Race War
- Thread starter Onder
- Start date
Saparmurat_Niyazov
Member
That's why I said "temp jobs".
I suppose I should have said "of all the forums I have chatted with Europeans" or something like that. There are a lot of racist Europeans, and I'm willing to wager that, as a percentage of population, more of them are racist than white Americans.
Draehl
Lurker
It's my experience in the south that most white guys do love to tell a good racist joke, very, very few are actually racist in their daily behavior. What little racism I do notice is decidedly anti-ghetto culture rather than explicitly anti-black. IE "Herman Cain for president and Eminem is ni**er trash"
The Ozzman
Melted by feels
So, does telling racist jokes automatically make you racist? I hope not because I love me some racist jokes.
I tend to enjoy racist humor because I find stereotypes to be hilarious and if people didn't perpetuate the stereotypes, then racist jokes wouldn't be as funny imo
I tend to enjoy racist humor because I find stereotypes to be hilarious and if people didn't perpetuate the stereotypes, then racist jokes wouldn't be as funny imo
zerostatic
Damned in Flames
Since moving to Las Vegas 7 years ago I have found the I am more racist than nearly all my peers and colleagues. I have probably put my foot in my mouth more than once in the past, but I think I do a decent job of hiding/blocking out my racist views in my professional life. I'm not proud of my racist/prejudice beliefs, and I am not sure how I would go about changing if I wanted to. I guess it is to be expected since I grew up in 'Klan' County, Indiana. I remember the year some guys in high school went trick or treating as Klansman. 
Dak
mentat
The most racist black guy I ever met was from Philadelphia. Smart guy in many ways, and then I found out he was pro-Black Panthers......
SentinelSlain
Suck my joined date.
- Nov 21, 2007
- 10,015
- 153
- 63
Some woman got arrested recently in england for telling "all the blacks and browns on the train to fuck off back home".
zerostatic
Damned in Flames
The difference between the North and the South is that a lot Southerners were racist and they made a big deal about it so it attracted a lot of media attention. Many northerners were racist; they just did it quietly. It was a decade or so ago that I took a 60's History course in college, but I remember a story where Ralph Abernathy, a fellow minister and supporter of Dr. King, claimed that a civil rights march in Chicago, Illinois was worse/scarier than any of the previous marches in the South.
Vimana
Member
- Mar 2, 2007
- 11,671
- 20
- 38
That makes a lot of sense. I remember reading a cracked article about civil war myths that said that the north was more prejudiced than the south because they would discriminate against even people that were considered white. What I was taught in school was that the north was anti-slavery and not racist, and generally progressive.
Dak
mentat
The south wanted negros around as property. The north didn't want them around at all. That is probably the most accurate generalization.
SentinelSlain
Suck my joined date.
- Nov 21, 2007
- 10,015
- 153
- 63
Saparmurat_Niyazov
Member
It also seems to me that urban white Americans are more racist than rural white Americans, at least in the Midwest. I used to live in a town of about 5000 with literally less than a dozen blacks and 30 or 40 Mexicans, and they were all treated with respect (probably because in towns of that size you know everyone on some level). Living in a small city, I am constantly running into vehemently racist white people. I mean, they genuinely hate people of color.
Vimana
Member
- Mar 2, 2007
- 11,671
- 20
- 38
There's a lot of people who hate affirmative action and end up hating black people because of it. There's also the fact that inner city environments tend to be mainly minorities, so in a sense in a big city you're more likely to get a front row seat to the worst black stereotypes. When I worked in Baltimore I'd see black guys chilling on their porches in the morning smoking weed, and shooting up heroin. There would be groups of young guys gathering in circles, and upon seeing me would always have one of them looking at me every second. It was kinda scary. I'm not sure if they thought I was an undercover cop trying to bust them for dealing, or whether they were contemplating robbing me.
Einherjar86
Active Member
As bad as this sounds, I think finding racist jokes funny does make one racist; but I can't claim innocence here because I laugh at them as well. We've been culturally conditioned by our parents and our grandparents to find them funny.
Unfortunately, I don't think that jokes do anything to subvert or disprove stereotypes because, as you said, you need to understand the stereotype in order to find the joke funny; otherwise, it falls outside our realm of language and cognition, and would simply cease to exist. Basically, racist jokes need to reinforce stereotypes in order to sustain themselves.
Dak
mentat
I disagree, Ein. If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we are racist already. Being mad at the color of the joke teller is hypocrisy. White people didn't get mad at Dave Chapelle. They thought he was hilarious. Let a white guy make regular jokes about black people the way Chris Rock or Dave Chapelle does, and see how that goes over.
Einherjar86
Active Member
I think it's dangerous to put so much value on the absolving force of laughter. I believe that, in today's societies, laughter is "part of the game," so to speak. We believe we're achieving a cynical or ironic distance from the subject matter by laughing at it; that we're making for ourselves a kind of enlightened space from which we can objectively weigh others, while innocently poking fun at them and at ourselves. Personally, I don't believe there exists any kind of enlightened space, and I think that laughter allows us to delude ourselves into thinking there is.
Similar threads
