4 ms·

People laugh when they hear a "racist" joke because it's funny. Maybe race related jokes don't have a place at conferences and work places - I am not sure - bu

People laugh when they hear a "racist" joke because it's funny. Maybe race related jokes don't have a place at conferences and work places - I am not sure - but there should be room for jokes about race somewhere, right? I mean, where does this political correctness stop?

9392732 14y ago
I am still waiting for the out cry from "dumb things white people do" posts that pop up
- mistercow 14y ago
  what about teh whitez? Prejudice against privileged groups isn't met with as much outrage as prejudice against unprivileged groups, and this is as it should be. Both are harmful, but the harm of the former is tiny in comparison to the harm of the latter.
  - 9392732 14y ago
    So you are allowed to consider race when you are choosing your level of outrage?
    - rjknight 14y ago
      In the same way that a 5-year old child punching a 30-year-old adult is not the same thing as a 30-year-old adult punching a 5-year-old child, yes. This gets complicated when we consider that treating underprivileged groups as the proverbial 5-year-old children can also be a problem, such as when we assume they're incapable of speaking cogently for themselves, and so on. It's a difficult problem, which is why these kinds of topics always generate 100+ comment threads and much simpler topics do not.
      - Gobitron 14y ago
        This is the best comment in the thread.
      - theorique 14y ago
        So you're saying that a Black person is like a 5 year old and a White person is like a 30 year old? That's why people called grown Black men "boy" back in the day - it's egregiously racist and infantilizing to African Americans.
        rjknight 14y ago
        I addressed this in my second paragraph. There is a fundamental tension between two different views of fairness: One view says that fairness is about aggregate outcomes. We can observe that certain groups appear to be suffering from poor outcomes, and we regard this as unfair to members of those groups. We also recognise the historical factors involved in producing those outcomes. So, we might say "Women are under-represented in the software industry. This is because there are fewer women with relevant skills. But this is because of a legacy of centuries of sexist discrimination against women, and the only way to correct this is to perform some balancing discrimination in favour of women now". This view has no problem in recognising that women can be, on average, "inferior" (less experienced, say) programmers, but says that if they are inferior then it is because of historical factors and not any innate characteristic of women. The other view says that fairness is about individual acts. It's unfair to take certain aspects of a person's identity (e.g. gender) into account when evaluating a person, so we don't do that. It's unfair to act in a way that makes people of certain identities uncomfortable or disadvantages them in group situations, so we don't do that. Since advantage is relative, it's also wrong to act in a way that benefits only people of a certain identity. They think that disadvantaging someone because of their identity is unfair to that person, and even giving a person a positive advantage is unfair to them because it demeans their real achievements. Followers of the two ethical frameworks have a lot of trouble understanding each other. The second group thinks fairness is about acting fairly towards individuals, and thinks that it would be wrong to treat a woman differently from a man, since that is, after all, the sine qua non of sexism. But this also rules out giving the women a positive advantage. This directly conflicts with the notion of fairness held by the first group. They will, bizarrely, both describe the other group as being 'sexist' - group one for believing that it's legitimate to treat women differently from men (but only if it is done to correct a historical imbalance), and group two for arguing that it's wrong to consider gender when dealing with someone, because this ignores historical and systemic factors. I lean towards the individualist position myself, but it's not wrong to worry about the systemic factors and the aggregate outcomes. I also suspect that whilst the philosophical debate is very entertaining, it's also not very relevant to day-to-day life, which would be vastly improved by putting the philosophy to one side and just being a bit nicer to each other.
    - mistercow 14y ago
      You are "allowed" to consider privilege.
    - king_jester 14y ago
      When white people are enslaved, removed from their native homeland, and used as a primary economic engine for another race for ~300 years, then we can start talking about outrage over the treatment white people get.
      - 9392732 14y ago
        Like the Slavs? A group that spawned the word slave? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade Now, start your talk please
        mistercow 14y ago
        So you think that the "stuff white people like" meme finds its roots in prejudices arising from the Arab slave trade in the 9th century?
JonnieCache 14y ago
>I mean, where does this political correctness stop? When you are exclusively in the company of people who know you well enough to tell precisely how ironic you are or aren't being.
- singular 14y ago
  Yeah I guess that was a cheap response, but with some validity :-) There's a big difference between making race/sex jokes with people who realise you are being ironic + actually have no problem with it (I emphasise actually!), vs. when you are actually demeaning someone and they are __in the room__ at the time. There's definitely a big problem with sexism in our industry (+ elsewhere too clearly.) A thought experiment: somebody gets up on stage and presents a slide saying 'so simple that even blacks can use it!' There's a degree to which in any society where it's ok to make 'jokes' or comments with an edge, when the group in question is to some degree subjugated. That still remains the case with women to a large degree, far less so race (at least openly in the west), and 100% is the case with weight. It's worth stopping and taking a look at that.
- king_jester 14y ago
  There's no such thing as ironic humor based on sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, etc. If you are a member of a privileged group and you make jokes or use terms that have historically been used against people, you aren't being ironic, you are upholding the same sexism/racism/ageism/ableism/etc.
mayneack 14y ago
Not sarcastic: People laugh when they hear a "racist" joke because it's funny. Maybe race related jokes don't have a place at conferences and work places - I am not sure - but there should be room for jokes about race somewhere, right? I mean, where does this political correctness stop?
- alan_cx 14y ago
  Er, no. A joke about race can be very funny, both ways. A racist joke, is just racism. I'm am not going to down vote you, but I hope you understand the difference.
laut 14y ago
here's Louis CK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY
Xylakant 14y ago
Yes, there should be jokes about race, about countries, about religion, children, adults, boys, girls, lesbians, straight, gay, transgender, programmers, computer-illiterates, politicians and laymen or any other way to slice and dice humans into groups. Joking about things is one of the fundamental freedoms we value - it's one way to deal with preconceptions we all have about us and other people. Good jokes take your prejudices and turn them around, turning them into an unexpected lesson. Now, not all of those jokes fit into any environment. And neither should fun be derived from putting someone else down, like racist or sexist jokes do. And then, there's always the question of "what's funny?" So the best way to handle things is: The more people listen to you, the more you err at the side of caution.
- singular 14y ago
  Sure, and my somewhat cheap response misses the subtleties, see my response to JohnnieCache - at a conference with women in attendance and slides/etc. with an obvious 'aren't these women fucking sexy we geeks don't get much of that do we? Haw haw' edge to them, are such 'jokes' really making light of sexism or not? I think very much the latter.
  - Xylakant 14y ago
    The problem I have with your cheap response is that it actually clouds the issue. The question you and me should be asking is "why would it be appropriate to have sexist (or rather offending) jokes in any moderately public setting?" You're getting side-tracked by your parent who intentionally(?) uses "political correctness" and a move to a global statement as a way to stifle the discussion about why the jokes in question are certainly inappropriate for a public audience. It's not a question of "which jokes are we allowed to tell?" but rather a question of "are we allowed to offend participants on a conference/meetup/...?"
coldtea 14y ago
Yes, there should be place for jokes about race somewhere. Racism is a different thing than "jokes about race".
- petercooper 14y ago
  The British courts recently proved this too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20033097 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20033097

9392732 14y ago

I am still waiting for the out cry from "dumb things white people do" posts that pop up

mistercow 14y ago
what about teh whitez? Prejudice against privileged groups isn't met with as much outrage as prejudice against unprivileged groups, and this is as it should be. Both are harmful, but the harm of the former is tiny in comparison to the harm of the latter.
- 9392732 14y ago
  So you are allowed to consider race when you are choosing your level of outrage?
  - rjknight 14y ago
    In the same way that a 5-year old child punching a 30-year-old adult is not the same thing as a 30-year-old adult punching a 5-year-old child, yes. This gets complicated when we consider that treating underprivileged groups as the proverbial 5-year-old children can also be a problem, such as when we assume they're incapable of speaking cogently for themselves, and so on. It's a difficult problem, which is why these kinds of topics always generate 100+ comment threads and much simpler topics do not.
    - Gobitron 14y ago
      This is the best comment in the thread.
    - theorique 14y ago
      So you're saying that a Black person is like a 5 year old and a White person is like a 30 year old? That's why people called grown Black men "boy" back in the day - it's egregiously racist and infantilizing to African Americans.
      - rjknight 14y ago
        I addressed this in my second paragraph. There is a fundamental tension between two different views of fairness: One view says that fairness is about aggregate outcomes. We can observe that certain groups appear to be suffering from poor outcomes, and we regard this as unfair to members of those groups. We also recognise the historical factors involved in producing those outcomes. So, we might say "Women are under-represented in the software industry. This is because there are fewer women with relevant skills. But this is because of a legacy of centuries of sexist discrimination against women, and the only way to correct this is to perform some balancing discrimination in favour of women now". This view has no problem in recognising that women can be, on average, "inferior" (less experienced, say) programmers, but says that if they are inferior then it is because of historical factors and not any innate characteristic of women. The other view says that fairness is about individual acts. It's unfair to take certain aspects of a person's identity (e.g. gender) into account when evaluating a person, so we don't do that. It's unfair to act in a way that makes people of certain identities uncomfortable or disadvantages them in group situations, so we don't do that. Since advantage is relative, it's also wrong to act in a way that benefits only people of a certain identity. They think that disadvantaging someone because of their identity is unfair to that person, and even giving a person a positive advantage is unfair to them because it demeans their real achievements. Followers of the two ethical frameworks have a lot of trouble understanding each other. The second group thinks fairness is about acting fairly towards individuals, and thinks that it would be wrong to treat a woman differently from a man, since that is, after all, the sine qua non of sexism. But this also rules out giving the women a positive advantage. This directly conflicts with the notion of fairness held by the first group. They will, bizarrely, both describe the other group as being 'sexist' - group one for believing that it's legitimate to treat women differently from men (but only if it is done to correct a historical imbalance), and group two for arguing that it's wrong to consider gender when dealing with someone, because this ignores historical and systemic factors. I lean towards the individualist position myself, but it's not wrong to worry about the systemic factors and the aggregate outcomes. I also suspect that whilst the philosophical debate is very entertaining, it's also not very relevant to day-to-day life, which would be vastly improved by putting the philosophy to one side and just being a bit nicer to each other.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    You are "allowed" to consider privilege.
  - king_jester 14y ago
    When white people are enslaved, removed from their native homeland, and used as a primary economic engine for another race for ~300 years, then we can start talking about outrage over the treatment white people get.
    - 9392732 14y ago
      Like the Slavs? A group that spawned the word slave? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade Now, start your talk please
      - mistercow 14y ago
        So you think that the "stuff white people like" meme finds its roots in prejudices arising from the Arab slave trade in the 9th century?

JonnieCache 14y ago

>I mean, where does this political correctness stop? When you are exclusively in the company of people who know you well enough to tell precisely how ironic you are or aren't being.

singular 14y ago
Yeah I guess that was a cheap response, but with some validity :-) There's a big difference between making race/sex jokes with people who realise you are being ironic + actually have no problem with it (I emphasise actually!), vs. when you are actually demeaning someone and they are __in the room__ at the time. There's definitely a big problem with sexism in our industry (+ elsewhere too clearly.) A thought experiment: somebody gets up on stage and presents a slide saying 'so simple that even blacks can use it!' There's a degree to which in any society where it's ok to make 'jokes' or comments with an edge, when the group in question is to some degree subjugated. That still remains the case with women to a large degree, far less so race (at least openly in the west), and 100% is the case with weight. It's worth stopping and taking a look at that.
king_jester 14y ago
There's no such thing as ironic humor based on sexism, racism, ageism, ableism, etc. If you are a member of a privileged group and you make jokes or use terms that have historically been used against people, you aren't being ironic, you are upholding the same sexism/racism/ageism/ableism/etc.

mayneack 14y ago

Not sarcastic: People laugh when they hear a "racist" joke because it's funny. Maybe race related jokes don't have a place at conferences and work places - I am not sure - but there should be room for jokes about race somewhere, right? I mean, where does this political correctness stop?

alan_cx 14y ago
Er, no. A joke about race can be very funny, both ways. A racist joke, is just racism. I'm am not going to down vote you, but I hope you understand the difference.

laut 14y ago

here's Louis CK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

Xylakant 14y ago

Yes, there should be jokes about race, about countries, about religion, children, adults, boys, girls, lesbians, straight, gay, transgender, programmers, computer-illiterates, politicians and laymen or any other way to slice and dice humans into groups. Joking about things is one of the fundamental freedoms we value - it's one way to deal with preconceptions we all have about us and other people. Good jokes take your prejudices and turn them around, turning them into an unexpected lesson. Now, not all of those jokes fit into any environment. And neither should fun be derived from putting someone else down, like racist or sexist jokes do. And then, there's always the question of "what's funny?" So the best way to handle things is: The more people listen to you, the more you err at the side of caution.

singular 14y ago
Sure, and my somewhat cheap response misses the subtleties, see my response to JohnnieCache - at a conference with women in attendance and slides/etc. with an obvious 'aren't these women fucking sexy we geeks don't get much of that do we? Haw haw' edge to them, are such 'jokes' really making light of sexism or not? I think very much the latter.
- Xylakant 14y ago
  The problem I have with your cheap response is that it actually clouds the issue. The question you and me should be asking is "why would it be appropriate to have sexist (or rather offending) jokes in any moderately public setting?" You're getting side-tracked by your parent who intentionally(?) uses "political correctness" and a move to a global statement as a way to stifle the discussion about why the jokes in question are certainly inappropriate for a public audience. It's not a question of "which jokes are we allowed to tell?" but rather a question of "are we allowed to offend participants on a conference/meetup/...?"

coldtea 14y ago

Yes, there should be place for jokes about race somewhere. Racism is a different thing than "jokes about race".

petercooper 14y ago
The British courts recently proved this too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20033097 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20033097