neijia_boxer wrote:I am white and my black friend sent me that joke- i laughed and passed it on- get over yourselves and your wanna-be political correctness.
Hey, that's the thing, er, things. 1) You're white and have a black friend who knows a joke (and that's a hard one to quantify) about whites. You laughed. 2) I'm "black", but I didn't laugh. Well, I knew it was a "joke", but I also knew that ... 3) Some white people would be offended.
The answer, imo, is not to condemn "political correctness." The answer is to understand why some people didn't laugh or were offended. There was actually an article by Les Payne the day before the election that gave suggestions on what supporters of each candidate should not do, if the other candidate should win. He said things, in a joking way, such as "don't buy more ammunition" and "don't expect crack to be legalized."
But, seriously, he also meant that the winner shouldn't throw it in the loser's face, especially when it came to issues like race, history, etc. People take those things very personally, especially in this country. The joke about "cotton picking" goes right back to Reconstruction and the fears generated by extremists of what would happen if blacks "took over." Yeah, the assumption that whites didn't pick cotton is a stereotype. But, the fears of domination are old and real. So, imo, jokes about that ... are I guess ways to express that fear, maybe even cathartic. Otoh, I think they're unnecessarily touchy.
Jmo. I wasn't offended. I just didn't think it ws funnny.
"A man is rich when he has time and freewill. How he chooses to invest both will determine the return on his investment."