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Comment by growingkittens | Hacker News Reader

A white man and a black man walk into a fried chicken establishment. One of these men is here to get dinner for his family, and the other man is the butt end of this joke.

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Indeed! The white man tripped and fell, and everyone laughed at his misfortune, then the white man ordered dinner for his family. The end.

I see. "Look, a joke about racism! Let's ignore that and make it about the white man instead."

I see. "Look, I see racism. Everywhere! Reeeeeeeeee!"

You're the only person who has characterized your comment as racist. You've preemptively positioned yourself as a victim.

Yes, the one that's American is the butt end of this joke, because the whole setup is a distinctly US of A thing.

Yes. This example would be universal if there were some kind of logical reason behind "fried chicken plus black people equals funny." There isn't.

Stereotypes are cultural, not logical.

Yes. Point is, we shouldn't look at stereotypes in general through the lens of particular issue/cultural obsession that's very specific to the United States of America.

Interesting. Why is it invalid to discuss stereotypes that originated in the US?

It's valid to discuss stereotypes originating in the US, or (closer to what I meant) social issues present specifically in the US - but it's not valid to generalize from them to the entire world, or even just the entire English-speaking world (especially considering the on-line parts).

I think I am missing something.

Comment A (original): 'stereotypes have a reason.'

Comment B (me): example of a stereotype without reason, which happens to originate from the US

Comment C (you): 'You're generalizing the US to the entire world.'

Maybe I should have included a warning to ease the shock: 'You're about to read an example from the United States.'

Comment A shouldn't be taken as a statement of boolean logic that can be disproved with a single counterexample.

Why? It was set up that way. If they had said "many stereotypes have a reason," then I would ask which ones have a reason. But that isn't what they said.

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