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Can of Worms: Does telling a racist joke make you racist?
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Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
Firstly, ^&*! you for assuming I would.
You flat out rejected the statement I made before, why not now? They've determined it. It doesn't make them right.
It was moreso that I'm tired of referencing and finding support for things that people don't actually pay attention to. Too many people here demand evidence, and then ignore it (not you specifically, just in general). HSR was someone who was good at that, for example.
Secondly, where did you read these studies if you don't have links?
I'm fairly certain I've told you that my girlfriend is a psychology major, right? If not, there you go. I get fed with a number of interesting papers about psych research. I also happen to enjoy reading about psych research - I can recommend the book Quirkology, by Richard Wiseman, if you're interested in seeing some of the really strange psych findings that have come out of researching our daily habits, humour included.
Specifically in this case, the references I posted above came from Quirkology (hence no links, but that's all I had on hand this morning), my understanding of the research came from a combination of other readings from my girlfriend as well.
For your interest - the most recent interesting thing I've been referred to is a study showing that people can die from an overdose on placebos, because the placebo effect works both positively and negatively. It's actually fascinating stuff.
That's because they're blonde, clearly.
Ha ha.
People are free to reject social pressure said jokes may put on them, if they chose not to then that's another issue entirely. e.g. "They think blondes are dumb? I'll do everything possible to prove them wrong" rather than "...Okay I guess I am".
As I understand, it's not a conscious thing. You can want to do everything possible to prove them wrong, and end up with a worse score than the people who didn't hear the line of blonde jokes beforehand (on average). Sure, individual people may rise above the rest of the pack, but for every person who does, on average, there's a person who suffers even more greatly.
Post by
91604
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Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
It has nothing to do with your statement, I dropped psychology in sixth form because I could never get a satisfactory answer to "how can they know with any degree of certainty what other people are thinking when they don't overtly ask them?". You saying it has no bearing on my opinions on the matter unless you can answer it for me.
You did psychology in school? That's a joy we never had here in Australia.
My attempt at an answer - the point of psychology is not to understand what people are thinking (consciously), and instead, to understand the motivation for a person's actions, be they conscious or subconscious. As such, by narrowing down the scope of your question to 'knowing what other people are thinking', you're inherently limiting the scope of what you view psychology to be.
On that note, psychologists do overtly ask them. The problem is that people lie - both consciously and subconsciously. A good example is the question - "are you racist?" The proportion who will admit that they are racist are dwarfed by the proportion who will not admit that they are racist, yet have racist views (as determined by other q's in a survey) and subconscious bias (as determined by association tests).
I'll give you an example - there are association tests that test your reaction speed to different pairs of prompts, indicating a preference towards one or the other. You can try it out and read more on it
here
.
I think it depends how you take it though, if someone is angered or depressed by the joke, they may do worse because their emotions cloud their capacity to think, whereas if someone coldly and calmly decided they wouldn't let it get to them and would do the best they could to try and break the stereotype they may do better.
Doesn't the fact that some people aren't cold and calm provide sufficient reason to suggest that the negative stereotype joke still has an overall negative effect? It's sorta like telling a rape joke, then telling the rape victim that they should toughen up and get over it instead of getting angry or depressed.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
Interest
This honestly depends on how other people take the joke...
But in general, I'd say no.
Post by
204878
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Post by
Squishalot
Depends how you define school, it's 16-18 education so outside of mandatory education but it still took place at a high school.
I'd still count that. We did philosophy in our final year, but it was a gifted/talented program only, and had 50 students state-wide.
From the majority of material I saw while studying I'd have to disagree, there was a strong emphasis placed on hiding the goals of the study to prevent the subject from realising what the researcher's aims were then skewing the results by either deliberately or inadvertently providing results which would conform to or dissent from these aims.
How is that a problem though? You're still asking the question, which is what you wanted, right? The fact that you're excluding people who would be biased one way or another is simply good research practice.
The overt question 'are you racist' isn't the normal sort of question you tend to ask in psych studies, because of the skewing you tend to get. My point is that the skewing occurs when you ask directly, and that this has been demonstrated many times. Psychometric tests often include questions in this vein in an attempt to catch you out trying to 'conform' when you're applying for a job.
I think you'd need to provide more and differing stimuli to determine if it's the case that this type of situation causes it or if they're just easily provoked to the same level by other situations (ones not involving racial stereotypes for example).
You probably would. However, across a broad enough study (noting that 95 Canadians isn't a broad enough study), you could theorise that their level of provoked-ness isn't going to be any greater or less than average. You'd typically have some sort of control case - the ones who don't get told the racial jokes would be told other jokes, presumably.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
Sweetscot
It's only racist on how someone perceives it
Um, the hypothetical joke is IS racist. That's the premise of the question.
Hrg. Anyway.
Western society is inherently racist (and sexist and homophobic), what with straight white males considered the 'default'. Case in point: people in this very post willingly admit to telling racist and sexist jokes and act like that's a-okay. Why? Because society at large supports them. It's institutionalised. It's mixed messages from the media that say Racism is Bad (Unless it's Funny, or Unless There Are No Black People Around, or Unless You Can Get Away With It, or Unless...).
Guess what: if you tell a racist joke, you have engaged in an act of racism. We're taught that being racist is an overt thing, KKK membership and all, but it's much more subtle and insidious than that. It's racist jokes. It's stereotypes. It's the offhand use of slurs. It's sentences that begin, "I'm not racist, but..."
It validates other people's (conscious and unconscious) racist thoughts and normalises the behaviour, accepting and perpetuating the systemic oppression of people of colour. That is how racism works.
There's an adage that goes, 'show, don't tell' -- it's usually advice for writers, but it applies here well enough. You can
tell
people you're not racist all you like, but maybe stop and think about what you're actually
showing
when you knowingly crack a racist joke and then defend it.
Signed, a black woman.
all of that but instead sign it "an american indian+a ton of other nationalities mutt" and you've got an answer far more eloquent than I could probably write on the subject. My vote's yes.
Post by
Heckler
Guess what: if you tell a racist joke, you have engaged in an act of racism.
This tipped me, I voted Yes. It is of course dependent on both your definition of "Racist Joke" and "Racist" -- but I think the essence of this quote is true enough to warrant a Yes vote.
Post by
Squishalot
That's... a very sudden spurt of Yes votes. Glad to see that you guys are around too!
Post by
858862
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Post by
Squishalot
I...don't even know what to tell you, dude.
<calculated statement for the purposes of demonstrating a point>
That's ok, Cambo's a Kiwi. You'd be a bit twisted too if your closest relatives were sheep.
</calculated statement for the purposes of demonstrating a point>
It's remarkably hard to formulate a racist joke if you're not so inclined, I might add. It also doesn't work terribly well coming from an Aussie, considering that Kiwis and Aussies have a
un
spoken agreement that we can put each other down as much as we like.
Post by
Cambo
Why get offended if it isn't directed at you? Think to yourself, are you dirty? Are you a 'n***er'?
Again, why get offended? Will it take your house away? Your car, children, or your job?
Some stranger comes up to your face and says to you "You dirty n***er", with a sneer and anger in their eyes.
You are bowling with one of your non-black friends. You get 7 strikes in a row, and he comments cheerfully "You dirty n***er!", in exclamation and joyful perplextion.
Would you treat both of these scenarios the same? Are you equally offended by either?
Post by
Squishalot
Cambo, not everybody understands that 'dirty bastard' can also be a term of endearment.
"Which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"
The point is that if taken literally, it's an offensive statement. Why are we making humour out of offensive statements?(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
Cambo
Cambo, not everybody understands that 'dirty bastard' can also be a term of endearment.
The problem with my over-active brain, is that I need me and someone else to explain what I want so say - so thanks Squish!
Humour disarms alot of hate and harm. And makes life brighter.
Post by
Squishalot
It does, but only in context, and if the receiver understands the context, and if anybody who comes across it understands the context, and so forth.
That's a lot of conditions around it. Is making your life brighter worth making someone else's dimmer, because they don't understand that you don't actually mean it? (Or in the case of some of the psych studies, they subconsciously start processing it?)
And arguably, the one who turns to you at bowling and uses an abusive term for your race - he's probably not really much of a friend if he doesn't acknowledge that you don't like being called that. I'd be pretty offended if one of my friends, even in a light-hearted manner, referred to me as a 'ching chong Chinese' on the basis of my race, be it a throwback to White Australia or not.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##
Post by
95916
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Post by
858862
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Skreeran
I don't want to get involved in an argument here, but I'll go ahead and voice my opinion.
I occasionally make racist jokes (particularly with my brother), but I don't see myself as racist. Acknowledging a racist stereotype and taking humour in it is not the same as being a serious racist, in my opinion. I know that racist stereotypes are not (necessarily) true, and when I joke about them, I'm not intending to deprecate anyone. I don't make those jokes in the presence of people I believe might be hurt or offended by them.
I don't see myself as racist because I don't take the jokes seriously. A racist says "Black people don't work," and they really believe it. They believe it, and they'll take action around that belief (legislation, behavior around black people, etc.). Somepony who says "Why do aspirin work? Because they're white," may be making a crude joke (and like any other crude joke, they must be said in the right company), but unless they take the statement seriously, then they aren't necessarily racist. They're joking more about the stereotype itself, rather than about the people the stereotype is based on.
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