Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
Originally posted by: SP33Demon
I could see how it would suck to hear Polack jokes all the time, but the fact of the matter is that you're not a minority and it's still a joke. You tell a Polack joke to someone you just met who's Polish, they'd probably be irritated and I agree - it's rude. You tell an Asian to eat an eggroll, or a black to eat a watermelon, or a Jew to eat a bagel and you might just get your ass beat because that's rude and hateful and not even funny. I'm sure you still see no difference in this and that it's all the same to you.
Your stance doesn't make sense. You say that it's ok to make fun of Polish people because they're white, but then you say you can't make fun of Jews; all the Jews I know are white (including my mother, and by definition, myself). You say that minorities must get offended if someone singles them out by race, and if they don't, they must not care about their background. Who the fuck are you to tell people when they should or shouldn't be offended? I have a Korean friend who constantly plays himself as a stereotype, reciting the dialogue from "Short Round" in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones, no time for love Dr. Jones!). I have a black friend who loves fried chicken and watermelon, and when I asked him about it and how he feels about it as a stereotype, his answer was, "shit, n****, I don't care about all that; this shit is delicious." Should I have been offended at their blatant stereotyping of their own racial backgrounds? Should they be ashamed for perpetuating a stereotype? If they're OK with it, what business is it of yours?
Maybe everyone in the world isn't as easily offended as you. Maybe that's not such a bad thing.
As to this story, the guy was stupid for saying this on the air, primarily because it fails as a joke, which is the only reason it was said. It's not funny. As for being offensive, I can vaguely see it; he assumed someone named Juan Pablo Montoya was Mexican, which, let's face it, in this country, is not a stretch to assume, and then he made a pointed claim about Mexicans. But who doesn't love tacos? They're delicious. Earlier in the thread someone assumed Vijay Singh was Indian. We guess at peoples' ethnicity from their names. Sometimes we're wrong. But most times you meet a Vijay, he's Indian. Most times you meet a Juan Pablo, he's Mexican. It's unreasonable to say that we should never guess; that's what human brains do naturally.
It's also ridiculous that we are so easily offended by such prattle. I firmly believe in equality and fairness, but trying to pretend that everyone is exactly the same is taking things too far; we do have differences and we shouldn't feel we have to act as though they don't exist out of fear of offending someone.