Tri-Banter wrote:
Do you laugh at ethnic jokes, like Polish or Jewish or black jokes? Do you think they are funny and harmless, too? ---
I was working in an inner city school where I was the only white person in the room. This was a fairly great group of kids with high levels of intelligence and great senses of humor. During one of our down times, we took to telling some jokes. My contribution was "A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel hanging out of his crotch. The bartender asks him if he knows he has a steering wheel hanging out of his crotch. He says, 'Aye, it's driving me nuts'" (<-- Note: Use a rough, piratey voice when you tell the punchline.)
This excellent young black man starts off his joke, "Why don't black people like to go on cruises?" I have no idea. "We ain't falling for that again". The entire room busts out laughing, including myself. No one was offended nor uncomfortable. Why? Because it was hysterical and we were comfortable enough with each other to understand that the race in the joke doesn't make it racist. It's okay to make jokes and laugh, so long as the point wasn't insult but humor. It's on the path to healing. My teenagers got it. So can you.
Funny joke. What was the stereotype being played on there? None, right? Do you see the difference between that joke and a joke that plays on a stereotype of Poles, or Jews, or blondes?
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"Go yell at an M&M"