QueensBall
Member
There's a mental exercise some comedians do when they're trying to decide if they should tell a joke that may be viewed as culturally insensitive. Imagine that the audience is only filled with the type of people the joke is about. If it's a Jewish joke, the audience is exclusively Jewish. Same if it's a joke about black people, the physically disabled, women, etc...
If you'd still do the joke and feel the audience would appreciate and laugh at the observation then you have a great joke. Getting people to laugh at themselves is the gold standard. If there's something that's holding you back from wanting to tell the joke it probably means that there's something about the message of the joke that you don't want to admit to yourself.
I would never label or insinuate that anyone on this board is racist. I'm newer than most and it seems like a great group of people that have no intention of offending anyone (except perhaps UConn fans) The fact that people have clearly thought about this issue and are able to articulate their reasoning points to that. I'm just saying that sometimes it's easy to get lost in the weeds and mental gymnastics of a debate that can sometimes be simplified.
Would you be comfortable if the university had the Redmen name and logo up at an event that was only being attended by Native Americans? Do you feel you could defend it in a way where they would understand your POV well enough that they'd feel comfortable with it being displayed? If you say yes, then that's your choice but if the group depicted overwhelmingly tells you they find it to be offensive I don't think you get to say that it isn't. You get to display it but you live with the consequences of people making assumptions about what that means. This is America.
If you'd still do the joke and feel the audience would appreciate and laugh at the observation then you have a great joke. Getting people to laugh at themselves is the gold standard. If there's something that's holding you back from wanting to tell the joke it probably means that there's something about the message of the joke that you don't want to admit to yourself.
I would never label or insinuate that anyone on this board is racist. I'm newer than most and it seems like a great group of people that have no intention of offending anyone (except perhaps UConn fans) The fact that people have clearly thought about this issue and are able to articulate their reasoning points to that. I'm just saying that sometimes it's easy to get lost in the weeds and mental gymnastics of a debate that can sometimes be simplified.
Would you be comfortable if the university had the Redmen name and logo up at an event that was only being attended by Native Americans? Do you feel you could defend it in a way where they would understand your POV well enough that they'd feel comfortable with it being displayed? If you say yes, then that's your choice but if the group depicted overwhelmingly tells you they find it to be offensive I don't think you get to say that it isn't. You get to display it but you live with the consequences of people making assumptions about what that means. This is America.