The truth is that you have to show it to kids. My family is racist. I do my best to correct the racist tendencies that I grew up with and was taught. Why? Because of things I was taught by people who weren't my family when I was a kid.
Adults are almost always lost causes, you gotta teach the kids.
Yes! I’m still so ashamed of the racist jokes my dad told and everybody laughed and so I did too. I was just barely old enough to remember (7, 8?) but I do. It is awful and sickening to think about how I laughed at those things now looking back. I consider myself very fortunate to have moved to a more diverse place with better role models (my parents divorced and I was almost never around my dad after age 12.) Those awful jokes were no longer funny because my mother worked to teach me better and repair some of that early conditioning. I’m 40 and I’m still working to improve. My kids will never hear those jokes from my house and I’m trying my best to make sure they are as horrified by them as I am.
When I was 10 years old, I repeated a joke my uncle told me, to a friend and his dad. The dad didn't laugh, and gave us a quick lecture/lesson on respecting other people's cultures, and how I shouldn't blame a group of people for the actions of a few. (this was right after 9/11)
I didn't realize I was doing anything bad until he told me why insulting others culture isn't funny or nice.
Almost 2 decades later, I actually sent him a message on facebook thanking him for having that talk with me. I told him how that was kind of a turning point in how I looked at the world.
God that gives me hope. I was thinking in my head the other day about the racist things I heard as a child growing up in the Deep South. Not really understanding the joke at all or why it was funny but thinking it must be if the grown ups were laughing. Now that I’m 32 with three kids, I feel it’s my duty to actively be anti-racist in front of them and tell them why.
I'm 27 and lived in the Deep South my entire life. My family has hatred bred so deep into them its astounding. My family had less difficulty accepting that my brother is gay and engaged to a man than they did that my sister wants to date a black man. Its astounding, honestly.
dude honestly, fuck your family. i mean that in the most respectful way possible. i'm tired of this. your family needs to grow up because it's those long-lasting traditions that will perpetuate hate.
The deep south is racist but so are many other areas of the United States. Northeast, northwest, Midwest, it doesn't matter where you live racism will be there. Colorado was way more racist than Texas (in the cities) in my experience, especially in the southern areas of Colorado. I think most of it is that they simply do not have many black people there, and since you don't experience them as much you fear / hate them more as a result.
The Northwoods is despite there being like literally no black people here. In the past 20 years, maybe 3-4 families have lived here. But somehow the invisible blacks and illegals are taking the jobs here that no white people want.....
When I was growing up, I was in a part of Canada that was like 80% Indian (I'm white). It didn't bother me, as I had no idea what race is, I just saw the kids as kids. The best way to teach the kids to respect other people's races is to surround them with kids from other backgrounds. It definitely helped for me and all the other students in my school.
That's interesting, and I'm really glad you had that perspective growing up. I had a different experience. Being in the minority as a white kid in a school that was mostly black and latino students just outside inner-city Chicago, I got to see what racism, prejudice and bigotry feel like first-hand. Hint: It's not fun no matter who you are, or who is doing it.
Luckily I had parents who taught me that those racist, prejudiced, bigoted people do not represent most African or Latino Americans, just like the KKK and White Supremacists are a tiny minority of White people.
Yeah, I was lucky enough to grow up with friends with different skin colours. My best friend from 4 to 16 was half tunisian and I didn't even notice at that age. Also had a Nigerian friend who I used to play chess with at lunchtime later on.
For sure. Lived there for a bit. Worked there for a bit. Lots of awesome people and restaurants in that area. And my parents still live just north of there.
Yea I moved away with my parents after I finished kindergarten there. There was a shooting in the rec center when I was doing swimming lessons and they were just like 'nope' and we moved.
I'm from the rural South and I went to a school that was about 80% black as a kid. When I later moved to a school that was almost exclusively white, I was really shocked at how much the kids there didn't like black people. Like how do you even know, you've never met one? Lol
Likewise, I'm proud to have been born in my part of Canada. To be able to see and understand the value of diversity and learning about other cultures, it truly is a blessing.
This isn't just common-sense true, it's science true:
I don't have the links on hand right now but researchers have found children who have only seen/been around people of their own race start showing measurable racial bias as early as 3 months old. The good news is, it can be fully reversed at least up to age 6, just through exposure.
(Takeaway, send your kid to a diverse daycare and preschool!)
Ah now I see...I thought you meant indigenous..my bad..kinda sucks all the down votes though.. obviously some can't see things from other perspectives lol
What reasons did he give a kid as to why insulting other cultures isn't funny or nice? Genuinel gf curious how to communicate that effectively to young ones
Idk man. Kinda hard to forgive those people after all that footage of people leaping to their deaths from burning buildings. If you dont forgive the nazis for ww2, why would you forgive the terrorists? Its something they will have to live with and their nations as well without forgiveness.
Yup too many racist and sexist jokes I used to know. I am still amazed that a common brain teaser used to be:
A boy and his father are on a fishing trip when they get into a crash and both are rushed to the hospital. The boy needs surgery and the doctor says "I can not operate on this boy for he is my son". Who is the doctor?
I just look at them blankly and say "I don't get it. Can you explain it to me?" Watching them trying to explain why their bigotry is funny is the real joke.
Funny jokes are based on incongruity, on subverted expectations, on sabotaging stereotypes. A joke which is based on race or gender differences can be harmless if that is all it does - subvert.
But I once went to a 'cabaret' in England, supposedly a Christmas party, and the publicised comedian had been replaced by someone I had never heard of. Within 15 minutes his routine had devolved into increasingly nasty racist 'joke' after 'joke'. After another few minutes my ex-wife decided to leave. I was relieved, because it gave me an excuse to leave as well. (It was a 'work do'.) It was nauseating, especially given that most of the audience was roaring with laughter. I remember thinking on the way home that I should have looked around to see if there were any non-white people in the audience. It would have been excruciating for them.
My favourite 'racist' joke is actually a species of pun.
"Why doesn't Pakistan do well at international soccer?"
"Because every time they get a corner, they build a shop."
People can tell me whether that's an offensive joke or not.
Oh I love that. One of my favorite 'race' jokes starts out sounding racist which always catches people off guard. This is me butchering it
So a Jewish man dies and goes to heaven. He meets god at the pearly gates and God tells him hello. The jewish man decides to tell god the most offensive Holocaust joke he can think of. God gets really offended that the man would have the nerve to say a joke like that! The Jewish man retorts back "Don't find it funny? Well I guess you had to be there"
Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett are down at the Alamo when Santa Anna and his 10 thousand mexicans start charging towards the Fort. Daniel looks at Davy for a second with confusion and says "...Are we doing drywall?"
It's also about who is telling the joke. When I was young, there used to be a joke in western India about the south. "You can't hit a stone on earth from space and not hit a Mallu (short for Malayali, the inhabitants of the state of Kerala)". The joke is that Kerala is a very small, sparsely populated state and Malayalis have emigrated throughout India, Middle-East, US, Canada, and Europe. And I thought then that it was a good joke. Then I moved to US and I see Indians everywhere and I started to make the same joke about Indians in general, including myself. We are so many, you can't hit a stone from space and miss an Indian. But then if Russell Peters made the same joke, I will laugh along. If Ricky Gervais made the same joke, I'll customarily frown a little and then laugh. Well, because I don't think he's a racist at all. If Trump says it, I'll be offended AF.
I don't get why, obviously the kid has two dad! (though really the answer is the surgeon is the mom if anyone is reading it for the first time and confused)
But it's far more encouraging -- and more meaningful -- that your immediate reaction once you understood was self reflective, rather than defensive or hostile.
Being open to new information, allowing it to let you to form new conclusions and opinions on known issues, is more important than already having all the right answers.
I’m a woman, my cousin is a woman and an ER doctor. The first time I heard that it took me awhile as well. I consider myself pretty feminist so to get slapped in the face with my own sexism was a wake-up call. It’s not just you, and just having that “whoah...” moment is huge. Learning and getting better is always the aim.
Ah it's not alarming, it's part of the jokes intent to subvert your expectations. May be that your expectations are partly subverted by preconceived notions that doctors are male - but I think it's mostly because the preamble of the joke draws your focus to the boy being with his dad, drawing your attention to the boy being a son of his father, so you instantly make this link when the doctor talks about him being their son.
But either way, yeah, it's always good to reflect on any potential subconscious prejudices you might have.
While unconscious sexism is part of the reason that it throws people, it’s also the intentionally misleading narrative structure. It gives some suspiciously vague details, then asks the listener an obviously loaded question. The listener will then automatically try and look for clues in the information they’ve been given to solve the mystery (like most brain teasers), which is a red herring.
Another valid answer would be that it’s the father from the fishing trip, and that he was on-call so he rushed to work with his son who he was looking after because an emergency call came in, and when he arrived he found his other son injured. It’s never explicitly mentioned that anyone is harmed in the crash, or that the crash is what causes them to rush to the hospital.
Or it could be 2 unrelated events involving the same two characters a year apart.
Or a gay couple.
Or it’s his step-father.
Or for a bit more of a sci-fi themed twist you could use a clone or time travel based explanation.
Keep in mind that "brain teaser" was a product of its time. It's decades old and women doctors were far less common then. It sounds silly now but I don't think it's particularly sexist, unless it's being told by a person who thinks women can't or shouldn't be doctors
I want to agree, but simply telling racist jokes and calling it 'comedy', as if there's some sort of sacred shroud that descends upon the joke and makes it holy, doesn't make it okay. That's what most people who say 'no subject should be off-limits to comedians' use it for, which is why that phrase has become an excuse for racists to not feel bad about what they say, and why I dislike the phrase.
'Relax, bro, it's comedy, comedy should have no taboos'.
'It's just a joke, bro'.
No.
As the other commenter said, it's all in how it's phrased, not only in where the joke is told or to whom. Poke fun at a situation, sure. Don't poke fun at people or cultures. Punch up, don't punch down, or make jokes that come from fear and ignorance, rather than knowledge and understanding.
No subject is off limits but the problem comes when people start punching down and perpetuating problematic ideas and call it a joke. It's tasteless, lazy, unintelligent and worst of all not funny
I love satire, dry humor and shock value so I agree that nothing is off limits, but as others say the framing is important
I had a flashback about a year ago of a joke my cousin told me. I thought it was the funniest thing when I was 5 or 6 and the first “story” joke I had ever heard. I repeated it. A lot. I had forgotten for it the last 3 decades, and whoo boy. Let me tell ya. That joke was racist as hell. I don’t think my cousin, and definitely not me, had any idea just how awful the joke was.
I've told racist jokes to people at school of the same races being insulted, and they laughed. I learned a while back that any genre of joke can be funny, and comedy isn't bigotry or racism.
For me no racist joke is funny, and the specific one that was told involved hurting someone and not in a prank-way, yet it was supposed to be a hilarious thing. All the other kids there laughed too. I have to wonder how that affected my home-towns’ friends views later on, as softening up kids to racist views via “innocent jokes” can lead them to more extreme racism later even if they don’t realize it. I do agree that comedy isn’t bigotry or racism, but it can be hi-jacked (like most everything can be) to promote implicit racism and enforce stereotypes.
I like all kind of jokes and we need all the jokes. This shows that we are all in the same boat, and we are on the same level it's no matter if you are black white yellow red...... Whatever. We deserve to laugh together about everything. But yes I agree it's no place for the white over everything shit!!!
I love you. If no one else tells you this i do. Its a beautiful thing for someone to overcome the vicious cycle that is racism. Thank you for being better and trying to influence those around you.
I was raised in the deep south and can relate. It took combat deployments with the army to cleanse that shit out of my head. Once I began to see everyone around me as green, and no longer black, white, brown, (or whatever shit I've seen literal blue people before) I was able to realize that I was so so wrong in my thinking. I even adopted some of the cultural behavior I experienced while deployed, because I learned how to respect my fellow human and not vilify or dehumanize them. What a fucking trip that was, as an adult it took life threatening trauma to put my head in the right place.
Edit: p.s. a shemagh makes a great mask for going out into public and doesn't fog up my glasses at all btw.
Which is why the culture IS progressing. I hate to think of it as a device, but “black music” currently being the most popular, along with integrated schools and mixed people being more common, the younger people are becoming more and more accepting for the most part
Yeah, when I was younger I learned about tolerance and accepting people. You shouldn’t get into the details, as kinds won’t understand that, but tell them that some people look different or like different people and that’s okay.
You're right. My Dad is in his early 70s and refers to black people 'colored people'. No matter how many times we've scolded him and told him that it's wrong, he still does it and he refuses to change. He's a lost cause. I love him and I get frustrated with his refusal to change anything about himself.
This. I have never known this until one day from years ago my mother gasps at a stranger on the road crying to us “oh my look at the black man!”
I was like really? This is happening in my own family?
Unfortunately you are right. By the time someone hits adulthood, the brainwashing is permanent. My father is 96 years old and he still refers to black people as the N-word. Thankfully I grew up in a changing Toronto of the late 1970s - early 1980s where many immigrants from Asia and the West Indies were coming to Canada. Many of my friends in school were non-white, so it countered the messages I was getting at home. So it is crucial that kids get the message early that racism is stupid before they make it a part of their adult personality.
Very true. I only now as an adult realize the impact of tiny little conversations i had as a child. I can literally trace back opinions i held or still hold to offhand remarks made by my parents or people i looked up to.
Raise a child better than you. Don’t transmit your own biases and vices. Instill in them the tools required to be good people. Thats the only way to fix the world
My favorite way to properly shut down any issues for OLD PEOPLE clashing with Youthful Outlooks No Matter in what mixed company or AGE range i find my self in IS : (and this always stumps them) " " STUPID comes in all SHADES " "...."Being a nigger is choosing to play stupid, not a color of skin."
My question is always the same, yet nobody can ever answer it:
Why do these celebrities who stick their opinion in on subjects like this, only go after this one kind of "hate"?
There are countless forms of hate and bigotry, why do they only ever talk about white supremacy.
Seriously, I've never once in my life heard a celebrity condemn black on black violence, or Islamic terror, or the fact that Asian, Indian, Arab communities are rife with racism and bigotry.
Name me one celebrity who condemned the Rotherham child abuse scandal, where thousands of underage British girls were raped by Muslim grooming gangs.
You simply can't, because that kind of "hate" isn't going to get you likes and shares and viral videos and furious pats on the back - it's going to get you labelled a racist.
That's my problem with all this: it only ever works ONE WAY.
I have a guess: Muslim terrorists don't care what Arnold says. He's an idol of action movie fans from the 80s and 90s.. mostly white, western kids and teens. Celebrities are making these videos because they think they can actually reach some of these people in their audience and influence them.
I believe political correctness plays a big part too. Many celebrities are afraid of being "cancelled" for saying the wrong thing, so they only ever express "safe" political views.
Arnold's publicity team probably checked this video over before he posted it to make sure it wasn't crossing any PC lines.
Then there's the entertainment industry clique. They're all hard left, and if you don't want to be blacklisted for life, you have to pretend to be one of them. Laugh at their jokes, agree with their politics, sing along with their cringe quarantine selfie song.
It's the same reason literally every single talk show host in America has the same duplicate political views, almost word-for-word.
Most comedians are leftist, but most Hollywood people are pretty central establishment people. Far left ideology wouldn't fly well in champagne drinking circles either. Singing in quarantine has nothing to do with far left ideology.
That PC bs has led to inaction on police brutality. Establishment figures do not listen to any voices of change on the left. Instead they're clinging to the status quo.
I know we don't agree on anything probably, but in my opinion you totally overestimate the leftist influence of the average celebrity.
remember doing some nazi jokes with my friend once (no flags or insults or anything) but we weren't serious in any way and were more interested in the planes and tanks and the history of everything.
There is nothing wrong with being into German engineering. there's nothing wrong with thinking Hugo boss made some great uniforms. There's something extraordinary wrong with thinking something as arbitrary as skin color or the size of your skull or the shape of your nose determines what type of person you will be.
There's context to jokes. There are many many jokes about nazi's and hitler, take that musical for example. You laugh along with a literal hitler character. But guess what? There's context. Laughing along with those jokes doesn't make you a nazi because of the context of the jokes. There are dark jokes about everything, most commonly dead babies. I don't think anyone who says those dead baby jokes would laugh at a dead baby.
But there is also the context that can make it nazi and horrid to dead babies. When there's obvious hatred or malice behind the joke. It's all about context. Laughing about a real story where a baby died is not okay. Dead baby jokes are funny because of the scoence behind laughter, we laugh to diffuse a tense situation which was a false alarm (think of meerkats who are on guard duty). So we laugh at a joke because it is in our imagination and we know it isn't true, so we naturally laugh as an instinct to show there is no danger. A real dead baby story is not funny, and no one in a right state of mind would laugh. It is a real danger.
On nazi jokes, you can joke about mazi's all you like, you have never experienced a real situation or probably heard of a real story of it. But then we get into the issues with dark humour, like the gas joke. It is funny because it is a coping mechanism, another natural reason we laugh. That historic moment in time affected the world, hence why a dead baby story cannot be funny (unless you have had it happen to you, and you do so as a copibg mechanism) and a gas joke in the right sensitive method can be funny, because we feel the moment and laugh as a coping mechanism to kind of forget in that moment it happened, because of how awful it was. It is how people in awful sitations can laugh about it, like people with no limbs, or blind, or have a stammer, etc. We joke about those awful situations because it is an insrinctive mechanic to laugh about it to ease the strong negative impact it has on our lives.
Regardless of the science of humour and laughter, to reiterate, nazi jokes can be funny given context, racist jokes can be funny given context. But context is everything for these sensitive subjects, and can very easily be done poorly.
You were younger when you joked with your friends, who you all don't know the seriousness of nazi history, but it still impacted your lives due to the education on it. So you laughed because of a mixture, there is no danger from it anymore, and it was a horrible thing that affected the world.
I like the science behind laughter so I thought I'd share on this post a little bit.
Back in 2002, when we were in highschool, my friend used to joke a lot about Hitler, not in bad faith, I guess, specially because nazism isn't really a thing here in México, but because he loved South Park back when it was edgelord shit... So, I think not that bad unless you're still like 30 joking about the holocaust.
I think the other problem is that not all of them are neo Nazis etc. So while I applaud Arnold's message and his personal take on the matter, it's going to be very easy for the majority of people to make the short logical jump of "I'm not a neo Nazi, therefore this doesn't apply to me".
Not really - because having been to GOP rallies, I have literally NEVER seen a Nazi flag. The hyperbole of equating the GOP to Nazis is exactly part of the polarization problem.
There are more Mexican flags at Democrat rallies (by far).
The Confederate flag isn't the Nazi flag. They are pretty different.
I grew up watching the Dukes of Hazard, so forgive me if I think the Confederate flag may mean something different to the younger generation.
The same symbol can mean something different to different people. Nazis might fly the confederate flag to promote hate. Other people fly it because they want a flag to represent Southern culture. It's not perfect - but don't interpret hate, when there may not be any hate.
The Confederate flag definitely does represent southern culture and history, no on disagrees, but it's not the part of our history we should be proud of and glorify. We have a richer culture than our worst mistakes
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a republican. He isn't saying that all conservatives are Nazis. He is saying that everyone has a responsibility to call out the ones that are.
And a Mexican flag was never the banner over a concentration camp. You wouldn't think the distinction was necessary to point out but here we are with Arnold's point being completely missed on multiple levels
Most folks equate racism with hate and not with power and privilege of one group over another. The moment they realize that they are uncomfortable with someone of a different race demanding that they get the same rights, power, and privilege that they enjoy and take for granted, they either accept that they were harboring racist attitudes or defend their position vigorously.
I get you what if the right wing across the world stop being and harbouring the most evil people on planet you can come back inside. I don't want to be around people who think concentration camps are ok, or murdering civilians, or endless wars for profit, or bigotry in general.
I try to engage right wingers I see here but it's exhausting to say over and over no immigrants aren't bad in fact they are statistically better people than us natives. I'm sick of showing people the basic facts and getting Breitbart in return.
Do you see what you did? You took all the worst worst elements of the other side, threw all of them into the same bucket, so you could dispose of them all together. No desire to talk to anyone who isn't on "your side".
You are part of the problem.
Imagine if I called all liberals a bunch of communist murderers? Worshipers of Che Guavara and other mass murderers and refused to even speak to you or anyone who didn't want to denounce you?
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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '20
Those who need to see this the most will work the hardest to avoid it