Bullshit!
 

Dude, could your mom hook me up with some of those pipe smoking demons? That would totally rock. We could hang, and loll with naked people, and stuff.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

I think I've said this exact sentence.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

Stop it. You choose to frame the argument in the way he wants it framed. It's easy to sound righteous that way.

I forget what he was talking about now, but he said something like, "things aren't that racist." His point was, overall, racism isn't as bad as it used to be? No one is arguing that. I think ncs said that in a few places in the country that she is familiar with, it is just as prevalent as it was in his 80s example.

The point is, everything is relative. When mmmmmmmm2353209845 says "things aren't that racist," we're not thinking, "Well, historically speaking, he's absolutely right. Racism was far more prevalent just 20 years ago." That's a given and frankly, he's wasting his breath talking about how things have changed. It really just seems to be a vehicle for him to show everyone how enlightened he is. Whatever.

What a normal person would take from "things aren't that racist" is, "according to one's everyday experiences, there really isn't much racism." I think people may disagree with that based on their own experiences. nCs or fringe saying that they do in fact still experience racism or homophobia or whatever, based on where they live (which isn't where he lives) is no big deal.

TM

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

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Originally posted by mmm3587
I disagree strongly with your ill-informed feelings about social attitudes in the South; let's leave it at that.

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Ill-informed? I just lived through 7 years in Texas.

I'm not sure if I'm more amused that you think that Texas is "the South" or that you think that living in Texas from 1998-2005 (in Dallas, right?) makes you an expert on social attitudes there.

My point, poorly-made, I am happy to concede, is that the glidepath of social acceptability of gay/racial/gender jokes is on a more rapid descent than the glidepath of social acceptability of disability jokes. I can't believe that you would disagree with this or that, from living in a big city in Texas for the last seven years or so, you have a greater ability to judge this than I do. But I don't want to fight about it anymore. It's almost Friday, and I've just closed a big thing and want to talk about drinking and fucking, not argue about who's got more southern cred.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

As I was reading this, I was reminded of an episode in my childhood. I grew up in the midwest and our next-door neighbors were from Texas and Arkansas (dad from AK, mom from TX -- they had relocated to midwest nirvana -- next door to us). Anyway, when we were kids, we would play this game called "Smear the Queer" (we were really PC back in those days), which involved a bunch of us running around trying to tackle the kid with the ball (the one with the ball was "the queer"). The person with the ball would run around trying to escape everyone, and could toss the ball to someone else whenever if he didn't want to be "smeared". (At least, I think those were the rules -- it's a bit hazy.)

Of course, none of us knew what "queer" even meant, other than it was in the name of this really high-tech game we played.

Well one day, one of the kids from the TX/AR family told us that his dad suggested, nay, insisted! we call the game something else, because it really wasn't very nice to call the game "Smear the Queer". I think that may have been my first introduction to what "queer" meant.

I think their relative enlightenment must have been because they were Methodists, not Baptists.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

What about "cocksucker?" I say it all the time as an epithet, and my gay friends disagree on whether it is inappropriate or not.

Actually, I don't really care since I am fairly incapable of not uttering it. What bothers me more is that it should be a complimentary term of endearment, and yet I don't use it that way.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

Thanks, but it sure is dark.

TM

The call of the righteous
 

Then you shouldn't have started the argument, and continued it, and tried to close it in this manner, which is the lamest bullshit attempt at a last word ever invented.

I would call you a pussy, and I wouldn't mean man-octopussy, but as Less's cocksucker post suggests, why should this be an insult?

(Ok, Sidd, go ahead and call me hormonal.)

Bullshit!
 

Fair 'nough, but they didn't pick the location that would have created the greatest shock for their audience. Everyone basically expects the urban poor to suffer outrageously in India.
Sorry, without Our Lady of the Variety Pack around to remind me, I thought it was all about me.
Well, (i) I though it was effective, but I wouldn't rate it as "very," (ii) given that their audience is more you and me than people fond of admiring the holier-than-thous of the world, I think the segment could have been better aimed for their actual audience, and (iii) I thought including Ghandi (horndog with a school girl/enema fetish) and the Dalai Lama (basically a later-day deposed Shah in an orange sheet) underplayed by association the extent to which Mother Theresa was, not just not-holier-than-thou, but a real monster who not only caused but openly rejoyced in the suffering and death of multitudes.

I love the show, mind you, I just thought that one was weaker than most of the others. The circumcision season opener, for example, totally kicked ass. The old dude hanging dumbells from his dork was a complete riot.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

I said something like "there aren't that many racist/sexist/orientation jokes anymore," trying to make the point that disability-deriding humor is still considered ok, even though other similar kinds of humor have decreased somewhat. In my mind, it read as "compared to how it used to be, there aren't _that_ many racist/sexist/orientation jokes anymore."

And I stand by that. Do they stick out more today? Sure. Is the objective number of them anywhere close? I don't think so. Does it mean that we should stop trying to get rid of that kind of inventive? No, we should keep trying. But my original point was that making fun of disabilities is still generally considered to be an ok thing to do, which, in my opinion, is not true of the other kind of humor.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

I am continually amazed by the people here in the Midwest who don't realize that phrases like "jewing down the price" or "we got gypped" are ethnic slurs.

In 1994, when I lived in Spain, I was explaining to a friend about how I had to carry laundry for a considerable distance and that is why my shoulder ached and he said, "Debes comprar un negro." I was utterly floored.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

Hmm. I thought in my initial post when I said "try spending some time in Texas or the Deep South" (emphasis added) that it was pretty clear that Texas was included in the area I was discussing. Whatever. Texas and the Deep South are now bastions of enlightenment. Hurray!

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

No. but he might meet Tyrone Slothrop later this month.

Tact (or lack thereof)
 

Depends, I guess, on what you do and where you do it. A colleague recently remarked how she hates going over to the AIDS hospital, and she doesn't understand why gay health care practitioners don't "change their behavior" if they see HIV infection all day long. Struck me more as ignorant than hateful, but it makes me wicked uncomfortable to talk about my brother around her.

That said, I don't think my brother or any of my gay friends have too hard of a time of it here in Houston. People are always shocked about that, and I don't think that 20, 30 years ago that would have been the case outside of Montrose.

simple solution
 

I just hate everybody. It's much easier that way. I'm pretty much the only enlightened monkey on the planet. You humans and your petty distinctions.