Why offensive jokes are stupid, and you’re stupid for making them

Aug 5, 2013 //
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One thing I’ve noticed, being a straight, white, cisgendered, heteronormative, able-bodied male, is that people feel comfortable enough around me to crack jokes at the expense of entire groups of individuals. Gays, Jews, people of colour, women, etc. all typically suffer through sometimes awful, and even sometimes clever jokes at their expense, usually behind the safety of closed doors.

For the most part, these are, in fact, jokes. *Usually* these people are in favour of equal rights, equal opportunity, anti-bullying, etc. and don’t intend to cause harm with their words, and are often in full belief that no damage is done in telling them.

So if you’re one of these people, I am here to tell you that you’re wrong, and you’re stupid. 

What you might have failed to notice is that we live in a culture where homophobia, sexism, racism, and other bad things are still kind of rampant. We live in a shit culture. Bullying continues to exist; people are continually being denied rights; there is an abundance of prejudice, bigotry, and all those things that you claim not to participate in. And maybe you don’t.

But when you make an offensive joke, it perpetuates that culture. It desensitizes the listener, and the teller as well, to the plight that is suffered by those who are affected by those lists of words I keep using but really don’t feel like typing out again.

Offensive jokes normalize oppression. What you may not realize is that when you’re telling that joke, whether you intend it or not, it makes the assumption that that kind of behaviour is the norm. People will hear that joke, and then when they witness or even commit negative actions like harassment or intolerance, they may not even recognize it as such but just think that it’s “funny”, and that anyone that disagrees is just simply suffering from “butt hurt-ism”. Meanwhile the person who actually feels the full force of the brutality is left with the shit end of the stick while you’re trying to justify why what you do is actually okay.

The other thing is the listener. While you might be a hell of a nice person, those laughing may be laughing for the “it’s funny cuz it’s true!” reasons, and you’re making this person feel as though their intolerant thoughts are acceptable.

An easy way to tell: ask what the person at the brunt of the joke would think, and then ask what the person committing an atrocity against that person would think. For example, how would a rape victim feel about your rape joke? How would a rapist? If you feel as though a rapist might relate to you, then maybe you’ve got a problem with your sense of humour.

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Categories Politics

We’re all boned either way

Aug 2, 2013 //
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One problem people seem to have with the lack of belief in God is that it renders what we do meaningless. What purpose can our actions possibly have if they’re not part of something bigger than us? Bigger than reality? Part of a cosmic plan?

Sure there’s the whole idea that, “oooh, well it just means that what we have *now* is more important…” hedonistic approach that claims that only the present has value, (which, however valid, I will be ignoring for the purpose of this post), but I’m talking grand scheme of things, millions of years from now grand, when all traces of our actions are gone. The sun has burnt out.  Eternity.

Just work with me here, and let’s think under the concept that if there is no God, what we do is null.

Let’s give our actions some weight, then. Add God. Now we’ve got an omnipotent Judge that gets to decide what our actions are worth. Unfortunately for us, God likes to send those of us He doesn’t like down into the fiery depths of hell. It’s kind of a bummer. For those claiming that an empty universe is unjust, I’d argue that being infinitely punished for sins committed in a finite world far more unjust. Who is to say that if some horse thief from the Wild West lived a thousand more years, he might have cured all the STDs, finally allowing the world as much unprotected sex as it desired. A virtue well worth entry into heaven. But unfortunately our horse thief is mortal, and he died terribly of syphilis well before they started inventing cures for things that didn’t involve leeches. Given an eternity, who is to say what kind of people we would be? But we only have a short time, and punishing us over the course of eternity for *any*thing committed in that short amount of time is unbelievably cruel.

The other option is that everyone gets the happy ending. Everyone gets into heaven, everyone achieves nirvana, everyone gets that sweet slice of eternal bliss, no matter what. That final phrase there is what I’m driving at. The “no matter what” stipulation of a heaven entry suggests that again, what we do is meaningless. If we accept that inevitable oblivion makes what we do invalid, then we have to accept that inevitable salvation leads to the same conclusion. If the ending is always the same, no matter the path chosen, then it doesn’t matter which path we choose.

The only option I can think of where our choices have eternal weight is the concept of reincarnation without the option of nirvana. We would just be stuck in samsara (the life cycle) forever, with no hope of escape. Our actions would dictate our upcoming lives, forever and ever.  No end.

So everyone is either going to have to find some way to accept that our actions are inherently meaningless, or convert to a confused version of Buddhism.

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Categories Religion

Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman

Jul 20, 2013 //
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Ladies and germs, I love good, righteous indignation as much as the next fella. Hell, probably more-so. I love getting riled up at the injustices in the world, and yammering on about them without actually doing anything to change them. Being an armchair ethicist is what I do.

When I first heard about the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case, boy howdy I was furious. Hemming and hawing, all that good stuff to get the blood flowing. Then Zimmerman was found innocent and I just rolled my eyes and thought, “good going, AMERICA!” Smug in my righteous zeal, I sat quietly waiting for the next tragedy to unfold so I could bring down the flames once again.

Then I read a news article that mentioned that Trayvon Martin was black, and George Zimmerman identified as being Hispanic. Exact words. And I thought, how come Zimmerman doesn’t get to have a race in this? For a case that seemed to rely so heavily on racial overtones, why does one person get to have a race, and the other only gets to identify as having one? If you think that maybe since Zimmerman is half-white he doesn’t get to have a race (also keep in mind that white counts as a race too, but we don’t need to get into that), well then remember that America didn’t elect a president that identifies as being black. My point is that from this simple phrasing, we can assume the media is trying to frame George Zimmerman as not being ethnic, so as to fuel the flames of this already huge media firestorm.

So let me play devil’s advocate on what we actually know that went down:

Zimmerman sees a youth wandering the streets at night. He chooses to follow him. Does he follow him because the youth is black, or does he follow him because he is the captain of the neighbourhood watch of a gated community, and more than likely knows everyone and their dog in that area, and can tell that this youth had never been around there before?

Zimmerman calls the police, who tell him to desist following the youth. Zimmerman ignores the advice. Does he ignore it because he thinks he has a shot at taking on this black kid, or does he ignore it because he thinks he can probably handle a teenager on his own and feels he doesn’t need to wait for the police who might needlessly complicate things?

There is a confrontation. Zimmerman gets beaten the hell up. Trayvon Martin gets shot. I can’t find anything that says that Trayvon Martin had damage done to him other than the bullet wound, so it’s quite possible that he was the one who threw the first punch. He may have felt threatened after having been followed, but does that excuse instigating violence? Zimmerman had two black eyes, a broken nose, and a wound on the back of his head that suggests he probably fell backwards and hit his head on something. George Zimmerman had a gun. He used it.

Self-defense is a tricky thing. If you’re getting badly beaten up in a bar, and the only thing you can do is grab a beer bottle and break it over your attacker’s head, you’d probably do it. It may not be as likely to kill him as shooting him, but your attacker may still die if you hit him in the right spot. Zimmerman fired once, after having been beaten in the face repeatedly, so it was unlikely he was aiming for a killing shot.

Concealed weapon laws are the reason that option was on the table for Zimmerman. Had Zimmerman not used his gun, and the beating continued, worst case scenario is that Zimmerman would have been beaten into a coma. Do I think that a comatose 35 year old is better than a dead 16 year old? Of course. Gun reform in the US is a huge issue, and I would love to see that option for people off the table. But I sincerely doubt that George Zimmerman would agree with me on that, considering he would be the one in the coma, and I’m just in the armchair.

Lastly, there is the talk that Zimmerman was getting off lightly because Trayvon Martin is black and Zimmerman is not. But last I checked, Hispanics in the States don’t really get preferential treatment either, so that accusation doesn’t really fly with me.

It is incredibly unfortunate what happened to Trayvon Martin. Whenever someone dies for no reason, and a youth especially, everyone should mourn. But was it a hate crime? I don’t know. Everyone seems to be clammering about how it is, so I guess it must be. But I think there’s just as much evidence to suggest that Zimmerman was being ageist as much as there is that he was being racist.

Based on the evidence that we have, and the laws of Florida, it is easy to see how Zimmerman was found innocent in a court of law. Does that make it right? Like I said, self-defense is a tricky thing. I want you to put yourself in that position, in the heat of the moment, in fear and pain, and with that one option standing between you and a possible coma. Is it horribly racist? I don’t know. It certainly opened up the race debate in the States again, which is always a good thing, but do we scapegoat Zimmerman if it wasn’t in fact racially motivated? Is *that* right?

Did this greatly offend you? Do you feel as though I’m a terrible person for having thought these terrible thoughts? Good. Convince me I’m wrong. I miss having the fury coursing through my veins. But you have to do better than, “Racism against blacks exists in the States. Trayvon Martin was black. Therefore, his death must have been racially motivated.” Find me legit news articles that have Zimmerman wearing a white hood. For the Canada Day bombing threat, I saw article upon article about how one of the alleged bombers was once seen wearing a burkha, and how another neighbour thought they overheard the term “jihad” used in a phone conversation. That kind of shit makes the news all the time because it sells papers. Where is it with George Zimmerman? Convince me this is more than just a tragic happenstance that would have occurred regardless of Trayvon Martin’s race.

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Categories Politics
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