censorship and political correctness
Re: Hibernaphobia -- ajw Top of thread Post Reply Forum
Posted by:
roark ®

11/11/2017, 12:36:13
Author Profile

Edit
Alert Forum Admin




Post Reply

Hi Anth,

I think context and intent play heavily into communication, both for the writer and reader.

I find the postures in the irish Yoga image below to be funny, and I may or may not have even resembled them a time or two.  I think my original post (in addition to being a mildly sarcastic reply to another post regarding a conversation Tarvu, others and I were having), poked fun at not only a particular caricature of Irishness, but also at Yoga and drunkenness itself.

Can Roark (an actual Irishman) be considered racist for poking fun at an Irish stereotype?   Why does it not occur to me that an entire race would find this T-shirt graphic demeaning?  Why am I so unconcerned that some idiot Englishman might not rent to me?

For me, this and your response call into question what qualifies as humorous, the bounds of humor.  I mean, look at the dude on the right below.  I guess there could be reflexive horror at the pathetic state he is in, but I find it very funny at first glance.  If I really analyzed what might have led this person to that state and the attendant ramifications in his personal life (that is, if the photo was not obviously staged), I could be suitably horrified.  BUT, the photo is obviously staged, and thus unplugs the back story (at least for me).  I suppose the image could trigger troubling emotions if one had a drunken father, problems with alcoholism (neither of which I have any experience with) or the like.  But the photo is of some young passed-out bucks, not mangled corpses leftover from a drunk driver.

Why can't Steve and I just be left alone to innocently practice Irish Yoga?

To me, you are requesting censorship for something I consider to be innocuous, referring to me in your above posts as 'glib', 'shallow', offensive', 'racist' and 'unwitting'.

I do think there is a place for censorship with information conveyed to children, but I'll wager all of here are fairly well-hardened adults, able to sort out the content, intent of the poster, and express their opinions as a Forum.

Now I'm just waiting for a hatha yoga practitioner to ream me out for denigrating their practice, or a whisky-maker coming down on me for downgrading their craft, whatever.

I did apologize to you for any personal offense you may have taken, but com'on man, where does political correctness end, in 'censorship' for something like this?

Mike, the shallow, glib, offensive, unwitting racist.

(no apology necessary BTW)


Uploaded file
2_Irish_Yoga.jpg (80.4 KB)  





Modified by roark at Sat, Nov 11, 2017, 12:40:24

Previous Current page Next

Replies to this message