Before I unveil my thoughts, I want to make clear that this post of mine is NOT a protest for the particular joke. After all, I grew up at a time when we were wondering why white chocolate was invented…
However, I think that this could be a kind of a joke at which one might take offence, and in some ways it "touched a chord" in me.. Maybe because I do wear a gold chain around my neck...
Although, I want to think that no one in this forum would take any pleasure out of offending and/or hurting the feelings of other people, I thought to take it as an opportunity, to broadcast some of my thoughts and ask openly the rest of the forum members the following:
- Where (and perhaps how?) do we draw a line, in this forum, for posting jokes that may touch upon rather "sensitive" subjects, for example religion, ethnic origin, culture, etc.?
It can be argued, that if we start taking into account every small or big social group which may take offence at our words, we will end up saying nothing!
Censoring, in any form, can lead, and rather quickly, to boring, uncreative media of communication.
And, it has been an increasingly common strategy of international organisations (e.g. Amnesty International) during the last 20-25 years to use "non-acceptable humour" actively as a way to raise public awareness about racism, human rights, etc. (e.g. Stand Up For Your Rights Comedy Gala events in Australia, Awareness for Human Rights Stand up comedy events in UK).
One could suggest that there should be, perhaps, a fine balance between two extremes; personally, I would find it very difficult to put this balance in words, and define precisely "acceptable" and "non-acceptable" sayings, wordings, etc.
I also realise that motivation behind words has a lot of weight, but unfortunately, in this kind of media (i.e. writing behind a screen) is not easy (or even feasible sometimes) to know always and with certainty the motivation(s), if any, behind the words of other people.
Opinions?
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"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"
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Re: ETHNIC JOKES : an opportunity for some thoughts?
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