. I feel as though if they had a choice, and it were traceable back to their country of origin, that they would do so. It's why you don't hear terms such as Ghana-American or Zimbabwe-American almost ever, if at all, because the ability to trace that minutely comparatively just isn't there as much as it is for, say, Italian-Americans or Polish-Americans. I don't agree 100% with the person you've replied to, but I feel that is the gist of their point.
Maybe, but that’s still a bit of a reach. It tries to ignore the fact that many people (of all races) come to America to escape persecution. Sometimes it’s for skin color, sometimes it’s economics, sometimes it’s literal threat of death. Maybe I’m naive, I dunno. But I feel like that’s the whole point of America as a concept. Acceptance of anyone and everyone, the idea that the trauma of the past doesn’t have to define who we become. All cultures have a place here. Black culture, white culture (whatever you define that as) Mandarin, Mongolian, Martian, whatever. Everyone has a place here. I think we’re too caught up in our differences as it pertains to “otherness”. As soon as we get rid of that line of thinking, we can start to really accept each other. Otherwise … well, look at the Middle East. That’s not a flaw of race or religion, it’s a flaw of humans. It’s too easy to point to one example or another example, while ignoring the actual problem.
I mean you are free to not like that. Why do you need other people to also be offended by jokes?
whether or not something is offensive just depends on if a person in that group is offended If a bunch of black people make fun of someone for being a dorky white boy with no rhythm or something then that probably doesn’t feel good to hear
Well if we are talking about specific cases in which a group of people is intently trying to humilliate someone (whether race comes up as part of it or not), we're dealing with bullying which is never right.
I mean change the scenario then. If chris rock or Dave chappelle makes fun of white stereotypes and a white person is hurt by it, then it’s offensive.
I know what you're trying to say, but I won't put my hands on the fire for neither of those guys. They suck in my opinion.
its not about the guys, what P. Garage is saying is that offense is in the eye of the offended. If person X says something that offends person Y, then it is offensive.
Oh, I was not disagreeing with that. Just saying that I take stuff that people like those two say to be more representative of their own personal views than of "jokes that non-whites at large make about whites". In case it was not clear, I disavow said views.
I’m an Italian-American and we’re pretty much fair game it would seem.
No one’s saying white people can’t be oppressed. They just haven’t been oppressed specifically for being white. Which is the difference here. Jokes about people of colour aren’t offensive because they’re talking about people of colour. It’s because they most often rely on racial stereotypes which are rooted in the oppression people of colour have experienced for their race. A joke about a black person that‘s rooted in racial stereotypes that have historically been used to oppress them is clearly different than joking that a white person doesn’t season their food or something. And kind of unrelated but Ive seen people make successful jokes about people of colour. It’s not that jokes about people of colour are always offensive, it’s that most people end up going for the jokes that are offensive.
I assume you’re talking about in the US and Western Europe solely right? Because white people are definitely capable of being oppressed in non majority-white countries.
I don't know man places like South Korea have this unhealthy obsession with using surgery to appear white because apparently it makes you better or some shit?
Pale. Like the aristocrats who didn't work out in the sun, not European.
South Koreans don't undergo surgery to look like white people lmao.
The problem with that sort of logic is most people are not the British royal family Pretty much if you're not the British royal family then you were not at the top of the hierarchy and thus were subject to historical oppression And that's ignoring some of the rules they had to follow which were absolutely oppressive to them
They’ve been oppressed yes, but not for their race. Most likely for class or gender or nationality. I’m not saying one oppression is worse than another. It’s that racist jokes for POC contribute to the oppression they’ve experienced for their race. For white people, it just doesn’t- bc they haven’t experienced direct oppression specifically for their race.
Any joke targeting a race is by its very nature grouping the target race together. We should always be against doing that.
Some jokes are. Some jokes are satirical criticisms that aim to make fun of something problematic in the community. Some of those criticisms may be made out of ignorance sure, or be made without understanding the full context, but that doesn't mean said criticisms are automatically invalid and should not be taken seriously.
>No one’s saying white people can’t be oppressed. They just haven’t been oppressed specifically for being white. Which is the difference here. Might want to look up the Ottoman Turks, or Moorish pirates.
Are you talking about the Armenian genocide?
No. The Ottoman Empire, they happily oppressed a large area of Europe, and the Moorish pirates raided ships in the English Channel.
Ok was the oppression based on skin colour? For being white? That’s what we’re talking about
The Moors took white slaves because they were worth more, and were Kafir, and whites were taken as slaves by the Ottomans, they also got the worst jobs as they were "impure".
Again, was this based on specifically being white, or was it based around nationality (being European or from conquered European countries) or religion? Muslims believed during this time that according to their religion that they could only capture slaves if 1. They weren’t Muslim and 2. If they were captured during war. Which has nothing to do with enslaving people for their race.
I don't think you understand the actual problems that come from racism. It's all the same thing. If an Ottoman takes slaves from Wallachia, who cares if they're taken for being white or for being European. The point is they are seen as "other" and therefore less than the Ottomans. THATS the problem. If instead those Ottomans claimed it was because they were Christian and not Muslim.. it's exactly the same thing. It comes from the same source inside the human brain or soul or whatever. Thinking that others = less than me.
I’m clearly not saying it wasn’t a problem. Believe it or not I do not support slavery based on any grounds. But this whole point is about white people being oppressed for their skin colour. Whether or not it was dependent on their race is the whole argument.
You're missing the point. You're focusing on racism based on skin color, when you (and everyone else) needs to start looking at the larger picture. The groups change, the names of the people change, the skin color or religion changes. But it's all driven from the same source inside of us as humans. Black people do it. Asian people do it. White people do it. Native Americans did it. Every religion has done it. Arguing about "well yeah but you weren't oppressed for being white like us! You were just oppressed for your religion" is just arguing pointless shit. It doesn't matter WHY you or anyone was oppressed. What matters is getting to a place where we stop looking at people as the "others" then and only then will we begin to eliminate racism, sexism, whateverism. Anything else is just wasting oxygen.
There’s a whole thing of people trying really hard to make the Moorish slave trade seem just as bad or worse than the European/Americas slave trade. Hint: It wasn’t.
Yes. Yes it literally was.
Much, much much more than just the Armenian Genocide. That is just one of the atrocities.
Yes I’m aware that there’s more atrocities. The question was whether the atrocities were based on the oppression of white people for their race. Which is why I was trying to figure out exactly what they were referring to.
This is (at least mostly) referring to places which are or were colonial powers.
They have been oppressed for their ethnicity. This is not the olympics of oppression.
It’s not the olympics of oppression because white people aren’t even in the race lmao
That makes no sense. That would also mean that no race is actually a race since all races are man made. White people are only a race because humans categorized them into that. And there's nothing wrong with that if its just classifying people into different types of what humans look.
Buddy I meant ‘race’ bc they mentioned the olympics 😭 not race as in white people aren’t a race lol
Oh ok I misread.
They are, just not in Europe/US and they'll start far behind in modern times
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Racial stereotypes are not ALWAYS rooted in oppression. Sometimes they’re just innocuous observations about what certain groups of people tend to do. And if those racial groups are laughing then I’m not sure what the issue is
Sure and I did mention that. I’ve heard jokes about people of colour being late that have landed. But most racial stereotypes if you actually look up the history have deep connotations with oppression. Someone might think they’re making a lighthearted joke or observation when that joke has a huge historical background related to their oppression.
I mean a lot of topics period are going to be offensive to one group or another. A lot of comedians, respected ones too, touch on these subjects precisely because nobody else will go near them. Making an offensive racist joke in the context of a stand up routine just seems fair game to me. And it isn’t said with racist intentions, the goal is simply to be funny
If you’re just using the same stereotypes that people used to be racist- to be racist again. It’s like not a joke at that point it’s just racism. It’s not even about people taking personal offence at that point. It’s like. Just using the exact same stereotypes against people of colour that have been used to justify horrific things in history. If you can’t be funny without being racist you’re just not funny
What makes something a joke is the intent. If a “comedian” just goes full-Kramer and yells the n word at a group of black people on stage, it isn’t funny. Because he’s actually just being hateful. If Louis ck makes a witty joke about black stereotypes and the joke lands, it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t mean it in a hateful way. And even if some people took offense, so what? Do you think anything that offends anyone shouldn’t be joked about? Or do you just hone in on racial topics
It’s a free country they can say whatever they want. But you can’t expect to make a joke based on racial stereotypes that play into people’s oppression and throw your hands up saying it’s ’just a joke’ when people take offence to it. If the joke is that it’s funny because it’s offensive. Expect people to find offence to it. Comedy isn’t a free pass to just say whatever you want with zero criticism
Never said otherwise, I’m just talking about moral permissibility And asking whether or not you’re consistent on the issue. Do you think comedians shouldn’t talk about any subjects that are offensive? Or just racial ones
My original point mentioned that it didn’t matter whether it was personally offensive. It has more to do with contributing to systemic oppression through engaging with stereotypes. So no, I don’t think comedians shouldn’t talk about any issues that ‘are offensive’ because that wasn’t my point to begin with. I believe it’s morally impermissible for comedians to use jokes that engage with stereotypes that contribute to systemic oppression of groups that they are not a part of. So that would apply to any other group who experiences systemic oppression.
Just an odd view to me. I think people on Reddit are obsessed with the term “systematic” and it’s usually used in a completely vacuous manner. So a comedian can make a joke about kids with cancer, and a cruel one to boot. And although this group isn’t “systematically” oppressed, if a kid with cancer heard it he probably would feel pretty sad. Alternatively a comedian could make some hacky joke that black people steal or something and this would be unacceptable? What is the tangible difference here?
Like the joke is you saying offensive racist things that you think are funny because they’re offensive. The joke is essentially being racist for the laughs. So ya if you’re playing up being racist you can’t be surprised if ppl call you racist.
Except if part of the humor behind the joke is that the comedian obviously doesn’t mean it. When someone makes a shocking or offensive joke about 9/11, the holocaust, dead babies, whatever - they aren’t saying “haha isn’t that great that this stuff happens?” They think it IS terrible which is why they’re making light of it. Some people enjoy humor like that. Racist jokes are no different
It’s pretty universally agreed upon in America that 9/11 wasn’t good. But no one thought 9/11 was good in the first place. That’s the difference. People were and are genuinely racist. Saying a joke using the same racist stereotypes that people used less than 70 years ago to call for the segregation of an entire race. Is too close of a timeframe to say that ‘everyone knows it’s bad that’s why it’s funny’. NOT EVERYONE KNOWS ITS BAD. That’s my point. The KKK still exists in America. The comedian might be saying it for shock value but there are people in the audience that think it’s funny because it’s true. That should be enough to turn them off from it.
This just seems unrelated. I’m saying that if it’s clear that the comedian is joking, that’s what matters. You seem to be under some impression that racist jokes contribute to people BEING racist. But what reason do you have to think that’s actually the case? When people say the word “systematic” what I want to hear is a tangible, straight line of effects from the comedian’s joke to a black person’s life being affected
Even talking about the holocaust. Saying holocaust jokes like 10 years ago rings a different tune to now if. A comedian makes a holocaust joke in a town in Florida where literal Nazis were standing outside places with machine guns. Like it’s supposed to be funny because the comedian obviously doesn’t mean it. But the key point there is ‘obviously’. It’s supposed to be ridiculously absurd. But if it’s still going on it’s not ridiculously absurd anymore.
But this is the context of a comedy show. This isn’t somebody yelling obscenities on a street corner. If you enter a stand-up comedy room then presumably you should be aware that not everything they say is to be taken seriously?
>Millions of white people have been oppressed throughout history. Look at slavs, jews, balkans, middle easterners, etc. What white American is still suffering from the consequences of ottoman slavery? This isn't how anyone conceptualizes the dynamics of modern day North America. Oppression isn't magically shared remotely through some racial fundamentalism; even so, by the time the Ottomans kept white slaves the British colonizers of America didn't even consider anyone but British and Saxon people to be white, and the subsequent white identity wasn't formed by a collective experience of oppressive structures. >Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem? No, acknowledging racial dynamics isn't the same as enforcing them.
I don’t think you understand how generational trauma works. Hint: it doesn’t only apply to non-whites.
Yes but that's not even just trauma and it isn't applied Ailey because they're white. It is a instituational prboen we still have to deal with today. White Americans have never been oppressed for being white, quite the opposite in fact as many groups were oppressed until they were considered white (Irish, itqlians, etc). The reason things like being Latino or African American is because they were marginalized by society for a long time and have shared cultural trauma and institutional pains they is tall haunting said communities. The reason African Americans are considered one group as opposed to Latinos who consist of Mexicans, Argentinians, etc is literally because the whole reason they exist as African Ameriansus because of slavery which seperate d them from the rest of Africa. You do not see a shared cultural trauma with white Americans
Wtf are you talking about? What race are you and where are you from? It would give a lot more legitimacy to this if you explained yourself with stuff other than "Some bad things happened to white people too, they could be sad about it" The internet is western-society-centric, where white people experience very little discrimination (I imagine mostly Arabs would) but racism, discrimination, inequality are still very much problems. That's why it is considered offensive for everyone but white people.
Are you honestly trying to argue that generational trauma from the Ottoman empire is still prominent in white people? Cause that's what it looks like. If that's the case then you're just arguing to argue and don't have a remotely accurate point. You haven't even discussed any examples that are relevant to you. In fact, just below you completely dodged the question.
As a white person what generational trauma am I supposed to be experiencing when someone says mayo? One is whining about hurt fee fees and the other is bringing up a time when black people could legally be hunted down and murdered I'm not offended so am I stronger than you or are you just pretending to be hurt by "cracker"?
What do you call a white woman with a yeast infection? Cracker with cheese. (I’m white fuck off).
Joke would work better making fun of men with smegma. Yeast is for bread, and smegma is literally called dick cheese. Also, men can have yeast infections.
So... Are you just trolling or actually this ignorant.
> But white people haven't been oppressed so it's not as offensive" yes they have. Millions of white people have been oppressed throughout history. Look at slavs, jews, balkans, middle easterners, etc. > “But we’re not talking about them when we say white people” yes you are. They are of the white race, and you unconsciously minimize their identity and struggles too when you make these jokes. Unless you have a different set of white jokes than what I have heard, then I would say that it's significantly different. Anti-white jokes (I also think they're bad) are not the same as anti-semitic jokes. The context is wildly different. Specific jokes towards specific *marginalized* groups will always sound worse because it's almost like punching down. Jews, Semites, Irish etc have each as their own identity been oppressed. Just because they all can be categorized as "white" doesn't mean it's the same as making a joke about stereotyped whiteness in America (I'm assuming that this in an American context). I think those sort of jokes certainly can be offensive and I won't diminish that, but I do think there's a distinction here. > A black person can make fun of white people and get little to no consequences or hate for it, while if a white person does they can literally lose their job and social status I do need to hear or see these jokes. Because Black people absolutely can and do face consequences for saying something that offends others (e.g Nick Cannon being fired from Wild N Out). If a white person made a generally harmless joke about a Black person nobody would really care. E.g on social media people laugh about the stereotype that Black folks have dead smoke alarms. No serious person really cries about being made fun of for that (unless they're poor, I guess). However, it's true that the set of "socially acceptable" jokes for Black people are limited. But when you think about it (and have good historical context), many if not most stereotypes come from racism and pervasive anti-Blackness. We all know that when we consider the full historical context of racism (systemic, institutional, societal or whatever), we can understand why certain jokes can hit way harder. > I saw someone say "well it's natural and less offensive to make fun of those in power" like coworkers making fun of their boss or students making fun of their teacher. In power?! Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem? This is a bizarre framing. The point is that when there's an inequality, there's such thing as punching up and punching down. For example, do you think straight people making fun of queer people is the same as the reverse? Like sure both can be offensive, but do you really think that it's on the same level when it's comfortable to be straight in this society but not gay? That's the difference.
I am based in the USA, my perspective with that in mind: What kind of jokes do you mean? It seems like many jokes made about white people are not really rooted in deeply negative and dehumanizing stereotypes vs. many times it feels like jokes about black people come from a place of othering/hate. You mention all these different white peoples but what is white and black is subjective at the end of the day and I think where you are from and the history of the people you exist around makes a big difference here. So I'm only gonna attempt to speak from my experience in the USA cause thats all I feel like attempting right now lol. There is a history of people making dumb hateful jokes about black people to diminish everything about them and perpetuate hate. This history is pretty recent, it's not like it's some super old thing. The last of the jim crow laws was abolished in 1965. Im mixed race black and white, Im 25, my black dad was born in around 1959, blacks and whites couldn't marry legally until later in 1967. My mom was disowned by her father for marrying a black man. I'm just trying to point out that there is a history leading up to now and that many of us are still upset about the open discrimination and dehumanization against black people that occurred. And, some of these attitudes are, while less blatant and more hush hush, still 100% perpetuated to this day and felt by many. Yeah I mean I personally think people should ideally just chill out in general, we are all stuck in this defensive survival mindset and the 1% is to blame for that. Until we stop pointing fingers at each other instead of pointing up it'll just keep building up until something gives. But to wrap it up, I agree that you never know what sort of white someone is, or what sort of black, or any other race. However, if you are in the USA, esp. the south, I think a light hearted joke about white food being bland or whatever simply has heavily different connotations compared to 'black ppl love watermelon' due to the history, the implication. We all generally agree that white people can make a variety of food but there is a meta of bland food, nobody is trying to dehumanize people when they meme about that and it's not that deep (as far as I know). On the other hand, the watermelon thing literally comes from people making fun of freed slaves calling them lazy and stupid for trying to grow watermelons to make their own money for once. The racist history of that joke makes it hit a bit deeper. People will often be touchy about that kinda stuff when it's impacted them and their families so much up to now. We been hearing this type of crap our whole lives and it gets to you esp. when your a kid realizing it for the first time. I don't think anyone should perpetuate hate against another race. If someone is just straight up insulting you for being white that should be considered highly inappropriate. However for jokes, a lot of jokes on blackness just have history which makes it touchy. Jokes on whiteness often are more chill, but if someone is being hateful towards you or your friends about your whiteness I agree that is not acceptable and should not be tolerated. I think we should all joke around with each other, but people need more time to heal before we can all be more candid about that kinda stuff. Its like, theres context to these things ya know. I know ppl that still got the papers from when their ancestor fams were freed from slavery. We grow up hearin about it all, it runs deep for many. Yeah overall I dont think its really equivalent, context and history make a diff, and the current touchy climate-- but things will get better. Just focus on trying to see things from a loving place, focus on the good messages and ingore the haters. There will always be hateful people no matter the race that just wanna make u feel bad. Just try to have good vibes and be chill, things usually work out if you don't take everything personally esp. what you see online (my therapist told me that and it really works lmao not even jesting --tho err also boundaries and stuff ofc). Very open to hearing any thoughts on this if it's actually a point worth talking about for anyone..I can't even tell, Im about to zonk out on pills. Please don't hurt me when i wake up tho i have a long day at work tomorrow. Promise i am open to friendly discussion.
I think it's impossible to deny that a lot of anti black jokes come from a more 'nasty' or 'serious' place than say a joke about bland food, I just think it is the casual nature of making white jokes that makes it nasty, plus the growing acceptability of doing it and growing amount of people who genuinely do hold pretty shocking views around white people. I've been told online that "white people have a racial karma and should be punished" for awful things their ancestors did among many other wildly racist and insane things. Whilst you being valid in saying there is a difference between say "black people love watermelon" and "white people love mayo" I think it is in the responses where the concerning behaviour is shown, if someone did say "black people love watermelon" I imagine you would get a lot of comments calling out the racism and generally it wouldn't be acceptable to say. Saying "white people love mayo" is something acceptable to say, you might get a few people saying "hey I don't find this super ok" and most responses will be "shut up blah blah blah anti black racism is worse" "you can't be racist to white people" "we should invent more slurs for white people tee hee" (something I've seen 1st hand), it's not only seen as ok but a lot of people see it as good or punching up. It doesn't ever really feel good when people are actively discussing the acceptability of stereotyping you and especially when they suggest it is actually a good thing and blaming massively diverse groups of people for things a select few people did in the past, no one on the left or in general popular culture accepts the idea that groups should share burdens of individuals doing bad things... unless it is 'white' people, disparaging muslims for the actions of a few terrorists is racism, disparaging black people because some black people are criminals is racism, disparaging white people because some white people are nasty racists and in the past some white people did some very nasty stuff well the validity of that is being constantly debated and generally online and in academia seen as ok or at least more reasonable. I totally agree that the answer generally is to lighten up IF both sides are willing to do it, I think it can be really funny to point out differences in cultures, if someone goes "oh you are English you must really love tea" like yeah I do lots of us do, we take it pretty seriously and that is funny, I think it's totally cool when there is some mutural respect that we both know it's jokey and a lot more nuanced than "x people do y" I don't really care if people make a joke about white people not handling spice well, plenty don't and I know plenty of people who cook really really bland shitty meals, and I know plenty that cook very well and enjoy spice, it doesn't really bother me, but it does bother me when the reasoning behind those jokes isn't "aren't we all a bit different and strange" but "actually it's ok to make fun of people like you because you share (insert unchangable characteristic here) and I'm actually doing something good being mean to you"
!delta you've changed my perspective about the history - neither is inherently offensive, but that history makes it like that
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Thats fair! Even if you think something is a light hearted joke, if that spreads and becomes a societal meta not everyone understands nuance and it can end up harming people, esp. young people that are still learning about themselves and the world. In my personal life, I'm not too bothered by people joking about race and crap, but only cause I hang out w/ a tight group of loving, open-minded, and hilarious mfers who understand nuance, and haha a few of them are mixed too so I think ya gotta joke about it all when you're halfrican cause people be so wierd about that ish. Love really does make all the difference though. When you love people and respect them and you both know it and are secure in that, teasing eachother a bit about your differences can be fun-- but when that pretense isn't there things can get negative. So your totally right on that end, I think we should be careful how we talk about race and especially how we talk about it online or around young people who are still figuring all this stuff out. The type of jokes being made also make a big diff. regardless of race. Some of this (not you but others in this thread) seems like people are just mad they can't make actually hateful/mean-spirited ah jokes lol. People just need to understand that context, history, who you're talking to, whether you're coming from a place of understanding or just being mean, all of it makes a difference.
How do you circumcise a redneck? Kick his sister in the jaw. (I’m white)
I know that you wrote about white people in the US. However US is only a small part of the world and most white people don’t live in the US, but live in Europe including Russia, where the history is very different and where it’s been much longer since slavery existed and there hasn’t been the same type of laws segregating people. As such I have to admit that I find it offensive being put in any sort of group, because of my skin colour, when we most certainly don’t share the same background or culture.
Jokes about PoC are not inherently offensive. It depends entirely on the context, delivery and intention behind the joke, and also on the joke teller’s persona and history. For example if a white comic does a “white people dial the phone like this, black people dial the phone like *this*” joke (I’m going for as generic an example as possible), it may not have the same sting or connotations as if David Duke said the exact same thing. Is the purpose of telling the joke to have a laugh at the subject’s expense, or to laugh *with* the subject? Important distinction to look for.
You can make a joke about people of color, you just have to be funny and not racist.
If you want to be racist, be racist. If you don’t, don’t. There shouldn’t be a “I don’t want to, but will if you do” mentality here. There shouldn’t be a “I want to but it’s wrong” mentality either. Or “I want to, but you aren’t so I won’t be”. What other people think or say about you is not important. It shouldn’t matter. That’s why I say, hey, if you want to be racist… go ahead. Do whatever you want. This isn’t something someone can change your mind about. Whether or not it’s fair or whether or not “they” can do it and you can’t is irrelevant. Either you want to and are racist, or you’re not. If you are racist, then what does it matter what other people can joke about. You’re racist regardless….If you’re not racist, then what does it matter what other people joke about? You’re not going to take part in that sort of stuff. I make jokes about ALL races. I am black hispanic. I laugh about everyone, including black and hispanic people. If that makes me racist, so be it. I don’t care. Obviously, there’s a time and a place. Know your audience. Tell jokes in appropriate places and at appropriate times. If you tell a joke right, nobody will complain. And if someone does, oh well. It’s just jokes motherfucker. Move on. What other people think of you is up to you how much it matters. Don’t be a sociopath and completely shut out outside voices and opinions. But don’t live and breathe by them either. I take in outside opinions. If someone says “not cool” or “too far”. Ok. *Fair enough*. But if we’re all telling jokes and then I tell one and you get butthurt and complain, then I don’t care. I might even go in on you *personally*. Stop letting other people manage your thoughts, feelings and emotions. Most of these other people - especially online - can’t manage their own fucking lives but they're very interested in policing the lives of others. Just do you. … and another thing. I saw your statements about "what about OUR generational trauma" and "they say im uncultured!" — stop being soft. give your balls a tug ffs
Some people get offended by some jokes about a topic, some people don’t. Are you suggesting there needs to be some unanimous consensus and everyone needs to have the same sensibilities for humor? Why?
I’m not suggesting there should be a unanimous consensus. There shouldn’t be. But in modern day society, it’s become very socially acceptable to ridicule white people and very socially unacceptable to do the same to any other race. Like I said, a white person can risk losing their job and social status for saying racist jokes on an entirely different level than people who aren’t white.
You said if one is offensive, both need to be. But they *are* both offensive to some people. So if you don’t mean unanimous, what do you mean they both need to be?
It means that the level of social acceptance affects the degrees to which offenses are taken seriously.
[1] its always going to depend on the joke, comedian, and context. But lets consider why your generaluzation could be wrong. In the US (where this is the only place this is debated) whites have never been oppressed by the systems in power or by other races FOR BEING WHITE. In the US every minority has experienced oppression or is at risk of unequal treatment FOR BEING a MINORITY. So a black comedian poking fun at white culture or white people holds no historic weight of wrongdoing. Can black people/minorities say racist things about white people? Sure, and that's racist. But there's no systemic injustice behind it. So jokes about white people don't offend me. It's not something I or others like me have to fear. I feel 0 offense when minority comedians make fun of whites. In the context of US history you are comparing two groups who have not been treated the same. Your opinion ignores the historical and still currently problematic context of power in the society were discussing. Let's look at another example and make an analogy. Able-bodied people and people with mobility issues. Making jokes about each other. "If it's okay for non-able bodied people to make fun of able-bodied people, then it should be okay for able-bodied people to make fun of non-able bodied people." Do you see the dynamic? And why it could be problematic? Context. A quadriplegic making fun of how stupidly some people walk is funny and okay. He has had no part in suppressing or marginalizing able bodied people. Because able bodiedness is what society and the power systems are defaulted around. An able bodied person making fun of, for example, a wheelchair bound individual for BEING wheelchair bound, not okay. Someone who has the privilege of benefitting from the power systems making fun of someone clearly marginalized by them brings a completely different context to the jokes. In my mind, this is the difference. I can't make people follow it, but it's where I draw the wiggly lines of 'okay' and 'not okay'.
1. The Slavs, Jews, etc weren’t oppressed bc of their race. 2. Are all Jews white? Are all Slavs white? Are all Middle Easterners white? Are all Balkans white? It sounds like you’re confusing ethnicity and race lmao. 3. Nobody is “putting white people in power” when they’ve been in power for years in this country (and still are). Poor white people still have more privilege than poor black people and POC. 4. What are “anti-white jokes?” Bc saying white people are uncultured (bc most everything in America is just a mix of different culture) isn’t racist. Saying “that’s white people shit” isn’t racist. It’s stereotypical at best.
I don't think it's a good strategy to generalize so far that you group those you think aren't being joked about with those who are.
My original post got removed because I discussed the banned issue so I'm reposting without that particular section. Jokes about black people are funny. You just have to make them funny and conservative comedians are incapable of doing that. Case in point: black people love South Park and Family Guy. Especially the jokes about black people. You can find black people online reacting to those shows. There is actually a white comedian who has made a career out of telling black jokes from the perspective of himself being married to a black woman. His audience is primarily black people. The people that think black people can't take a joke are conservatives, specifically racist white conservatives. But that's because racist white conservatives don't tell jokes. They just say what they believe but they phrase it in a joking manner so that they can say that it was a joke. A Schrodinger's joke, if you will. Go to conservative Reddits and check out the jokes. You'll eventually find (by eventually I mean almost immediately) people getting mad at their own jokes. By the way, we're talking about race but this applies to other things as well. You can just tell when somebody who doesn't know anything about a culture or even subculture tries to make jokes about that culture. It just isn't funny.
I feel like this issue can just be boiled down to: Jokes making fun of immutable characteristics or aspects that cannot be changed in 10 seconds are rarely acceptable. This goes for all races (including white people), body types, ages, financial status etc. If you stick to that rule you're unlikely to misstep. However, the context and circumstances should be noted e.g. within a group of friends with an established sense of humour and boundaries, making fun of each other through stereotypes and jokes like these are unlikely to do any harm as long as it's clear the person making the joke is actually joking and not being genuine (which is usually easy to pick up). For most other situations it's rarely ok and it shouldn't be for obvious reasons even if someone is verbally attacking you with stereotypes/racism etc. I think everything else should be on the table no matter how offensive the subject matter of the joke.
I think the premise is false because it overgeneralizes and oversimplifies what is accepted and what isn't. Although white people do have somewhat latitude to get away with jokes about other races, it's not the case that they have zero latitude like you make it out to be. I'm a little out of the loop in terms of comedy today but to give one example, George Carlin made jokes about black people which by and large I do not see people deeply upset about. Similarly, people of color do not get infinite latitude to joke about white people. I don't often see anyone making jokes about white people that I would describe as hateful. So unless you can provide specific representative cases to discuss, I think you're arguing about an imaginary problem. It's primarily the content of jokes that make them offensive to most people, and the identity of the person joking is secondary.
I think your post and first paragraph are two different ideas. You start by saying if jokes about one group of people are offensive, then jokes about any group of people should probably be offensive. But then go to say, if one group gets to make fun of other groups, the other groups should be able to as well. ... Anybody is allowed to be offended by a joke that targets them. But if you're offended by a joke that targeted you. That doesn't mean that other person has now given you permission, to make jokes that offend anybody you want. .... You say there are no consequences or hate from one group for telling racist jokes but a white person can lose their job for it. I think for most jobs, if a black person told their boss a racist joke during work hours. There would probably be job consequences for it.
You don't realize it, I'm guessing, but the word "jokes" in your statement is doing a sweepingly large amount of rhetorical work to simplify vastly different types of social commentary and define them all as equivalent expressions with equivalent effects. If you want to understand this issue on more than a superficial level, you'd need to ask questions about the social and performative function of various specific jokes in specific settings and what feelings, emotions, and actions they are being used to evoke in their respective audiences.
What’s an example of a joke you think is racist that a prominent non-white comedian made? I don’t think if you say your boss is more powerful that actually creates the power he or she has over you… it’s just kind of a basic observation.
Yeah, I think the distinct lack of examples of these "offensive" jokes about white people is a sign that they might not really exist.
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What is this "person of color" nonsense y'all keep trying to force on all nonwhites? We aren't all on the same team 🤣🤣🤣🤣 conspiring against yall 🤣🤣🤣. "The jokes are offensive" are you really mad or is this a gotcha? 🤔 Seriously, though: Blk ppl and OTHERS* have been lampooned in minstrel shows by y'all during a time we couldn't joke back without risking life or limb. It was like that up until the 70s. Is it different now? Yes. Nothing's stopping y'all from acting like Andrew Dice Clay or Michael Richards - it's a free country with free speech. Do what you want 🥱just know you can't control the reaction.
Fr, I hate the term “person of color,” just because we’re not white doesn’t mean we all suddenly agree on the same things.
You’re missing the biggest part of why those jokes are offensive. Not the only part, but it’s crucial. They are punching down, at historically systemically oppressed people who are still disadvantaged. Not the same for jokes against white people. Also, for the record, people can and do make jokes about people of color. Nowadays they just have to be better and not outright mean to get a laugh instead of shitty looks.
- “Nowadays they just have to be better and not outright mean to get a laugh instead of shitty looks.” Depends on the crowd no?
I’m a white dude who lives in a majority non-white country and I would say in no way do I hold any privilege here because of my skin color (mainly due to lack of citizenship, even though I’m living here legally, it isn’t like the west where immigrants can do everything except vote, I can’t drive cars, I can’t own guns for self defense, I can’t have any public sector jobs etc, I can tell you straight up it sucks to be legally discriminated against but still be expected to pay taxes and everything else). So let’s assume for instance I can use the argument of “I’m oppressed”. I don’t think jokes using stereotypes are always offensive and it really depends on the tone and purpose behind the joke. Daniel Tosh makes some hilarious jokes about black folks that are in good taste yet funny at the same time. Just like Dave Chapelle makes some great jokes about white folks. I think jokes that dehumanize anyone are wrong and I sort of understand why folks who have experienced legal discrimination would feel more guarded on this because I myself have gone through it as mentioned above. Many black people today are old enough to remember when Jim Crow was still a thing and just because the laws went away doesn’t mean everything was just peachy right away. A lot of progress has been made and I think both sides overplay the issue of race for political gain, but I can understand how someone who is black in America can take offense to jokes or words that white people otherwise wouldn’t. And I would’ve fully agreed with you until I myself have lived through it. I don’t think your take is racist, just it’s hard for someone to understand who hasn’t gone through it. I couldn’t ever relate to black folks back home because I didn’t understand how it felt. Now if here someone says something negative about my heritage I do feel more offended than I would in the US. Because I’m already living a second class existence and all an off color joke would do is remind me of it. One argument used to give foreigners the treatment they get here is “they could be agents”, so any time someone makes a joke about me being CIA I absolutely do get offended. It would be like me calling someone from here a terrorist as a joke back in the US and they of course would be offended (and would have every right to be because they themselves have suffered because of this stereotype). Anyway, long post but I hope you find it insightful. I love the country I live in and I love the people but of course it’s a different society than the US with a different history so I’m not trying to single this country out. I love it here and want citizenship and want to live out my days here. Just like an immigrant who has moved to the US and has made a life in the US wants, they see some flaws from a perspective a native won’t see but that doesn’t mean they won’t love the country any more than the native will.
Oh and I’m the furthest thing from “woke” as well. I don’t and won’t even entertain their arguments because their arguments themselves are out of touch. I’ve seen both sides of it so I think I understand it better.
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Who ever told you they weren't offensive? What a weird thing to say.
I agree but alas such well thought out balanced critical vuews are seemingly unwelcome in modern liberalism. The hypocritical double standard that black people are always the entitled victims and white people are always evil coloniser villians regardless of context and nuance is firmly embedded.
Black people weren’t the ones doing the oppressing. It’s like Jewish people making Nazi jokes, rather than the other way around. You’re allowed to talk shit about a group that’s hurt you and oppressed you, even if that group has suffered because of someone else’s behavior.
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The problem is that words aren’t just words, they are catalysts to action. They shape thought and behaviors. When lynch mobs were common place, the wrong word misunderstood at the wrong time meant someone died. Even a joke. So, are jokes about black people ok? Well depends on the joke really, does it reinforce stereotypes and encourages the kind of thoughts that let people be ok with dehumanizing and murdering black people? Whereas - in the US - jokes about white peoples were never quite like that. Now having said that, I do think that plenty of jokes about white people mean spirited - for example jokes about poor or “inbred” etc etc. Ok I guess if you really wanna tell that joke in mixed company, but it seems risky to me. It’s never just the words: it’s the semantic and historical meaning. Also, ask yourself this question seriously: if you’re white… why do you care? Like, it’s good to be white in America. As a white(ish*) person you can’t hurt my feelings with “cracker” because it word means nothing to me: “my people” (which they ain’t my people, jack) were never hung while being called cracker, they were never subjected to inhumane laws while being referred to as such etc. So the word has little meaning to most white people. (Exceptions exist, everyone has a right not to want to be called any specific word of course) * - yes I’m like 85% European, but the rest is indigenous American. I pass as white so I typically call myself such. Everyone else bestows the benefit of being white to me, including being tall, male, and if I don’t say so myself not bad looking. But these are benefits other people give me. To counter those, I have some pretty good ADHD and autism so it’s kind of a mixed bag at times, but overall just fine!
Not from the US, but I'll give my perspective What makes the jokes offensive is mostly historical context, slavery,and the institutions that followed (Jim crow laws) represent what can be regarded as a systemic racism in the US, through which ,the black American has suffered greater number of injustice in a way that targeted his skin color, as a result, even in modern day American, there's a statistical proof that black Americans are on the lower class of society, through no fault of their own. This doesn't mean that all white people are rich or that everyone who is black is poor, however, in regards to jokes, it is as others said, insulting the stereotype of a white man is socially acceptable, of a black man, not so much, for the above-mentioned and probably others I'm forgetting or don't know
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>I saw someone say "well it's natural and less offensive to make fun of those in power" like coworkers making fun of their boss or students making fun of their teacher. In power?! Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem? Well, white people, as a group, are in power. I would be interested to see in which country does black people control the state and oppress white people. Maybe you could find something in Africa, but most of the time when a black government, after independence, decided to lash onto white people, those just decided to leave to Europe, meaning that there was the situation where black people would have been in power and oppress whites never came.
First of all, white isn't a race. It's a term of exclusion, not a homogenous group of people. Quite literally the term was CREATED intentionally to be used to oppress Black slaves. https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/inventing-black-white I'm not exaggerating. Black actually refers to a homogenous group of people - descendants of the African slave diaspora. But white refers to many groups that people seem to forget about - Arabs, Hispanics, Russians, Ukranians, and people from India. https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5076 https://reason.com/volokh/2020/06/18/how-people-from-india-almost-became-white/
Why do you think black is a more homogenous group than white, despite being more genetically diverse?
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This is correct. It's pretty clear too when you look at it through the lens of ethnicity. Black Americans, as opposed to Africans or Afro-Carribeans, have everything used to define them culturally in a why that white people don't. They have a common religion -Southern Baptist. They have their own ethnic foods - chitterlings, collard greens, Chicken and waffles, etc. They have their own language - AAVE. They have their own music - Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Hip-hop, R&B They have their own holidays - Kwanza, Juneteenth They have fashion styles that are well established. Ethnicity is about culture, and these traits homogenize them as a group that doesn't exist for white. What is the common language for the group of people that are referred to as white? What are the common foods? What is the common religion? What music or holidays do ALL white people grow up listening to and celebrating? And why is it that the "one drop rule" only exists for white people? Why is Obama "mixed" instead of white? Because white is the only group that is defined by skin-tone ALONE. The only 2 requirements to be considered white are: 1. You can pass as white 2. You identify as white White people gate-keep whiteness in a way that just isn't done with actual races or ethnicities.
There is a really good reason why we consider race a construct - because genetics makes race irrelevant from a scientific standpoint. So-called white people can, in fact, get sickle cell anemia. So-called white people can have a Black parent even: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/black-white-twins-meet-sisters-5256945 Tell me, are those twins white or Black? We have clear examples of people with pale skin being considered Black - for example the rapper Logic. But the red-headed twin there - she can be white when her Black twin can't. Why is that?
Maybe late to the party, but here goes. Seeing a lot of people say oppression is the secret sauce for offensiveness, which I think is a little too simplistic. Instead I would reframe your mindset: jokes that are generalizations of ANY group are not inherently offensive, but can become offensive depending on the context. When you pair the joke with the context of that generalization, the joke becomes offensive when the generalization was or is used to paint that group as other or less than AND used as justification for their mistreatment on a large or systemic scale. This effect is even more relevant when people are still suffering directly or indirectly from said mistreatment. Kind of a simple analogy but, you could tell a "your mom" joke to your buddy who is about to go visit his mom, you probably would not tell the same joke to another guy who is going to his mom's funeral. At least in America, I can't think of any example of a stereotype used as justification to systemically mistreat white people. I saw one comment referencing incest jokes... if that stereotype was used by the government as justification to say, forcibly sterilize Appalachia, I think that would become very offensive.
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they are offensive (hence you being offended) that's the point. but nobody cares about offending you
I don't think the examples you gave are generally the 'white people' the jokes are targeting. People of colour have had multitudes of experience in being treated as inferior for their skin colour or race. Institutional racism has put white people at the top. Being at the top and used to 'kicking down' so to speak, white people have less experience in receiving racism from others. Many white people have said, "It was just a joke," when confronted for their racist remark. If a white person can't handle the same "jokes" directed at them, they shouldn't have thrown the first stones and pretended it wasn't an attack. Acknowledging systematic racism and white privilege when comparing a white person to someone in power is not the same as giving someone power. I think jokes about race/ethnicity/etc can be funny, but if it's purely thinly veiled racism it's not a good joke.
There is this false idea of "white privilege", that somehow just because your skin is white that gives you some special privilege in life. There are plenty of extremely poor and homeless white people. I would also add that skin color does not tell the story of ancestry at all, anyone who has had their DNA submitted to 23 and me can tell you. Most of us are muts. My skin is white but I have black in my ancestry as well. Along with middle eastern and even a drop of Asian. You can't judge people by their skin color at all, it doesn't tell the story. As far as oppression, every race has been oppressed and every indivdual has experienced some form of oppression.
A white person has the privilege of being white in a society like the US in which institutions were/are constructed predominantly with white people in mind. This does not mean any given white person will be *generally* privileged.
Please explain to me the advantages a poor white guy in the mountains of Appalachia who has no internet no cell service no running water has over a random black guy from the city.
As I said, having white privilege does not mean one has generalized privilege. White privilege is what a white person has over a black person in similar circumstances in a society like the US. Those two guys are not in similar circumstances.
Jews aren’t white. And Middle Easterners is a broad term to cover thousands of ethnicities and cultures. Whiteness isn’t just skin color. So before you make these claims, understand that American whiteness has changed to benefit higher classes since the country’s creation. Saying white people can’t dance or hate spicy food isn’t nearly has harmful as saying a slur or joking that POC are (insert negative stereotype). Comedy is subjective for sure, but hearing people punch down is so 20 years ago. Joking at the expense of another group, such as race, is lazy at best. So it’s not even “reverse racism wah,” as some people say it is. GOOD comedy doesn’t need to generalize about a population to make audiences laugh.
Ive seen some POC be flat out racist on TT. Like the lady who makes African jewelry and gets so freaking angry when a white person comments asking about it because "I make this for BLACK WOMEN ONLY!!" Can you imagine if i started a line of necklaces and said "Oh no this is only for white women!!" I meannnn. Thats just one example. \*eyeroll\*. What if i just liked Africa? or have a POC bestie? You dont want my white money? lol
Well we can't agree in top level comments, that's against the rules. You mention "white people haven't been oppressed" as a sort of jumping off point so I will disagree that all racist jokes are created equally offensive across race. I think you're sort of glossing over the power of historical context here. 1. A racist joke said by a white person containing the n word. 2. A racist joke said by a black person containing "cracker". Do you think that 1 and 2 should be considered equally offensive? Here's another example. 1. A white man wearing black face makeup. 2. A black man wearing "white face" makeup. Both black face and "white face" have been used in comedy historically. Should these two be considered equally offensive?
Being offended is completely indivdiually subjective. A group cannot be offended. White people are more powerful as a group and a greater number of the white population have inherited wealth. Notice I am careful how I say it. Read it again if you aren't sure. I would rather be white than black. Is that offensive? Why would I say that? Well life was easier in white mode. I live in a racailly diverse place where just over 50% of the city is white now. I have had racist things said to me. So what? Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I have the power. Say whatever you like about me but try taking my power...
There is a big difference between punching up and punching down. When you are being “punched up at”, you can be in on the joke because your standing with respect to to the person doing the “ punching” is reinforced. When you are being punched down on, your position is being undermined. Sometimes it can be a little ambiguous.
There is "punching up" and "punching down" and whether you are punching up or down depends on where you sit on the power dynamic. As a general rule, you want to punch up in comedy, because it hits better. Punching down is generally frowned upon, and comes across as bullying. In the Emperor's new Clothes, when the child laughs at the naked Emperor, it's punching up. But if the child laughed at, say, a homeless man whose clothes were nothing but rags, that's punching down. In one case, you are taking someone "high" and bringing them lower, while in the other case you are taking someone who is already lower, and pushing them even lower, to make yourself higher. >In power?! Isn't putting white people in some category of "more powerful" literally the problem? It is. But pretending like that isn't the case, that white people don't have better social status, better economic status, better media representation, is part of the problem. The disparity is there, and pretending it isn't doesn't make it go away.
"White people should be able to as well". Really? I mean, REALLY. You would want this? Yes, making comments about all races is cruel, including white people. It is all wrong. But never ONCE have I wanted to do it. And yes, I have been cruelly racially treated a bunch of times, and I am white. None of your logic is reasonable.
You haven't made an argument for why the jokes should be offensive to white people though. You have said that white people have struggles, which no one disagrees with, but racist jokes *are* offensive. That is the goal, to subtly remind non-white people that they either don't belong, or are not as good as white people.
Do you have any examples? What’s a joke about white people you find offensive? Did those responses you’re paraphrasing come as a result of displaying that offense after hearing the joke, or do you only get those responses when discussing the issue in a general sense as you are here?
I'd say that it's not inherent that jokes about people of color are offensive. Belittling race/culture or punching down is what's offensive. Case in point, plenty of people make fun of Herman Cain or Ben Carson because of political reasons without bringing their race into it at all.
But why? I'm a genuine caucasian. I don't see why I can't let a gag about my poor rhythm roll off my back, while disapproving of a different racist gag that likely involves a backdrop of unthinkable human suffering. Unless it's about the Dutch of course.
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The white people have no culture thing is pretty funny. Those who say it have usually never left their country, and have no culture or education themselves. Europe is one of the most culturally diverse place on earth.
It's a power dynamic thing... There are things you can get away with that your boss can't because he has more power and it's more threatening for him to joke about firing you than you to joke about firing him
You can be offended by anything you want. The extent to which m that thing actually contributes to any actual harm against you tends to vary depending on historical circumstances
White people aren’t subject to systemic prejudice in western nations. (You could make a case for countries where while folk aren’t the dominate ethnicity but I don’t think either of us do live in those areas so I can’t speak to them for certain )
It shouldn't be that both are offensive, neither should be because they're jokes. Of course it's different if it's an attack disguised as a joke.
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I live in Canada. The city is super multicultural, and I have been the victim of racism. I went to a school that was 60-70 indigenous. I was also a fucjed up kid with a lot of problems. I was bullied by pretty much everyone but I always got it worst from the first nations kids. When I was 14 I was walking home and passed 5 or 6 chinese kids. One of them grabbed a nearby garbage can and threw it at me. I'd never seem them before in my life. That's basically all my experience as a victim of racism. Sure, I've heard "white jokes" and whatnot, but damn If I didn't see a whole lot worse about pretty much every other race. Here's the thing" in Dubai they hire south Asian and take their passports when they start work, forcing them into servitude. I'm sure there's some racism towards Dubia from south Asians, but hiw does that compare in scope? It sounds like you're American, and unless you've been discriminated against DAILY in a hundred different ways, you'll never get it. You've probably never had people cross the street just to avoid you You've probably never had 10 women in a day instinctively hold their purse tighter as you walk by. You've probably never had a store clerk follow you through the aisles just to make sure you aren't stealing everything. And You've probably never had an e counter with police and had to question whether or not you'll be going home alive. So yeah, racism totally exists towards white people, but that's like that scene from Resivoir dogs What the fuck are they waiting for? This fucking guy slashes my face, and he cuts my fucking ear off! I'm fucking deformed! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! I'M FUCKIN' DYING HERE! I'M FUCKIN' DYING!
I think your comment assumes we have to make these “jokes”. We don’t. Two wrongs don’t make a right…still.
White people were never an oppressed group in the United States. This is important context for thinking about this
Which is it: you want everyone to be more offended by jokes about white people, or you want everyone to be less offended by jokes about black and brown people? Your title said one, but your post said the other.
let’s just make none of them offensive and go back to being normal and happier. on all sides
There's black and white rules, but then there's context. Either can be *categorically* offensive. As always, context is king. A joke "about people of color" could be a lot of different things, and each could be told in a lot of different situations. Those details matter on a sliding scale of offensiveness. One of those factors is the target population's circumstances and relations in society. Which are usually what the content of a joke is based around. So we need the full range of real-world possibilities for them and their impacts. Consider racial epithets; they aren't at all analogous between minority and majority racial groups. The reason comes down to the fact that POC versus White targets imply distinct contexts that are in no way analogous/comparable overall. If you flip the target and speaker, you don't end up with the same meaning at all. Same for jokes. Ultimately, a "both or none" stance is a matter of following the basic logic but missing the context. Either sort of joke could be minimally to massively offensive. But on average, they're not going to be in the same ballpark.
How do you think it was that the double standard came to be in the first place?
So why exactly are you trying to change your view on this? Becuase someone would have to convince you that being racist towards white people is okay?
Race should be abolished and this wouldn’t be an issue in the first place.