Upvote because I watched the whole thing... but... well he insulted my favourite cuisine... Indian is a wondrous food, wondrous indeed. I'm not super fond of really hot food either, just choose correct and you'll be a ok.

Moving this video to Shepppard's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 3 days.

*beg

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter Shepppard.

you go now! you heah foah howah!

Thought he was funny enough. We should be allowed to downvote subversive racsim twice.

...$9.95 all you can eat we'll see who wins this friggin hand won't we... bwahahahaha

Must ... breath.

No but really, making fun of cultural or ethnicity specific idiosyncrasies isn't racist, unless you let it get to you.

And this is coming from someone's who repeatedly gets labelled as a vodka drinking, fur hat wearing communist

>> ^RedSky:
No but really, making fun of cultural or ethnicity specific idiosyncrasies isn't racist unless you let it get to you


So people who play on unconscious stereotypes for there own gain are ok? If there's a line that this fatass didn't cross, where is it? Who defines it? Are your line and my line in the same place? Who's the "you" in your statement? The listener? The performer? A person who identifies him/herself as a person being made fun of? If someone WERE to be offended by this, would you accept that offense as valid?

edit: wow. Umm, this kind of seems like a silly place to have tried to pick a fight. I guess my point was just that this kind of comedy is a slippery slope; sorry for going over the top.

I don't see illuminating unconscious stereotypes as a bad thing. It confronts people with their own ignorance, hell I'm sure part of the reason people were laughing in the audience was that they simply didn't realise they held these deep seeded generalisations and laughed because they were made uncomfortable to be forced to confront them.

No doubt stereotypes in general don't exactly help bridge racial or cultural barriers, and sure some people would tend to gravitate from a harmless confrontation of a relatively amusing mannerism from one's culture's point of view to another, to extrapolated generalisations, oversimplification and eventual detachment and disassociation from groups of people they perceive as 'different'. If that's the case though, the problem isn't the contrasting of cultures, it's the cognitive chain of processes that leads you to that eventual conclusion. So, it may be a slippery slope, but only if your slope is slippery Of course, some stereotypes are hardly harmless and are a tailor made to have this effect. Labelling illegal immigrants in the US as 'aliens' for example is blatant and shameless dehumanisation, most likely for political purposes.

In this case, in my opinion, I don't believe he went over the line. Making fun of Asian dialects/accents and Indian cuisine? I would see no reason to be genuinely offended if someone made fun of my accent or choice of food. You or anyone else is free to have a differing opinion though, as that's certainly a normative statement.

I admit though that I'm white and have never really been culturally or ethnically discriminated against so I don't pretend to genuinely understand the issue from a first person point of view, perhaps I am wrong.

>> ^RedSky:
hell I'm sure part of the reason people were laughing in the audience was that they simply didn't realise they held these deep seeded generalisations and laughed because they were made uncomfortable to be forced to confront them. (I switched "I'm" and "sure," but only cuz I'm sure it was a typo)

100% agreed.

>> ^RedSky:
some people would tend to gravitate from a harmless confrontation of a relatively amusing mannerism from one's culture's point of view to another, to extrapolated generalisations, oversimplification and eventual detachment and disassociation from groups of people they perceive as 'different'. If that's the case though, the problem isn't the contrasting of cultures, it's the cognitive chain of processes that leads you to that eventual conclusion. So, it may be a slippery slope, but only if your slope is slippery


I think we can agree that the only thing that increases the viscosity of such cognitive slopes is education (whether in school, at home, or whatever the context) and exposure to what anthropologists (like myself) call "the strange"--meaning any culture or set of behavioral characters one did not experience until one's identity was at least partially defined. From what I've seen since I started lurking here a year ago, I trust that the people in this audience (the Sift) have had that education and/or exposure (whether socialized into us or developed by automath)--hence my realization that this was a silly place to pick a fight. But I DO NOT trust the at-large public with the same sense of responsibility. And I suppose I've projected that categorization onto the audience present at Pinette's show and onto the casual viewer of this vid, albeit irrationally.

>> ^RedSky:
I don't believe he went over the line. Making fun of Asian dialects/accents and Indian cuisine? I would see no reason to be genuinely offended if someone made fun of my accent or choice of food. You or anyone else is free to have a differing opinion though, as that's certainly a normative statement.
I admit though that I'm white and have never really been culturally or ethnically discriminated against so I don't pretend to genuinely understand the issue from a first person point of view


I am also white, but my travels have brought me face to face with the true ugliness of racism one can only know when it rears itself against oneself (I expect anecdotes are not necessary, but they can be provided). As a lucky member of the underrated club of we who have come to know the world in the singular locale New York City, and perhaps because I was encouraged to love "the strange" very, very early in my development, I found myself able to mitigate the truly visceral hatred I felt in those moments. Racism elicits an immediate emotional--and sometimes psychosomatically physiological--response. It is not only unwise, but inequitable and irresponsible to require or expect the human animal to overcome that response.

Yeah, that's fair enough I can agree with that. I don't mind getting into arguments at all so that's fine

I would suspect that racism or at least discrimination comes from two facets of human instinct. The need to find a scapegoat, or a way to offload any emotional baggage or problems onto others, failing to resolve them rationally; distrust of the uncertain as you pointed out; and the unwillingness to empathise or relate to someone who exists outside the immediate community or abides to different cultural norms and values.

The first one is certain to be reduced as developed and developing countries experience increasing living standards, economic prosperity and stability and the intra-dependence of global trade networks virtually eliminates the likelihood of a multilateral conflict. You're certainly still going to see scenarios like Rwanda in lesser developed countries, and you're still going to see governments categorically shift blame to minorities but on the whole I don't think you'll ever see it on the scale it has been prior in history.

In regards to the second and third, whereas intra-national sourcing of resources by corporations has created financial and economic interdependence, it is cheaper transportation and telecommunication developments that will help achieve a bridge of culture in the future. I doubt it has really dawned on the average consumer, just how global the production cycles of your typical set of groceries are. Actually on that note:

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5594/1195961793594xp0.jpg

Particularly as communication continues to improve and the ubiquity of it through the world expands, we'll see individual cultures more or less merge into one, to the point where any stark differences will become relatively narrow and any animosity or ethnocentricity will be greatly diminished. Or at least in theory That's why I'm quite sad to see, China the seemingly likely next superpower of the world, continuing to clutch to restriction freedom, access to information and communication, as well as propagandising a policy of 'us against them' nationalism.

Accents and food choices are fair game in my opinion. But then I'm a Canadian who likes his beer and bacon, eh?