Your poking the stick into the hornets nest.

Sometimes it needs poked.

Next time they should use long tongs instead of the flipper. Whatever they do don't put potatoes on that... even if they are poked... boom... hot potato salad.

There's a saying in my house. Usually it's applied when talking about my little boy, but I believe it's equally applicable here. "Don't poke the beast!" Nothing good ever comes from it

I'm not thinking in binary. There's gray area.

There's no debate about the fact that virtually everyone is somewhat racist. This isn't a debate about that.

I'm saying making any joke that is related to race isn't racist every single time, just as avoiding saying anything that could be construed as racist doesn't mean you're absolved of being a racist.

A joke that is actually racist is expressing an idea or feeling of one race's superiority over another directly or indirectly through humor.

Ironically making racial statements that I absolutely don't believe is NOT racist because I'm not expressing racial superiority. I'm pointing out the idiocy of racism and poking fun at racists.

About the random black person overhearing my joking, yeah, they'd be offended. Thank you for making my point. They'd be offended precisely because they heard those words out of context.

If you saw a grown man say this to a little girl sternly:

"...go cry me a river..."

You might be inclined to think he was acting like a jerk to her. But what if you had heard....

"It's a figure of speech. If you ever for example hear someone say 'go cry me a river', they don't actually mean one person's tears can be that much water."

It's the SAME THING. That man did nothing wrong, but you heard him say 'go cry me a river' to a little girl without context, it may look bad, when it's not.

Just because someone may get offended by hearing something out of context, it is not automatically something wrong with what that person said.

Even the dreaded N-word... Are you telling me that it was wrong and racist for Mark Twain to use it in The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin?

The one thing I would agree with you is that you also have to be mindful of context before saying the joke. Those racial jokes I make? I'm not going to say those in situations where there's a high likelihood that those statements could be overheard and misinterpreted. If I wanted to tell those to a black person, I'd make REALLY sure they knew I didn't actually believe the racial statement.

And you know what? Usually, it turns out fine. I've played that Louis CK thing for a black friend of mine, but I laid down the context first that it's Patrice O'Neal, etc. And they laughed hysterically at it.

Richard Pryor is considered by most comics as being a pioneer in using comedy to shed light and provide insights into racial tensions, etc., and actually is credited by many people far beyond just comedians to have helped further the cause of fighting against racism.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5048430

His use of the N-word wasn't racist. The use of the word was communicating that he was not Bill Cosby, not that there was anything wrong with Cosby's comedy, but it was to signal that he was talking more about reality, including the rough edges especially about racial topics, and there wasn't anything wrong with that either.

The kill somebody thing. You ever seen someone say something like, "My roommate AGAIN left all the lights on! I'm gonna kill him!"? My point there is you shouldn't call the cops because you think he's homicidal.

You tell me how this is racist...

Actual racist: "Black people can't be leaders."
Obama overhears it and responds: "Yeah, f'ing Obama!"

I'm pretty sure that despite Obama "playing around with" language that could be construed as racist, what he said would not be considered racist by pretty much anyone. It would be pretty damn funny actually because clearly Obama wouldn't sincerely say that about himself, nor black people, and it also pokes fun at that racist statement by pointing out there's a black person who is President of the United States, so clearly black people can be leaders.

Change Obama to David Duke, and yeah, it's now probably racist, and it's not funny at all.

Or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gHz-l40FNQ

Louis CK is saying that in response to Patrice O'Neal's factual account for the origin of a racial slur against Jewish people. Louis CK was very good friends with the late O'Neal, and he's not racist. O'Neal knew that. If you listen to the video, as soon as Louis CK starts his bit before anything that's faux-racist comes out, everyone is immediately laughing, including O'Neal, because they know he's about to insincerely say something horrifically racist to the face of a black person that had he been sincere, it would have been absolutely horrifying, but that's the point - he's absolutely not sincere. That's why it's absolutely hilarious and not racist because everybody knows Louis CK doesn't actually mean that at all.

Intent and context means a lot. When you take that context away, (other things said in that conversation, who is saying it, your knowledge about what they believe, previous conversations that might be references, etc.), the words can appear to be extremely racist, even when they're not.

How do I react when someone jokes about something that involves race? It completely depends on the context, and what I interpret the intent of it is. If I'm joking around generally with my friends like the above, and they say something like, "You know why black people smell? So blind people can hate them, too." We're in a situation we're joking, we already have had actual sincere conversations about race, I know he isn't racist, I know he actually believes that's 100% not true. How do I react? If I found the joke funny, I'd laugh because I'm taking it to mean he's making fun of what some racists believe because I know for a fact he doesn't believe that.

My father-in-law is a different story, because I know the guy, I know he's like a 5-6 on the racist scale, so I don't know if he actually believes black people generally stink or not, and generally inclined to believe he actually believes most or all black people smell. At the very least, I'm uneasy. I'm certainly not going to laugh at it. I'd probably show some kind of disapproval at the least. Completely different context because now, and here's the key, that may have been intended as an actual racist statement about black people. Once you go there, that's not funny.

So, if you consider me slightly racist because I make ironic racist statements as jokes, which I mean as mocking towards racists themselves, rock on. But you better be consistent in your outrage when someone exaggerates they're gonna kill someone when they get frustrated over something insignificant as an example. After all, that's playing around with words that are murderous and violent, so they must be a psychopath or homicidal!

Please note, that was sarcasm.

Sorry for that, I wanted to include all options I could think of, in case some were impossible or too difficult. Maybe "yes/no" would have been a better start, but too late for that now.
...and yes, I'm aware this is a personal failing, the inability to ignore 'pokes', but I don't know if it's one I'm alone in, or a normal failing for many with a simple solution. If it's just me, it's just me and I should deal with it myself, agreed.

I've seen a variation on that trick before. The blue sheet is "dental dam" or something similar, a very stretchy rubber that goes transparent when it's pulled really tight.

Poke a coin into the bottom of the dental dam, stretch the dam so the coin pushes through, sort of like a mushroom. It appears to be on top, but in reality there's a very thin layer of transparent rubber on top of the coin. The right kind of pressure and the bottom coin just pops out the bottom of the sheet.

Voila. Magic!

(search "dental dam coin trick" for lots of examples, the usual one is to pop the coin into a glass)

Who's not calm? It seems to me we're all calm.

It's just tough trying to have a simple civil conversation with someone while they just stand there poking you in the eye.

How so? If anything, it means gay people can normalize into family units, rather than choosing paths of rebellion against their families.

I've never understood your path of logic. The only thing I can imagine you mean is... well, sort of what this video is poking fun at. Gay marriage does not convince heterosexual people to be gay, nor does it convince them to somehow give up on the concept of the family unit.

Have you even really thought this out beyond some abstract belief that somehow *gasp* through the process of natural selection, we slowly EVOLVE into homosexuals... Is that what you're trying to say? That the hardwired heterosexual drive in some humans will fade out, sort like how eventually all white people will be gone because of all the Mexican and Chinese immigrants in America?

Who knew that the our final step in evolution is the break down of the family unit via gay marriage. I guess that means no more babies. Is this the end of the world God predicted for us? Gay marriage apocalypse!!

They dont attack humans unless you seriously upset them (like....corner them, and poke at them..).

Natures fly spray.

I didn't date someone because when I leaned in to kiss her I could see all of these unsightly random hairs poking up from under her make up. I almost puked.

Sorry, ladies. But unfortunately those random hairs, if not attended to for like, I don't know, months and months at a time, they can start growing. Even as a guy if I see that shit on my face, it's gone. So I just couldn't deal and actually turned out of the kiss.

It was classic. Classic like the disgusting close up shots from Ren & Stimpy. I could even hear the tugboat fog horn blasting 2 tones of gtfo pork chops sandwiches. God, it did not smell good either.

While I can understand the angst against the media because the media is often at fault for misinterpretation and twisting words that people say, what I don't understand is why is there a media requirement? Is that slapped in some contract that he signed that he wasn't aware of until someone poked around at it? Or is it some general NFL "obligation" that they impose upon the players (and against their wills no less?) just to make all of this a media circus and farce?

I have nothing but respect for Lynch for doing what he does. Just wish there's an answer as to why this is an "obligation."

Agreed. It's just lazy. It's not like there aren't other ways to poke fun at Christie.

And worse, they weren't even that funny..

I would point out to anyone thinking he 'snuck up behind the cops' that he could see the other cops in the van that had a perfect view from behind of what he was doing, and could see it was not anything but silly dancing. It seemed obvious to me that they thought he was poking fun at them, and it enraged them, not that they felt he was a threat in any way.
I was more upset at the violent grabbing him and holding him by the neck/collar and the search for no reason than the 'shove' to the ground, which I admit it looked like he milked (although it still was wrong to shove him at all).

The last thing he should see is a Wookie poking his head up from behind a snow drift.