Careful:
Plays to racial and religious stereotypes.:
Plays to social stereotype:
Plays to racial stereotype.:
I know you were only joking in all those cases too, but there is latent offense in all those remarks. I know I'm reaching but you see my point. We all gaff from time to time, it's not intented to cause offence, ,mostly it doesn't but when you talk in absolutes you set yourself up.
The fact that they were said in jest, doesn't make them funny in the least. Your words, not mine.
Nice try DONG20; but you forgot the cardinal rule of racial humor. In America, as a Black person I am allowed to make these jokes and use the "N word " whilst White people cannot.
Also intonation and emotion cannot be felt or heard in print hence my prolific use of smilies in many of my posts. As for this post it was clear at that point that everyone was making a joke of a thread that has been reiterated in various forms here over many years.
If the OP had said, "gosh I'm thick today, you'll have to excuse me I'm Irish." That would be entirely different. It then becomes not racism or bigotry but self-deprecating humor. That does not mean that other Irish folk in earshot wouldn't take offense but they would most likely cut her some slack.
NJ,
At the risk of seeming facetious, could you please CITE this
alleged cardinal rule? I, as a woman of color(albeit, a very light-skinned woman of african, west indian, latin american, scottish & lakota sioux descent), take offense at many of the posts in which you perpetuate stereotypes. I have witnessed, in my short 44 years on this earth, that this kind of internalized oppression, even when used as humor, can be just as demeaning and caustic as if a racist said it.
I am of the school of thought that this kind of talk eats away at the hope of improving race relations and eradicating stereotypes & bigotry. And hope, as Cornell West said, "enacts the stance of the participant who actively struggles against the evidence in order to change the deadly tides of wealth inequality, group xenophobia (racial intolerance), and personal despair. Only a new wave of vision, courage, and hope can keep us sane and preserve the decency and dignity requisite to revitalize our energy for the work to be done."
I also believe, and try to live by, the words of Gandhi:
"We must be the change we wish to see."