Ableist humor?
May 20, 2014 at 8:05 pm
(This post was last modified: May 20, 2014 at 8:13 pm by Tea Earl Grey Hot.)
Ableism if you don't know is basically akin to racism. It's discrimination against people with impairments. I learned about it because of this thread where they're upset about a Hellen Keller joke:
http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic....19&p=97104
Supposedly the joke is an example of ableism. I'm not sure it is. I think for the people like me who find some humor in this, we're not thinking "blind people, they're so stupid!" I have no ill will to blind people at all yet I find this joke funny. Why? It's hard to exactly to articulate into words how I find it funny but I think it has something to do with the awkward feeling that is some cases aroused with being in possession of knowledge that another person is completely but helplessly wrong about something inconsequential. Do you pretend for Keller's sake that the dog is really a cat or do you tell the truth and inevitably bring up a short coming of being blind? That's an awkward situation to be in.
http://atheismplus.com/forums/viewtopic....19&p=97104
Supposedly the joke is an example of ableism. I'm not sure it is. I think for the people like me who find some humor in this, we're not thinking "blind people, they're so stupid!" I have no ill will to blind people at all yet I find this joke funny. Why? It's hard to exactly to articulate into words how I find it funny but I think it has something to do with the awkward feeling that is some cases aroused with being in possession of knowledge that another person is completely but helplessly wrong about something inconsequential. Do you pretend for Keller's sake that the dog is really a cat or do you tell the truth and inevitably bring up a short coming of being blind? That's an awkward situation to be in.
My ignore list
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
