andrewducker | Welcome to the 21st century.

i am completely conflicted about this in general. on the one hand i LOVE offensive jokes, but on the other if someone began to display signs of seriously believing in one, i would turn into debate mode.

it sounds awful, but i judge the situation around whether the people near me are likely to 'get' that this is a joke, or to think that it displays an attitude which is OK. if the latter, i encourage others not to joke around those people about issues too, unless i have established that this is not the case.

i refer almost entirely to sunderland and making jokes within earshot of those perhaps not as PC as myself in their beliefs, and there is nothing on this world more disturbing than someone joining in on a very offensive joke you/your mates have just told and agreeing. it really is quite frightening, and you feel a bit guilty as if you helped to spread their attitude a wee bit.

it sounds awful, but i judge the situation around whether the people near me are likely to 'get' that this is a joke, or to think that it displays an attitude which is OK.

Doesn't sound awful at all. I've made some terribly offensive jokes in my time, and I hope I've judged the audience right most of the time. Occasionally I won't, and nowadays I'd apologise if I actually hurt someone's feelings.

With a TV audience though, anyone can watch and anyone can switch off. The issues I have are that groups of people seem to imply that if they are offended then the person telling the jokes shoudl be banned from TV.

Which is a tricky one.

I'm very much on the free-speech side of this one. The only time someone should be prosecuted is for incitement to violence.

However, I'm fine with boycotts of companies that present views I dislike. They have the right to say (for instance) racist things, and I have the right to not give them any of my money.

I take it you know about the history of the FCC in the US all stemming from a single complaint from a Reverend? Now everything in the US on TV and Radio is heavilly censored by a body that had no force of law under the constitution and is probably technically illegal?

From a personal point of view, I've seen people call for the banning of computer games due to content they found offensive. I would suggest that agreeing to this sort of thing would be a step backwards in our growth as a society.

Agreeing to what kind of thing? Incitement of racial hatred has been a crime since the 80s...

Did you respond the the correct post here? Left turn at the traffic lights on your logic there.

I said: "The only time someone should be prosecuted is for incitement to violence."
You said: "I would suggest that agreeing to this sort of thing would be a step backwards in our growth as a society."
I said: "Incitement of racial hatred has been a crime since the 80s..."

It looks like a pretty much straightforward conversation to me. I was saying that the only time the law was involved was during incitement to violence, you replied saying you didn't want to go down that route, and I said that we already had.

Actually that point was never part of my discussion so yes there has been crossed wires. Incitement to ratial hatred is a world away from an off colour joke.

Which is why I said, in that top comment, that I wasn't in favour of any legal action for anything less than that. Off colour jokes should be entirely legal, IMHO.

Yay for agreement :D

Whoo!

Oh and additionally, yes. My right to demand that people are free of censorship extends to people being able to complain about it and boycott things if necessery.

Of course, the LGBT Society could have won the debate if they'd gotten a better comedian up against Boyle.

After all, THE ARISTOCRATS.

I love that movie!

Because it's never funny when it's about you.

Only if you are humourless, otherwise it is just as funny when it is about you. Hence the tradition of the roast.

I've seen a couple of them, and the person being roasted always looked distinctly uncomfortable if the jokes hit too close to the bone. They may well put up with it, but they didn't look happy about it.

Yeah. Maybe it's sometimes funny when it's about you, but you get the bad with the good.

First time I saw that was on some tv channel saying that up next her friends were going to roast Pamela Anderson. I remember thinking you wouldn't get much meat to go around.

As I've recently commented elsewhere, what really riles me are "ironic" sexist jokes (usually accompanied by smilies) that are just thrown into the middle of a discussion (on feminism or otherwise).

They put a feminist in an impossible situation. The choice is:
a) Ignore it or take it in the spirit in which the person who posted it says it is intended (not necessarily the same as the spirit is is actually, consciously or subconsciously intended)
b) Challenge it

If we (a), then we are giving some tacit approval and have to take a certain amount of offence "on the chin".

If we (b) then we are easy to paint as humourless feminists.

Throwing in an ironic joke achieves the result of sabotaging/hijacking/jibing at feminists, and does this in a way which "plays well to the crowd".

From the other post - "liking a story with an arrow doesn't make you a bigot"

Does WRITING a story with an arrow necessarily make you a bigot/racist/sexist/whatever?

Depends. Did you deliberately play up to a negative stereotype?

("You" here being impersonal, I'm not accusing _you_ of anything)

Edited 2009-04-15 11:26 (UTC)

Can you expand?

(And understood, although to make a point later I might do a quick analysis of BloodSpell, which I'm fairly sure you can analyse to make me look *really* bad.)

Well, when Joss Whedon created a world where all of the main/successful characters were American, while the only Chinese characters were backgrounded peasants, despite stating that the world was a fusion of American and Chinese society, I assume he wasn't deliberately saying that Americans would naturally come out on top, and the Chinese aren't capable of being anything more than stereotyped peasants. But you can see why some people would have taken it that way, I assume?

But that's clearly less bad than someone deliberately producing racist stereotypes, because it's not intended to be upsetting, and deliberate stereotypes are there to make people look bad and reinforce prejudice, and would therefore tend to have a strong effect.

Yep, I get that.

The question I'm asking is whether you'd therefore believe that Joss Whedon is anti-Asian in his own beliefs.

I find it unlikely that he is positively anti-Asian in his own beliefs. i.e. I doubt that he set out to be negative about Asians.

But he may well be unconsciously anti-Asian, insofar as he has no interest in them beyond a trivial use of their culture as a backdrop to his TV show, without thinking about the effect this would have.

Not to nitpick, but does "no interest in" equal "anti-"?

(For example, I'm not very interested in knitting, but does that make me anti-knitting?)

Depends on the effect it has in your work.

If you repeatedly use knitting as an example of something that ineffectual backgrounded characters do, while foregrounded active characters are chess-players, purely because you know about chess, and knitting seems like a handy shorthand for "another hobby that's non-tactical in nature", then you may not be intending to be anti-knitting, but you're still going to upset the knitters with your anti-knitting stance :->

Whereas if you never mentioned knitting (or Joss had never used any aspect of Chinese culture in Firefly) then obviously it wouldn't be an issue.

Edited 2009-04-15 12:16 (UTC)

That seems wierd to me. So completely ignoring any culture other than your own is better than paying some attention to it, but not getting it completely right?

Speaking personally, I'd say the Chinese/Asian elements in Firefly increased my awareness of Asia as a global power equal to the West, and increased my comfort level with elements of Asian culture a little, and I'd have said that was a good thing race relations wise. I'd miss it if it suddenly miraculously wasn't there.

So completely ignoring any culture other than your own is better than paying some attention to it, but not getting it completely right?
No. Using them in a manner whereby you reinforce stereotypes is worse than ignoring it. Showing a varied image of them that isn't completely right is better than either. IMHO.

I'd say the Chinese/Asian elements in Firefly increased my awareness of Asia as a global power
I'm intrigued as to how they did that when they didn't actually show any powerful Chinese/Asian people.

Just the concept that the US wasn't going to be the global power throughout all time was refreshing, actually.

And the Chinese swearing was surprisingly effective. Most of us in the US/UK don't hear people we empathise with using a foreign language very often. Just acclimatising me to that, I think, was a big plus.

I'm glad it helped you. Can you understand why some people of an Asian background might have found that it merely added onto the negative portrayals of them?

I can see why they might feel that. I don't think they're right, and I don't feel it's the responsibility of a creator to avoid causing offence at all costs.

(Incidentally, which character would you have cast as Asian? Jayne? "Firefly stereotypes Asians as violent thugs". Mal? "Ah, another stereotyped emotionally retarded Asian character". Wash? "But I notice that the only Asian in the crew is portrayed as ineffectual". Simon? River?

Inara?

There are maybe one or two characters whom you wouldn't be opening yourself up to accusations of racism by casting as Asian, but it's another can of worms.)

I don't think they're right
Don't think they're right in what?

In being offended?

Because they _are_ offended.

In saying that there are no powerful Asian characters in the whole series, but there are background Asian peasant ones?

Because that would seem, to me, to be an accurate summation.

You could easily have had Kayleigh, Simon, River and Zoe as Asian without having to change anything at all in the plot. Heck, you could have had a half-asian crew. All those hospitals we saw, and all the cops, and the various people on the frontier planets. Could even 20% of them have not been Asian?

You said "Can you understand why some people of an Asian background might have found that it merely added onto the negative portrayals of them?"

I said "I can see why they might feel that. I don't think they're right."

Therefore, I meant that "I don't think they're right that Firefly did nothing but add to negative portrayals of Asians".

Which is fair enough - as the flowchart says, you can happily disagree with someone else about it, take in that they do feel unhappy but you don't, and move on.

Personally, I feel that there is something somewhat troubling there, still thoroughly enjoy the show, and move on :->

In an ideal world, I'd prefer there was an Asian character. However, given it hasn't even occurred to me until it was mentioned a couple of days ago, I'm not too fussed that it wasn't there.

> In an ideal world, I'd prefer there was an Asian character.

Here, I'd say - this isn't about you. It's not about what will educate you the best.

It's about the experience of an Asian person watching Firefly, and how they feel by the way Asian people are portrayed.

Here I think you're making assumptions about what I mean by "prefer". I would also prefer a world where women were paid equally to men, and that won't educate me either.

Ah, perhaps I am - sorry.

Then I think the thing to do is not consider even what you think should be done - but ask PoC what they would like to be done.

As per

andrewducker's earlier comments in these threads, I think that PoC have spoken on this issue and expressed their dislike of what was done.

I'm gonna repeat something I said elsewhere, even though you found it unhelpful then, which is this: You don't get it. You may not be able to get it. Don't think you get it. Instead, if you want to help issues regarding racism, listen to what PoC are saying, and either support them or be quiet unless you are very satisfied that you have fully educated yourself on all the issues, you've taken part in many discussions, and many PoC have told you that you're getting it.

No.

The fastest way to avoid writing good fiction I know is to be entirely subservient to other people's opinion.

And the people of colour/gender/sexual preference/height/weight/appearance/intellectual or physical appearance I consult are almost certainly not representative.

The advice in my comment above is advice which, if followed, would help one write fiction which isn't racist.

It's ok not to follow that advice; but accept that as a result, the fiction you write may (or may not) be racist, without you realising.

In your opinion.

At some point you run up against the realities of studio production. Name me one other major network show where half the characters are Asian? It doesn't happen because the network producers believe, probably with some evidence to back that belief, that having that many Asian characters in a show will reduce their ratings, considerably, because people identify with, amongst other things, people who look like them.

Same reason why we don't see many fat characters. Unfair, but we are talking about a *business* here, and one with pretty thin margins.

Joss Whedon may have fought for a single Asian character, or a couple - I don't know. But I really doubt he had a hope of making half or more of the crew Asian.

Speaking personally, I'd say the Chinese/Asian elements in Firefly increased my awareness of Asia as a global power equal to the West

ditto. it reminded me that the future might not be inevitably entirely english-speaking (at least as a 2nd language).

Or maybe he was influenced by American TV and what is popular and decided to go with the masses. Most American programs consist of american actors and are probably more accessible to the target audience.

Also... what effect has it had? None to negligable?

I saw a fair amount of discussion by upset Asians (both in America and otherwise) at the time.

I'd still suggest this is negligable, or at the very least people looking for something to complain about. It would be like me complaining about Giles as being a stereotype nerdy, tweed-loving, po-faced Brit.

You think people complaining about the stereotypical portrayal of their race is jut because they're looking for something to complain about?

Really?

I think they are entitled to complain, but stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. The goth kids on South Park make me laugh even though it is effectively picking fun at a label that describes me. I see characteristics of myself and many of my friends in the stereotype, but they are exaggerated in order to make fun of them. Sure, complain if you want to, but do I really understand? No not really. I see Hugh Grant playing English stereotypes all the time and not identifying with him on any level whatsoever, but I wouldn't set up a discussion topic on him.

I think they are entitled to complain, but stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.

Yes. And in a lot of cases that reason is to keep control over people who up until 40 years ago didn't have the right to vote. I'm lucky, the racism that I might face isn't going to be major, and it's likely to always be in the form of humour.

In the States there's still a lot of very unpleasant racism that's expressed through violence and intimidation. And if you've spent most of your life dealing with that kind of atmosphere then you're going to be very sensitised towards it.

It's a little different ripping the piss out of a group of people who've chosen to dress and behave in a certain way and reinforcing stereotypes about a group of people who've been historically enslaved/butchered/etc due simply to the colour of their skin. Srsly, there's just no comparison. There's a big difference between racism and taking the piss out of babybats.

Sure, there may be a big difference, but the problem is that I can only relate to any experiences through my own. I cannot know how it feels for a black person to be racially abused, I can only draw comparison as best I can. However there is also the world of difference between racism and making a joke about, lets say, dead hookers. All things can be said to have their differences.

Incidentally, where do you draw the line between born with e.g. race, disability and people who chose certain behaviour?

What about religion? This is a choice, technically, but it difficult to pick and choose between your feelings and beliefs and this can be so closely linked to culture and upbringing. Some people are gay but make the ‘life choice’ not to be, they suck it up and date the opposite gender or remain celibate. And, in either case, miserable. With the possible exception of disability (most kinds) it is possible if you choose to cover up anything about your life in the same way as you choose to behave in certain ways. I don’t know enough about it, but suspect there are those who equate gothdom with being a kind of religion (and it ties closely to some religions). I totally understand your point – but where is the line?

Dude, you're very wrong here, and I think you should rethink or at least rephrase the first sentence.

Failing that, I suggest you go to any blog or community which deals with discussion of issues on race (preferably a community mostly containing Asian people), post that comment, and see what happens.

PS: I don't suggest this really!

I wouldn't because it would come across as someone white making fun of or trying to upset a group of asians. That wouldn't be the case. This is an example of me checking my thoughts around certain people to avoid offense.

Maybe if you could actually give me an example of how firefly was offensive to them I might understand better? To me it was just a western in space with a modern context to the earth as a whole rather than nations. Personally, I would have found it offensive if they had have done the usual hollywood trick of just having Americans in space with no other amalgamation of cultures from Earth.

I'm not sure I can give you a good example of how firefly is offensive in that way unless you're female, PoC, disabled, not cisgendered, or something along those lines.

It's in the context of constant, omnidirectional subtle put-downs, implications, opinion about "place" in society.

Any one example of a PoC being shown in a subservient role isn't, taken in isolation, hugely offensive.

But when time and time again, that's the dominant portrayal - one you're faced with everywhere you go? And your kids are faced with it too?

It's all part of a culture of subtle prejudice that makes every single example of it an irritation - one which builds to an inflammation.

The "you can't understand, you're not on the to-be-protected minorities list" argument is rarely convincing, and always irritating. If I was going to believe things based on people telling me I couldn't understand them, I'd be a lot more religious.

I'm sorry that my response is an inflamatory way to take this debate, and I won't be responding further on this, because I don't want to get into a RaceFail re-enactment.

However, I really don't feel, based on the number of people who have mentioned they find it extremely irritating, that anti-prejudice crusaders do themselves any favours with this argument. At base I actually do feel that trying to work against prejudice is a good thing, so, you know, I thought that was worth mentioning.

Fair enough.

I'm not trying to "do myself favours", by the way. If there was a different argument I could use which would get the point across, I would do. If you notice, I then go on to try my best to communicate anyway.

This is an expression of my inability to communicate something as much as me suggesting that "you wouldn't get it".

Perhaps other anti-prejudice activists are better at communicating this thing than me. I ain't one of them, sorry!

I know I said I wouldn't comment further, but I think this could do with clarification - when I say "do themselves favours" I mean "increase the chances of their points being sympathetically received and understood".

Thanks for the very reasonable response.

Yep, that's what I understood you to mean. I just read my reply though and it does look like I'm fingerquoting you to make it seem silly! Sorry about that.

Slightly following on from Cairmen’s comment, Chuma may not be ‘female, PoC, disabled, not cisgendered, or something along those lines.’ But he is male. Men are starting to see massive accepted gender opression and stereotyping, particularly in popular comedy – I see what could be ‘seen as an arrow (which to me is subtly different to my seeing the arrow) in comedy clubs, in countless sitcoms and dramas e.g. Friends, Sex and The City, Buffy, Ugly Betty to name but a couple of the top of my head. Some of these go hand in hand with female stereotyping, but why is it worse with women? Put this hand it hand with the treatment of men in magazines and popular culture and sexist rulings at a legislative level - eg rules that groups or boards etc that specify that at least one woman must be appointed, but not at least one men, which means it is legal for a board to comprise all women but not all men – that is sexist.

AND men aren’t allowed to complain about it, because they ‘couldn’t possibly know’. Yes I realise that worldwide female oppression and stereotyping is a much larger problem but the hypocrisy of saying ‘you’re a man, you couldn’t know about what it is like to have a gender’ is, to me, sexism of the most extreme level.

Lx

*nods* I don't deny that sexism against men exists, or that it's a problem.

However, there's one key difference between sexism as experienced by men and the prejudice experienced by the groups I mentioned; here in the west, those are not the groups in power.

Someone else (I think in this thread) said that the problem is "prejudice + power", and I think I agree.

It's one thing to experience sexism in some walks of life but be able to retreat from those areas at will.

The thing which I don't know to describe to someone who is in receipt of most forms of privilege is the experience of being in an environment of ubiquitous prejudice where even the idea of prejudice-free-space (such as women-only spaces, PoC-only-spaces) is still seen as radical by some.

To someone who doesn't experience that - I don't know how to describe how it feels. How much it amplifies the feeling of prejudice.

The key difference is that if you're white, male, cisgendered and above the poverty line, then most of the time when you experience prejudice you can walk away.

It depends. Sexism towards men is something I'm keenly interested in, whether it's in pop culture as described above, or less obvious, even insidious places.

Recently, two separate friends had difficulties joining parent-baby groups because the women there supposedly found it uncomfortable having a man around. So these young fathers have literally nowhere to go to share their experience, and learn from others how to be parents. Never mind, how to be a father.

I've had a similar problem with a friend (at least, she used to be) who said she'd never send expose her children to men in authority. She wouldn't accept male primary school teachers.

Retreating isn't an option. To be honest, that's as useful a recommendation as 'don't wear such a short skirt'.

You're right - these are exceptions to what I said above.

I'm fairly sure there's some significant crimes against underwear in there :)

Erm, that "you" in my reply isn't intended to mean you personally either!

It caaaaaaaaan do, yes. But, expand the definition of racism a bit.

Someone's a big, bad, evil racist if they go about beating up people of colour.

Someone's a medium racist if every black character in their books is poor, from the ghetto, loves watermelon and fried chicken, even when that wouldn't make sense for that character.

Someone can be a bit racist if they are unintentionally incorporating those stereotypes into stories they write.

The key thing is not to go "ARRRRGH! You just called me racist! I don't go around beating up black folks!". It's to go, "Ok, you're saying there are racist implications in my story. I should look at that."

A lot of confusion occurs because people can't handle other people suggesting they are racist. They feel that racists are those folks who used to be KKK members, not nice people like them. However, the word is broad, and covers both camps - just to differing degrees.

How do you as a reader tell whether a usage is intentional or unintentional?

Also, is it better or worse if a stereotyped character is intentionally in place, rather than unintentionally? (In other words, if the author is aware of the stereotype, but chooses to use it or aspects of it.)

As a reader, I probably don't know if it's intentional or unintentional. I find it distracting either way, and it lessens my enjoyment of the story.

If I know the author, I'd say, "Hey, this bit reads kinda racist." If I don't know them, I might complain in my journal, "I read story X by author Y, did anyone else think this bit was kinda racist?"

I'm not that fussed about deciding if it's "better" or "worse" - I'd think that both are a problem and can be addressed. Maybe better to think about how fixable it is, which varies.

Sometimes, an opinion which is consciously held is easier to change, because you can actually talk about it without the whole "But I don't think that" thing. But, sometimes it's consciously held with strong feeling, in which case it's hard to change.

Another point about "off-colour" jokes - they give social cover to bigots

By that same assumption, it can label people who are just making jokes as bigots when they are not.

it can label people who are just making jokes as bigots when they are not.

What is the "it" in your comment? I don't know what you're getting at. Are you saying that I am labelling people who are "just making jokes" as bigots? If not, who is?

You missed the key part of the sentence in the quote. "By that same assumption". The assumption is the 'it' in this case. You cannot assume that jokes are a social cover for bigots when they can equally be people who enjoy humour.

Let's consider this a moment. It isn't just the subject matter or how offensive it is or isn't that makes a joke funny, it is the contruction, the timing and exaggeration of the joke that makes it funny. Sometimes you will find people laughing at a joke that even they know is close to the grain. Jimmy Carr says that his favourite sound in a gig is a laugh quickly followed by an ooooo sound because people have laughed at the joke without analysing it and then half a second later have had their conditioning to know that it is wrong to do so.

I just believe that jokes themselves are not harmful, just the way they are used. If I thought a joke would offend someone I was with, I wouldn't tell it because it wouldn't be my intention. However if I told a joke and someone listening in on another table said they were offended, I would tell them to stop listening in on our conversation. In the same way, I feel if a comedian is offensive to you on TV, you should change the channel. Brass Eye I feel is a great example of a subject matter people found offensive because they didn't get the context of the joke (it was ironically taking the piss out of media hysteria).

Basically, you shouldn't attribute a joke to malice which can just be attributed to what my flatmate would called "an enlightened sense of humour". I hope that explains it well enough.

Ah, sorry - then I think you've misunderstood me.

I'm not saying "jokers are bigots".

I'm saying, "by making some kinds of joke, you let bigots of the hook - by contributing to a culture where that kind of joke is common, a bigot can also express their bigoted views and then cover by saying 'Only Joking!'".

I guess so, though these sorts of people tend to make their views known outside of a well constructed joke imho.

I just accept that by most people's standards I don't have a sense of humour. I'm okay with this.

I've been puzzling over this all day.

"Because it's never funny when it's about you. It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about."

I don't think that's true. In fact, I think it's lazy thinking. And following that logic, if I laugh about something, I don't care about the topic.

Comedy is not the opposite of serious. Jokes about fried chicken, holocausts, wheelchairs, rape, or transvestites don't inure me to the harm of predjudice. I don't follow the logic that they should.

I suspect that that depends on the way the joke is told and whether you're surrounded by a negative atmosphere all the time.

If, while you were in Scotland, Irish people were talked down, there were occasional racist anti-Irish attacks, and generally you felt unsafe walking down the street, then I suspect that you'd feel more sensitive when people made Irish jokes in front of you and that maybe you'd feel uncomfortable around them.

It is a generalisation, of course, to say it's _only_ funny when it's about someone else. But on the whole I find that people are a lot more sensitive about jokes about them than they are about jokes about The Other.

Sensitive, sure. But I don't know if that justifies their response. I don't know if that gives them special rights.

Coz I'm thinking of Chris Rock's 'niggers vs black people' sketch. *Does* he have a special right to pick comment on the stereotype, and if so, why?

Ads where guys are inept, crass, ignorant, can't cook, or are boob-obsessed irritate me - they're predjudiced. And though I've been on the receiving end of predjudice for being a guy, I'm unlikely to be beaten up for it.

But I don't feel like I have a special right to be offended.

I don't think people need a right to be offended. It's an emotion, go wild :->

I think you'd be over the top if you tried to get things banned. But if something makes you unhappy then rant away - it's what LJ is for!

"I think you'd be over the top if you tried to get things banned."

But isn't this a natural, and unfortunate outgrowth? Like, if me and thee feel Firefly's racist, and we get a thousand other bloggers to agree with us, the show's not going to appear.

Look at the outcry over Brand/Ross recently. An absolutely trivial moment on a radio show has resulted in fines, self-censorship, resignations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/12/david-mitchell-jonathan-ross-russell-brand is a good read.

Like, if me and thee feel Firefly's racist, and we get a thousand other bloggers to agree with us, the show's not going to appear.

I don't think I agree. There are a lot of shows out there that do offend me, and at least a thousand other people, and haven't been banned.

Of _course_ people are going to be particularly offended by things. If there was a BNP show on the BBC then I'd be offended by it, and I'd be wanting the BBC to have a very good justification for this being how they spent their money.

I wouldn't want people to stop being offended by awful things - because then they wouldn't want to try and change them. And we'd still be burning witches at the stake :->

Oh, and I appreciate you thinking this one over and giving me feedback. Because this is definitely one of those areas where I'm uncertain. Which is probably a good thing :->

Totally. =)

I'll explain two things that big me.

On RPGnet, there's a bunch of rules designed (so it seems) to prevent people from feeling offended. Don't use 'gay' as an epithet. Don't call someone retarded. Complain about Christianity, but not individual Christians.

These rules have an unfortunate effect, it seems to me. I can't call you on your bullshit. So in a conversation about circumcision being equivalent to child abuse (something I agree with), another poster felt any such angle was equivalent to anti-Semitism. And another felt it was anti-American. This shuts down discourse.

Point the Second: Friends of a friend. I got chatting with two or three women, aged 23 or so. Just about to finish university. Though they espoused assorted liberal views, and seemed more or less as wishy washy as I, I gradually realised they were terrifying fascists. They were hugely opposed to free speech, and hugely opposed to (as they saw it) conservative viewpoints. As if anyone who didn't agree with socialised medicine, or LGBT rights, or should be _denied the right to discuss it_.

To the point where they'd strip down posters at uni from Christian organisations.

Which is where you need the SU to step in and enforce freedom of speech.

I don't see why banning the use of "gay" as an epithet and ad hominem attacks prevents you from pointing out the flaws in someone's argument.

I'm obviously opposed to left-wing authoritarians as much as I am right-wing ones - they shouldn't be allowed to say things like that!

What's the difference between that and the SU banning a comedian from appearing (or the character - same diff)? Sure, it's a 'private' venue, but I don't think that's a strong argument.

The argument on RPGnet went that if one describes male circumcision as child abuse, one is saying all Jews (and many Americans) are abusers. Inherently. Inarguably.

I'm fine with people choosing not to allow other people onto private grounds for most reasons. If you wanted to come give a speech in my kitchen about the evils of gay people that wouldn't mean I had an obligation to let you.

The RPGnet argument sounds like the opposite of what their rules state:
"Complain about Christianity, but not individual Christians." would say it was fine to say things about "All Christians". If people are feeling sensitive and arguing the opposite then that's going to cause problems, but that's a problem a mod should be sorting.

And how should they 'sort it'? :)

The rule isn't *quite* like that. I can say modern paganism is, say, shallow and reactionary. I can't say pagans are shallow. I can't say you, a pagan, is shallow. Which is tortuous when I complain about a faith/culture/country, and someone takes it to mean I'm picking on each and every member of the faith/culture/country.

I mean, following my argument about circumcision, if I feel it's physical abuse, aren't I saying every Jew is an abuser?

Nope, because not all of them do it. Also, picking on one act performed by a group doesn't mean that group is eeeevil - it just means that they aren't perfect.

It does sound like RPG.Net have taken things too far, to be honest. As I said elsewhere in this thread, unless you're specifically advocating hatred/violence I fall on the freedom of speech side of things.

What I'm generally trying to say with the post here is that there are things you can say/do that are going to offend people, and that if you care then here are some useful ways of dealing with it without it spilling into flamewar territory. And that thinking about the effect of our words on others is worth doing.

In support of this - I too find that the chilling effects on freedom of speech are one of the big problems of anti-prejudice crusaders.

For semi-related example, I was considering making a character in a future series black, after an inspiring post by

theferrett. However, there's a strong argument that I'd just be asking for trouble and abuse in doing that, no matter how much research I did, and I'd be far better to stick to her being white. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do there.

I completely sympathise.

And I have to say, checking out your character with a dozen 'PoC' (really don't like that term) isn't going to help.

The other day, I was helping a blind guy through town. I asked him a couple of questions about how best to offer help to blind people. He explained that those who were blind from early on were usually more tolerant of people in their personal space. Those who became blind later on in life were usually less comfortable with people taking their arms etc. But it didn't really matter, as I'd offend some people no matter what I did.

I don't know. I'll probably pass the character by a couple of black people just to see if I've made any howlers - to take your example, the blind person you were helping did give you some useful advice. But yeah, I wouldn't be expecting doing that to avoid my pissing some people off.

Y'know, I spent three hours roleplaying a black character this evening. One of the players afterwards said he was a bit stereotyped. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't.

But the idea I'd take the character and pass it round black friends for them to rubberstamp my portrayal? Fills me with horror. How completely embarrassing.

You, as usual, rock. :)

LJ post on feminism gets enormous number of comments. Story at 9. ;)

God it's always about feminism with you lot, isn't it?

Hello. I can't be bothered to read everything as I have 2 seconds left on LJ before I have to return to doing work, but I am a comedian sometimes, and like most comedians have offended people and had it pointed out. If you don't actually believe in what you're saying, if you haven't thought it through, and someone points it out I suppose you could feel like a tit and retract your hilarious joke about Anne Frank. However, I would also say that generally people who get offended by jokes done in current comedy clubs (and bear in mind racism is tres 1970s) are very dull.

I have more to say but my 2 seconds is up so I'll leave it at that very unintelligent comment. But yeah, fuck all y'all bitches.

i tend to assume that if one can't *ever* (as opposed to having a temporary bad day/mood/etc) see the humour in a given topic, that that topic has a sufficient emotional hold that one won't be able to deal with it rationally either.

only partially relatedly, i find people being too (imo, of course) easily offended funny. :>

and i noticed the fedex arrow ages ago and completely forgot about it till i looked at the logo again.

Because it's never funny when it's about you. It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about.

I dunno about that. Pretty much the only people who tell lesbian jokes are lesbians. It's that whole reclamation thing. I think what's funny and what isn't isn't quite as simple as that. I also think that there are some jokes that will always be funny because they will always be horrific.

Oh! Maybe that's it! Okay, bear with me. Everyone agrees that dead babies are tragic. Genuinely awful. As such, quite a sizable amount of people - certainly almost everyone I know - find dead baby jokes funny, the more horrific and often less coherently punchlined the better. The same can apply to child abuse although I do know people who don't find paedophile jokes funny.

But there are racists out there, and transphobes, and homophobes. And that's why jokes about race and transsexuality (not that I've ever heard a trans joke) and gayness are only allowable and funny in the context of closed environments of The Initiated, cf reclaimation. In a packed hall, a stand-up comic joking about Asians or gays or is going to offend because there's that feeling that there's someone out there in the audience who is gaining a sense of genuine justification for their own bigotry in the telling.

This is just a theory and I'm not sure how well I'm explaining it. What do you think?

Edited 2009-04-15 22:26 (UTC)

I was feeling my way towards something similar.

I agree, though obviously if a gay asian was making stereotypical gay asian jokes then they could quite well be funny. The context of the experience being more heavily defined by the one with the mic than by the audience.

Though I doubt few people who were racist or homophobic would go to to see a gay asian comedian.

In fact more than that, if you had a group of people laughing at one person telling a joke, it's quite possible that laughing at the joke would be completely acceptable, whereas telling that joke (i.e. going from being an audience member to comedian with exactly the same people, merely roles altered) would be completely unacceptable.

I occasionally make homophobic, racist or sexist jokes, but only amongst company that know I'm not homophobic, racist or sexist and deliberately over the top jokes which would be too ridiculous that anyone could consider me serious.

In fact I'd likely only make such jokes when there was a good amount of the (potentially) insulted party present, as however well people know you, making some racist, sexist or homophobic jokes amongst a group of white, male, heterosexuals would have difficulty coming off as non-bigoted no matter the intention or the content.

Welcome to the 21st century.

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