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Comment by bilbo0s | Hacker News Reader

>Seems in some places, it's perfectly (socially) acceptable to pick on others, as long as you're picking on the 'right' group of folks...

This is the US. Here, it's perfectly acceptable to pick on everyone. From blacks, and handicapped people, to bankers, and frat boys. You can discriminate against whoever you like here. At least in the jokes and social situations.

You should hear what they say about blacks, or greedy bankers, or frat boys, or women they call "gold diggers", or jews, or hispanics, or white people, or cops, or etc etc etc.

That's the great thing about America, you can say whatever you like.

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>From blacks (big no), and handicapped people (big no), to bankers (yes w/ no racial connotations), and frat boys (yes)

BS.

I'm in middle of nowhere Wisconsin, and I hear jokes about blacks and handicapped people all the time. When I lived in Houston, it was the same. (Well, mostly about blacks. But still.)

If you're telling me you don't, I'm telling you that you're talking out of your posterior orifice.

It is not perfectly acceptable to pick on blacks and handicapped people in the Midwest. Not in 2019.

What part of the Midwest are you in that people don't joke and talk bad about blacks and handicapped people? (Or, indeed, don't joke and talk bad about anyone else.)

Serious question.

to bankers (yes w/ no racial connotations), and frat boys (yes)

Bankers can get racial connotations. It just depends on if it's the correct race to bash on in the current crowd. Same goes for frat boys.

That said, all of that is horrible and wrong. (But I will fight for your right to say it all the same.)

Unless you care about your job, your career, your reputation, your personal safety and that of your loved ones. In that case you should make sure you only target approved groups.

There are no "approved grouups". What are you talking about?

Are you saying you never hear people talk bad about bankers, or frat boys, or jews, or cops, or blacks, or hispanics, etc etc etc?

Because if so, I call BS.

I also call BS if you try to tell me that everyone you've heard talk bad about, say, bankers or jews, has been fired from their job. Sure, you go up to your boss and tell your jokes about money grubbing jews, or joke about killing cops, and you're likely to not have a job.

But who does that? We all tell jokes in private social situations.

This is America, where everyone is discriminated against. That's reality. Mainly because as "whalesalad" said, "we're tribal people."

This entire idea that there are "approved groups" is nonsense made up by a bunch of people trying to make us think we can't tell jokes about anybody. When it's plainly obvious that we can, we should, and we do.

I envy your perspective. What I see in the news, in academia, in the movie industry, in hiring, basically in the public culture, is very different. This has changed dramatically in the last say 5 years, and I am having trouble understanding how you can argue that in 2019 we can still all make fun of each other freely.

I am having trouble understanding how you can argue that in 2019 we can still all make fun of each other freely.

This is evidence that you are in a bubble. The world is a big, diverse, complex place.

Indeed, we probably all live in some sort of bubble, but as far as bubbles go it is a fairly large one, it includes academia, the corporate world, old media, news media, social media, entertainment, education, to name just a few domains. I can still joke around with my high school buddies though, most of them anyway, not Chad, the self righteous prick, so there is that.

as far as bubbles go it is a fairly large one, it includes academia, the corporate world, old media, news media, social media, entertainment,

Actually, you pretty much hit it on the nose! That's the particular extended bubble which effectively controls much of 2019's media and has the economic and political clout to make their (often misguided) will stick. That's a particular bubble which has unusually thick walls, while there's a particularly pressing societal need for its members to see from beyond its own boundaries.

What you see in public and what people do in private are very different and always have been. I think the best public equivalent to private behavior is anonymous online behavior, as this lets people use their private persona in public with minimal consequences.

OK man, I see the issue here.

You're talking about, "in the news, in academia, in the movie industry, in hiring, basically in the public culture". Whereas I'm talking about how people talk in private social situations. The professional world should be professional, and separate from your private life. (You don't talk to your spouse and kids the way you talk to your coworkers unless something is very, very wrong in one place or the other.)

As I've already said, no, you can't go up to your boss and start joking about killing cops, or about "gold digging women like his daughter". But again, who does that? That's just dumb.

Yes, in the professional world, guess what? They only want professionals. That's not some off the wall notion that has only arisen "...in the last say 5 years..." It's been that way since forever.

So I'm sorry man, I'm just not gonna feel bad for you because you can't denigrate handicapped people, or hispanics, or whatever at work. But I will call you a dummy for doing so, and I'll add that it's unprofessional.

But as I said before, at parties or whatever, there is no way you can tell me that people don't joke about those same handicapped people and hispanics. It happens all the time.

If you truly believe you are safe joking at parties, you must be going to some very exclusive parties. More power to you. I wish you continued luck.

I've heard the advice "always punch up, never punch down", at least when you tell these jokes in public.

Indeed, up are approved targets. The trouble is the definition of up changes all the time.

R u living in Liberal's Media?

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