look who's back
back again
pash is back
tell a friend
so SOME people (not mentioning any names) in the Colin Moriarty thread over on gaming side (go check it out if you want entertainment (nb: pashmilla is not responsible for any aneurysms or bleeding eyeballs that may occur as a result of viewing this thread)) have insisted that sexist/racist/transphobic/homophobic/ableist/etc jokes are "not a big deal" because they're not "real bigotry", they're just JOKES, man, JOKES. Who would get offended over a joke when REAL prejudice and discrimination is happening all the time? Well guess what, geniuses, bigoted humour DOES normalise bigoted attitudes. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT??? Oh and so y'all can't bitch at me for my sources, have ACADEMIC STUDIES. I went through Google Scholar for this shit, y'all had better appreciate it.
We propose that humor and ridicule play a critical part of the delegitimization process, operating in tandem with processes such as dehumanization (representing others as animal-like and/or machine-like) and system justification (i.e., maintaining the status quo in terms of intergroup hierarchies). As such, humor plays a key role in the delegitimization of others that occurs in much of everyday life, such as in the workplace or schoolyard setting.
From:
Derogating humor as a delegitimization strategy in intergroup contexts.
Hodson, Gordon; MacInnis, Cara C.
Translational Issues in Psychological Science, Vol 2(1), Mar 2016, 63-74.
The first section traces historic connections of ways dominant culture in the United States portrays targeted groups as both full of irrational anger and lacking a sense of humor or the ability to “get” or “take” jokes. In the perpetuation of dehumanizing stereotypes, this discourse of negation undermines core aspects of being seen as fully human, as humor is a fundamental communication realm of bonding and generating shared symbolic and social meaning within different cultural contexts. Against this backdrop, the more specific level of denial of humor functions to dismiss socio-political causes for anger at injustice, discrimination and violence, pathologizing the targeted group for not being able to share laughter at jokes that normalize their oppression. This power dynamic serves to invisibilize context, psychologize structural issues, and delegitimize resistance.
From:
Zara Zimbardo
California Institute of Integral Studies
ISLAMOPHOBIA STUDIES JOURNAL
VOLUME 2, NO. 1, SPRING 2014, PP. 59-81.
Ford and his master's student Shane Triplett conducted a series of experiments. They wanted to see if people exposed to various forms of disparaging humor would be influenced by it and discriminate against these groups. Specifically, they looked at homosexuals and racists as two representative groups. People justify prejudiced views against racists, but there is more ambiguity in regard to homosexuals....The results were very clear. Subjects that held anti homosexual views supported significantly higher cuts for the gay and lesbian organization after they were exposed to anti gay humor, compared to subjects who were not prejudiced against gays and lesbians who were exposed to the same jokes.
From
Psychology Today
"But why is it okay to make jokes about white men and not anyone else???"
Punching up (i.e. minorities and women making jokes about those who hold institutional privilege over them) = resistance.
Punching down (cishet white men making jokes about minorities and women over whom they have privilege) = douchebaggery. Any questions?
