Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 July 2006 08:36:33
Situation is as follows: Tractor girl (me) was sitting in a general gathering last night in a place of worship when the subject of Tractorland was mentioned in passing and immeadiately gave rise to a couple of off the cuff jokes about the generally backward nature of tractorfolk.
The "jokes" came from one of the few people in the room who did not realise that there was somebody present in the room who was indeed from Tractorland. Whilst I am officially of the same ethnicity as person making joke my regional identity is very important to me, infact far more so than my national identity. So was this acceptable humour or a form of racial discrimination? Also was it less acceptable because there was somebody from Tractorland in the room or not? Was the part of me that was genuinely offended right in my reaction or was I being over sensitive?
They're difficult questions and ones that I think depends upon a couple of factors (i) the social characteristics of the person who the humour was coming from & (ii) the context in which the humour was given.
Humour is based upon stereotyping and we should all be able to laugh at ourselves, (and as those who know me in real life know I am quite happy to make fun of myself and my regional identity), but do others have the right to give and reinforce that inaccurate and often derogatory image based upon certain social characteristics? If they do when does that stereotyping stop being humour and lead to negative interactions with those of the group being stereotyped because of the underlying view there is of that group? Also how do these types of comment relate to the way in which these people see themselves and understand that they are percieved by those around them?
One may think that the questions, these days, are less relevant when it comes to people clearly of different ethnicities after all blatant racism is socially unacceptable isn't it? However, as Kate Coleman points out in this Baptist Times article for some groups the stereotyping is getting worse not better and doesn't relate merely to jokes but to racist attacks and the institutionally racist practices of our legal system.
Ah, but I hear you cry churches aren't like that, there may be the odd joke relating to different regional groups but we aren't racist. Well it can come down to understanding as Kate Coleman again points out, but this time in her sort of blog on the BUGB website. She makes the following observation :
"I have been very warmly received on my travels so far. However, it has been a long time since I heard black people referred to as ‘coloured'. I fear that this may well be an indication of how far some of our churches still need to journey, away from paradigms and concepts (not just racial) that are outdated, outmoded and potentially offensive."
So as for last nights little incident, the comment was reasonably funny but very inappropriate & very definately potentially offensive because as Morrisey once said "that joke isn't funny anymore, it's too close to home and it's too near the bone."