Crimsonietta.net

(totally off-topic: my ratio at Waffles.fm is now 3.2, owned ;D)

After reading through some of the comments on my previous entry on homosexuality (I knew it was going to be a slightly controversial topic, so I’m not surprised and am actually rather flattered that people actually read and comment on my scattered thoughts), I was suddenly reminded of a matter that I had wanted to address for some time - racial and sexist jokes. Please note that this has no connection at all to the homosexuality entry - I just have a really weird train of thought and association tendencies!

Radical statement of the day: racial and sexist jokes are perfectly fine to make.

What’s that I hear? Offended Latinos, Jews, Asians, and females raising an uproar? Well, control your rage; I haven’t finished explaning myself yet. If you feel inclined to toss flames my way and throw knives through my windows (kind of hard to do since I don’t run that OS anymore sorry bad joke), please hold off until the end of the entry. At that time you are free to threaten me to give up my address so you can mail me explosives and blackmail material.

Back to the matter at hand, using examples from real life: I myself am constantly berating the female half of the population for their [stereotypical] annoying tendencies, and I make Asian jokes every other day (ex. “What do you see, Vivi, with your gorgeous Asian eyes?” / “I can’t, they’re too small”). I have a ton of friends of various races, genders, and sexual preferences, and many of them love stabs at their ethical roots just as much as I do. This, to me, is perfectly acceptable; in fact, it kind of helps keep my mind open. It promotes a mindset in which I don’t take things so seriously and thus am not so prone to feeling unreasonably over-offended or overly sensitive.

So what’s the catch to my RSoD (radical statement blah blah)? Well -that- would be the fact that racial and sexist jokes are perfectly fine to make if they are not intended to be unreasonable or malicious. Walking into an African city and making a stupid joke about how AIDS is prevalent in Africa would be considered unreasonable. Walking into a cancer patient’s room and making a joke about how we all die in the end would be considered insensitive. Jokes should be made for the entertainment of all; petty jokes like making fun of how Engrish sounds, how Americans hate the French, about how Hitler was messed up in the head, how there are a ton of illegal immigrants crossing the border, and how females are more sensitive than males… all of those rank fairly low on the malicious scale and thus would inherently be perfectly fine jokes to make

Well, at least in my typical everyday environment it’s fine, but those of you out there who are used to a sugary-nice world would probably find my sarcastic jabs extremely offensive. In that case, perhaps I should try to be more sympathetic and sensitive; perhaps I should stop standing tall like a tough person when people make shocking jokes about my heritage; perhaps instead of taking things in stride and laughing along with the jokers, I should break down and lecture them about how rude and potentially offensive they are; perhaps instead of staying cool with things, I should get all riled up and angry about a few mere jokes that were initially made for the giggles.

… or perhaps I could just remain adherent to my normal tongue-in-cheek lifestyle. You may commence toilet-papering my house and spamming my inbox with hate mail. Include a radical joke about Asians or females (or both!) if you can =D