Editorial: It's Not Offensive, Just Lame
posted almost 12 years ago
I turn on the television this morning, and what do I hear?
Savannah Guthries flummoxed at "the behavior of a Penn State sorority."
The young ladies had posed for a picture around Halloween in Sombreros with fake mustaches. Two of the girls in the front are holding signs, entitled "will mow lawn for weed and beer," and "I don't cut grass, I smoke it."
When they showed the blurred-out picture before the commercial break and said that it was 'offensive,' I thought it was going to be something truly scandalous; e.g. the two girls in the front were completely naked or something. Isn't that more offensive than "cultural insensitivity?"
Allow me to submit that the signs in front aren't meant to be denigrating toward Mexicans, but that they're probably just truthful reflections of the person holding the sign. In all honesty, this is not nearly so offensive as it simply is dumb. It's just dumb. First of all, sorority? Who needs it? Okay, that's just me trying to get your attention--just checkin' your pulse. But in seriousness, the naive mindset that produces "booze and drugs r cool, guyz" as the paragon of humor is just depressing overall. Who thinks that joking about being a dope, literally, is knee-slapping humor? Am I the only one who doesn't?
Circling back to the "racism" (which, amazingly, the Today show avoided explicitly mentioning at any moment, opting instead for "cultural insensitivity," while flashing an image of Speedy Gonzalez across the screen), I have two observations to make.
The first:
When I think of "Mexicans," the first thing to pop into my mind is not "weed smoking" or "alcoholic." In all honesty, it's "short," because I'm 5'11", followed by "gardener," because literally 100% of the landscaping guys at UMBC are Hispanic. They do a great job. And if anyone was thinking of "hard working," is that really an offensive thing? Positive stereotypes are great. I think people just get upset when they perceive a negative stereotype. This brings me to...
The second:
When most people are going for a stereotype of an ethnic group that's known for heavy drinking, they're probably gunning for "Irish," not Mexican. And people make jokes about Irish (as well as other "white" groups) all the time, and no one ever gets offended--why should they? I think they don't because people know that someone making a joke about Irish, or, to be really general, just white people as a whole, isn't trying to telegraph that they harbor a rabid race-hatred for that group of people.
I think it's because Irish are assimilated into American society. We can make fun of any group within America that's assimilated into the society (Italians, Irish, Germans, Russians, Asians (broadly speaking), rednecks, in most cases blacks, Jews, and also homosexuals). But you start treading on thin ice when you decide to poke fun at a group that isn't assimilated (muslims, hispanics). Why is this? I think it's because people subconsciously know that when a group is assimilated, it's *part of* the culture itself, and so if you poke fun at it, there's no "group" of people you could be targeting. But people who keep to themselves and don't become part of the culture at large create a sense of awkwardness between them and the rest of the country. Those who are assimilated must wonder, "why don't they want to be part of us?" Those who do not assimilate must wonder, "do they hate us because of how different we are?" A divided society naturally creates these kind of situations.
I think you can honestly say that Hispanics fit into both groups, actually--the assimilated and the self-segregated--because of immigration. There's always new people coming in who keep to themselves, but given a few generations, they'll fuse into the rest of the culture. This is sustainable so long as the rate of immigration is below a certain threshold. But demographic disputes are a topic for a different discussion, one that can draw on the various Middle Eastern conflicts for case studies.
That's my big idea: I think people are attuned to thinking jokes about specific groups *of a certain kind* are offensive because the nature of those groups is to distance themselves from others, which arouses mutual suspicion and distrust, hence the touchy feelings. When people gather together in brotherhood and are willing to lay aside superficial differences such as their birthplace of origin, then they find that they have more in common than they realized, and the air of distrust disperses like fog in the rising sun.
Share your thoughts below.
Savannah Guthries flummoxed at "the behavior of a Penn State sorority."
The young ladies had posed for a picture around Halloween in Sombreros with fake mustaches. Two of the girls in the front are holding signs, entitled "will mow lawn for weed and beer," and "I don't cut grass, I smoke it."
When they showed the blurred-out picture before the commercial break and said that it was 'offensive,' I thought it was going to be something truly scandalous; e.g. the two girls in the front were completely naked or something. Isn't that more offensive than "cultural insensitivity?"
Allow me to submit that the signs in front aren't meant to be denigrating toward Mexicans, but that they're probably just truthful reflections of the person holding the sign. In all honesty, this is not nearly so offensive as it simply is dumb. It's just dumb. First of all, sorority? Who needs it? Okay, that's just me trying to get your attention--just checkin' your pulse. But in seriousness, the naive mindset that produces "booze and drugs r cool, guyz" as the paragon of humor is just depressing overall. Who thinks that joking about being a dope, literally, is knee-slapping humor? Am I the only one who doesn't?
Circling back to the "racism" (which, amazingly, the Today show avoided explicitly mentioning at any moment, opting instead for "cultural insensitivity," while flashing an image of Speedy Gonzalez across the screen), I have two observations to make.
The first:
When I think of "Mexicans," the first thing to pop into my mind is not "weed smoking" or "alcoholic." In all honesty, it's "short," because I'm 5'11", followed by "gardener," because literally 100% of the landscaping guys at UMBC are Hispanic. They do a great job. And if anyone was thinking of "hard working," is that really an offensive thing? Positive stereotypes are great. I think people just get upset when they perceive a negative stereotype. This brings me to...
The second:
When most people are going for a stereotype of an ethnic group that's known for heavy drinking, they're probably gunning for "Irish," not Mexican. And people make jokes about Irish (as well as other "white" groups) all the time, and no one ever gets offended--why should they? I think they don't because people know that someone making a joke about Irish, or, to be really general, just white people as a whole, isn't trying to telegraph that they harbor a rabid race-hatred for that group of people.
I think it's because Irish are assimilated into American society. We can make fun of any group within America that's assimilated into the society (Italians, Irish, Germans, Russians, Asians (broadly speaking), rednecks, in most cases blacks, Jews, and also homosexuals). But you start treading on thin ice when you decide to poke fun at a group that isn't assimilated (muslims, hispanics). Why is this? I think it's because people subconsciously know that when a group is assimilated, it's *part of* the culture itself, and so if you poke fun at it, there's no "group" of people you could be targeting. But people who keep to themselves and don't become part of the culture at large create a sense of awkwardness between them and the rest of the country. Those who are assimilated must wonder, "why don't they want to be part of us?" Those who do not assimilate must wonder, "do they hate us because of how different we are?" A divided society naturally creates these kind of situations.
I think you can honestly say that Hispanics fit into both groups, actually--the assimilated and the self-segregated--because of immigration. There's always new people coming in who keep to themselves, but given a few generations, they'll fuse into the rest of the culture. This is sustainable so long as the rate of immigration is below a certain threshold. But demographic disputes are a topic for a different discussion, one that can draw on the various Middle Eastern conflicts for case studies.
That's my big idea: I think people are attuned to thinking jokes about specific groups *of a certain kind* are offensive because the nature of those groups is to distance themselves from others, which arouses mutual suspicion and distrust, hence the touchy feelings. When people gather together in brotherhood and are willing to lay aside superficial differences such as their birthplace of origin, then they find that they have more in common than they realized, and the air of distrust disperses like fog in the rising sun.
Share your thoughts below.
