General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What jokes and forms of humor would you want banned from DU? [View all]Shandris
(3,447 posts)To help clarify, there are all manner of things that are beyond a person's control. Age, education level, race, sex, cisnormativity, and to a large degree weight are among those things. None of these should be things that are 'jokes' in a site like DU. These are fundamental things that are part of a person's experience and life that are by and large simply things that exist. We don't 'joke' about cancer victims, epilepsy sufferers, gay or trans* people, the elderly, the homeless, the infirm, and so on. Things that are beyond, or largely beyond, a person's control simply aren't 'funny'. To laugh at an overweight person is to laugh at a crippled person, or a person with Gilles de la Tourette's Syndrome, or anything else of that nature. It's low-brow, it's cheap, it's cruel, and it's exploitative. IOW...it's -beneath- us as liberals who -claim- to be in favor of equity in society. How can we say we are for equity, and then laugh at a person who is already treated -without- equity in the first place? That just makes us bullies, hypocrites, and liars imo.
I hope that clarifies what I meant, and I'll be happy to answer more if it's still not clear.
Edit history
![](du4img/smicon-reply-new.gif)