Quote:
Originally posted by AggieSigmaNu361
Why?
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Why indeed?
The truth is that much of American humor has, in the past, been ethnic humor. And, again in the past, most people found it pretty funny.
I'm not interested in taking shots at "Political Correctness," because you can hide pretty much anything behind that phrase.
The fact is, though, that in this era you have to be very careful of anything involving ethnicity. Which, on the face of it, is not necessarily always a bad thing.
However, when taken to an extreme almost any ethnic group can point to some kind of persecution in its' past and some kind of stereotyping -- and it doesn't have to be what we have labled "minority."
So, does that mean that we should stay away from ANY ethnic references in our humor and party themes?
Probably so.
Which is sad, because I don't believe that the majority of ethnic humor is meant to be insulting, degrading and/or hurtful, but in this day and age, someone will almost certainly be offended. And, while I do understand the phenomenon, I wonder why it's OK to tell jokes about your own race, but not others. You're still perpetuating the stereotype.
It's too bad, in a way, that we've come to the point where we can't or won't laugh at ourselves anymore -- because some ethnic humor can be really funny.
Edited to add: S&S probably posted the above while I was writing this. I see the point, but in case of the Irish (part of my background), they might point out discrimination (religious and other) on the part of the British (and between themselves) which is ongoing today.
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