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Originally Posted by mixedmedia
Because I don't think a "colorblind" society is possible or perhaps even preferable.
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Certainly not while we still encourage people to run around worrying about what color you are.
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And because, at the same time, my mind is malleable enough to understand why, when a white person makes a joke about black people, especially of a derogatory nature, they are risking the very real knee-jerk response from most people in America that is rooted our relationship to a very real and very recent era in American history. And I don't have to cover my ears and scream "yah, yah, yah" whenever any mentions it in order to make my feelings known about racism...and comedy. You have yet to address the reality of that gut response even once.
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Of course i understand it. But I think it doesn't go far enough. We should have that knee jerk reaction to racism. You are being too specific about the evil that we had in the past. It's not enough to say that white on black racism is evil. We must say that racism is evil, no matter which color is the underdog. It just happened to work out that the whites were the perpetrators - but if, as you suggest, the situation were reversed, it would be no less evil. We're learning the wrong lesson from history - - we're learning that only racism in which a white person is picking on a person of another color is bad. This is somewhat like looking at Nazi Germany and determining that it's only wrong to kill if the victim is a jew. Racism is wrong. Period. We should be fighting against it, no matter what form it takes.
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And one more thing, if a white person is going to make a derogatory joke about black people...it best be funny. Perhaps that was Imus' biggest mistake. His joke didn't fly because it had no context nor any basis in common perceptions. He was just being mean. And mean is not funny.
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What's funny to you may not be funny to someone else. I'm sure some KKK member listened to that comment and found it hilarious.
No one's arguing that Imus' sense of humor is on an extended vacation. But what if what he said WAS funny? Would that make it OK? I think not.