Re:Suicide Linux (2009)
by skissane on Thursday October 01, 2020 @05:30PM
(#24656329)
I wonder about cultural differences here. Ethnic/national jokes used to be very common in the workplace, but in the last few decades have become increasingly taboo. However, I don't think that change has happened to the same extent in all countries. I think in English-speaking countries (and especially so in North America) it has happened to a much greater extent than in many non-English speaking countries. To assume that all workplaces globally adopt the standards of your workplace, or workplaces in your country, is itself a failure to be aware of cultural diversity.
One thing about these kind of jokes, is they vary a lot in how much prejudice they encode. For example, there is a stereotype in Australian culture of the "whingeing pom", the person from England who always complains, and there is a tradition of jokes based on that stereotype. Does that mean the English are oppressed in Australia, or that Australians hate English people? Or is it more like when you gently tease your friends and family? (To use an Americanism, "joshing"). It is not like the English recipients of this kind of teasing don't have plenty of comebacks – jokes about Australians being all descended from criminals, etc. (See also [1].) I think there is a big difference between those kinds of gentle jokes which don't really encode any significant degree of racial/ethnic prejudice, and other sorts of jokes that do – it depends a lot on who is making the joke, which group is the target, and the nature and history of the relationship between the joke-teller's group and the target group.
Regardless of all that, I wouldn't tell those kinds of jokes in a work environment – some people are likely to be offended, and causing offence isn't worth it. (Plus I rarely tell jokes of any sort, since telling jokes has never been my strong suit). But if other workplaces, in other countries, have different cultures in which those kinds of jokes are more acceptable, I'm not going to judge those cultures negatively because of it, and try to exhibit enough cultural sensitivity to realise that cultures like that exist, and I'm not going to say that my culture is superior to theirs.
(You also mentioned the gendered aspect of the jokes; I would expect that attitudes towards gendered jokes and how they are experienced also vary from culture to culture – and that women experience them differently in different cultures, and even individual women may experience them differently in the same culture – but I don't feel like I know enough about that whole issue to say more than that.)
One thing about these kind of jokes, is they vary a lot in how much prejudice they encode. For example, there is a stereotype in Australian culture of the "whingeing pom", the person from England who always complains, and there is a tradition of jokes based on that stereotype. Does that mean the English are oppressed in Australia, or that Australians hate English people? Or is it more like when you gently tease your friends and family? (To use an Americanism, "joshing"). It is not like the English recipients of this kind of teasing don't have plenty of comebacks – jokes about Australians being all descended from criminals, etc. (See also [1].) I think there is a big difference between those kinds of gentle jokes which don't really encode any significant degree of racial/ethnic prejudice, and other sorts of jokes that do – it depends a lot on who is making the joke, which group is the target, and the nature and history of the relationship between the joke-teller's group and the target group.
Regardless of all that, I wouldn't tell those kinds of jokes in a work environment – some people are likely to be offended, and causing offence isn't worth it. (Plus I rarely tell jokes of any sort, since telling jokes has never been my strong suit). But if other workplaces, in other countries, have different cultures in which those kinds of jokes are more acceptable, I'm not going to judge those cultures negatively because of it, and try to exhibit enough cultural sensitivity to realise that cultures like that exist, and I'm not going to say that my culture is superior to theirs.
(You also mentioned the gendered aspect of the jokes; I would expect that attitudes towards gendered jokes and how they are experienced also vary from culture to culture – and that women experience them differently in different cultures, and even individual women may experience them differently in the same culture – but I don't feel like I know enough about that whole issue to say more than that.)
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/08/what-b...