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Have you ever laughed at a prejudiced joke?

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Fungus of Consciousness

14:51 / 07.04.08

Oh. Well done.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:53 / 07.04.08

So, I'm not very good at timezones. Is it a decent time of night for Peter to be stoned and irritable? Moderation requests to make posts ruder are rarely a good sign...

Glenn Close But No Cigar

14:54 / 07.04.08

Peter, who exactly finds Japanese racism more acceptable than WASP racism? The Japanese? WASPS? You need to explain this. Also, it might not be a bad idea to explain what your understanding of the word irony is, and what particular irony you detect in the situation you describe.

Fungus of Consciousness

14:56 / 07.04.08

Irritable yes. stoned? Never.

Fungus of Consciousness

14:58 / 07.04.08

I'm really not too sure what was rude about my amendment to my response Life Critic last page.

Glenn Close But No Cigar

15:00 / 07.04.08

Irritable yes. stoned? Never.

I keep imagining Peter saying this in a deep, Churchillian brogue.

This thread has strayed rather off topic. Peter, why don't you start your own thread about terrible racist attitudes are in Japan, and we can get on with talking about our reactions to prejudiced jokes.

15:02 / 07.04.08

Scroll up to my original post on this thread for the irony.

Sorry, perhaps I am being unclear. Let me know if anything i am saying requires a further explanation, and I'll try and be more intelligible. Here goes!

I would like to hear your definition of the word, with particular reference to the example in your original post.

I've already seen the post, and I noticed you asking who noticed irony.

In fact, I'm asking you to explain your understanding of irony precisely because you asked if we had seen any. Simply pointing at the post that prompted me to ask and saying 'that's some' is insufficiently useful to my purpose, I'm afraid.

Fungus of Consciousness

15:06 / 07.04.08

So you don't think it ironic that I am jumped all over to prove my assertion of the widespread racism in Japan, but a statement like "Most heterosexual WASPs have, at some point, laughed at a joke that found its roots in prejudice" goes totally uncontested?

Never mind the fact that no less an authority than a Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights find racism in Japan "Deep and profound".

You're right, it isn't irony, it's a double standard.

15:19 / 07.04.08

From earlier in the thread.

Peter, who exactly finds Japanese racism more acceptable than WASP racism? The Japanese? WASPS? You need to explain this.

Fungus...read...respond.

15:21 / 07.04.08

So you don't think it ironic

I haven't stated yet whether i believe it is ironic or not. I am not saying it is not. I am not saying it is. Please stop answering for me and talking to that answer, as it is only clouding things.

As I was attempting to express(damn this hideous speech impediment), I want to understand what you mean - your personal understanding - by the term 'irony'.

Once you've done that(which, unless i've missed it, you still haven't) I can then make a stabe at answering your initial open question regardig whether or not it is ironic.

So;
Please explain your definition of irony, and please do so with specific reference to the original post that sparked my request.

Fungus of Consciousness

15:22 / 07.04.08

Well quite obviously the Japanese do. Quite obviously mos people here do considereing that "WASPs" and racism are synonymous in a way that "Japan" and racism aren't.

Fungus of Consciousness

15:28 / 07.04.08

OK, lets start the irony thread.

Irony is a funny thing. It's quite subjective. What might be ironic to you might not be ironic to me. Probably best described as a disparity between what is said, and what is intended, or what is reality.

So, therefore, by attempting to illustrate the evils of racial stereotypes with a racial stereotype "Most heterosexual WASPs have, at some point, laughed at a joke that found its roots in prejudice", one may also been seen to have engaged in irony.

Which I find quite ironic.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

01:48 / 08.04.08

Yeah, whether or not you find something funny is the important thing. Have no shame, boy.

I don't have any shame when it comes to humor. Breaking down humor kills it, but if something is funny, you can get away with it. Bill Hicks could say vile, disgusting hateful things, but because he was funny, he's called a genius. Without the humor? He's a pissed off crank who's calling talk radio at 3 in the morning.

One of the great things about humor is that it can be transgressive in a way that other art forms cannot be as easily. The humor can COME from the shock, and the way it breaks through a boundary that people feel that exists. The racial/sexual/religious stereotype can be broken down and mocked for being a stereotype while still using it as a point of reference.

For example: Blazing Saddles uses prejudice to mock prejudice. I'm sure that there are people who laughed at the humor in it without realizing the subtext.

Or, when they were filming "Animal House", the producers were very nervous about the scene where the white frat boys go to a black roadhouse. Richard Pryor was working on a movie on the lot, so they brought him in to ask if they'd gone too far...and reply was "Nah, it's funny."

The Natural Way

14:33 / 09.04.08

Rose, mate, you've posted on barbelith for years and, frankly, if you haven't internalised the barbe-responses to almost all of the above by now, then you never will, so I'm not going to waste the energy.

Anna de Logardiere

17:24 / 09.04.08

Yes, yes, Peter, all cultures containing white people are less racist than cultures containing people of other races. That must be the case because it just must be the case. No need to explain it old duck, we understand it because it is intrinsically logical.

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:32 / 09.04.08

Bill Hicks could say vile, disgusting hateful things, but because he was funny, he's called a genius.

Not by me. It's unwise to accept these comfortable Internet fandom nostrums as inalienable. Almost as unwise, in fact, as deciding that a good person to sanity-check your work is a man who was later to take so much crack that it seemed like a good idea to set fire to himself.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

18:50 / 09.04.08

My dad's much better now, thanks.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:59 / 09.04.08

When was the last time you laughed at an eggy joke?

Last bloody Tuesday for all I know! I'm still learning. Maybe something I thought was okay half an hour ago will come to seem fucked up and prejudiced and ugly somewhere down the line. The whole point of what I wrote was that learning not to be a prejudiced fuckwad is a lifetime's effort, the battles may thin out a bit as you Forrest Gump your way through the 101 classes but you will always be fighting the fight.

Anna de Logardiere

21:53 / 09.04.08

Unless you never start fighting, which seems to be Peter's problem.

22:10 / 09.04.08

Okay. So I like falling for the occasional trolling. It makes me feel wanted...

So you don't think it ironic that I am jumped all over to prove my assertion of the widespread racism in Japan, but a statement like "Most heterosexual WASPs have, at some point, laughed at a joke that found its roots in prejudice" goes totally uncontested?

This is neither irony, nor a double standard. Fact of the matter is that this board is mostly populated by those who count as, or who are in frequent contact with, WASPs. It stands to reason that claims as to the nature of WASPs go uncontested - we all experience this nature on a daily basis.

Very few of the members on this board (to my knowldege) are Japanese, have lived in Japan, or have much experience of Japanese culture. It makes sense, therefore, that people would want evidence of claims of Japanese racism so they can make their own minds up on the matter.

They don't ask for this evidence on the matter of their own home society because it's all around them.

Assuming the above is true, this probably explains why the focus is upon WASPs and not other societies and cultures that are racist - familiarity. As the prevailent cultural attitude in Western Europe, it is the one that most largely affects our lives.

There. Enjoy the rest of your trolling.

08:09 / 10.04.08

Fact of the matter is that this board is mostly populated by those who count as, or who are in frequent contact with, WASPs. It stands to reason that claims as to the nature of WASPs go uncontested - we all experience this nature on a daily basis. (...)

They don't ask for this evidence on the matter of their own home society because it's all around them.

Assuming the above is true, this probably explains why the focus is upon WASPs and not other societies and cultures that are racist - familiarity. As the prevailent cultural attitude in Western Europe, it is the one that most largely affects our lives.

Are you sure, most posters here count as, or are in frequent contact with, WASPs? I had to look up that term and it doesn´t seem to fit (wiki link). They are supposed to be US citizens, protestants with Anglo-Saxon descent.

Most posters here don´t seem to be US citizens. And of those that are, how do you know that they are WASPs or that they are in frequent contact with them?

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:43 / 10.04.08

Having just looked up the term, I think you might be missing its more casual uses, mist. In many cases, as here, it encompasses not only strictly Germanic or indeed strictly Protestant people, but rather is used as a blanket term to describe a certain kind of middle-class, white, English-speaking, Northern European or North American - much as "tannoy" is often used to describe a wide range of public address systems but not other products actually produced by Tannoy. I dislike the term WASP for just this laxity of meaning and the resultant risk of confusion, but that was the meaning being used here.

09:00 / 10.04.08

Aha, thanks Haus. Before I looked up the word, I thought W might stand for white and A for American, and wanted to see what S and P were for.

I just don´t see Barbelith as having the vibe of a USamerican forum. And that term for me seemed to implicate that.

Anna de Logardiere

11:05 / 10.04.08

I regard the term as being specific as well though I know it's often used differently. A WASP for me is a New York phrase, usually describing someone who lives in the state or even in a part of Manhattan that is particularly WASPish. The reason that sits for me is because it's partly a reference to an accent and an uptight, buzzy manner of behaviour. The only person I know who uses the word WASP used to live in Brooklyn and she only uses it to describe a group of people who live in New York because there wasn't a term to describe the contrast between people from Eastern Europe (often Catholic) or Jewish progressives and white Protestants. This also makes it a class term.

You can debate whether you should need a word to describe groups and in that context it can certainly be taken as racist. Here on barbelith I would argue that it was used out of context and wasn't meant in that sense. It was being used by someone who is in the midst of Western society and WASP society every day and was describing their own privilege in a derogatory term. I don't think the argument that TNW's sentence was racist stands but personally I wouldn't use it because I think it's a class term and gained common use because a wasp is an animal and white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant behaviour was viewed as being a little like that of a wasp.

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