<h2>"For a class project I attempted to present a National Lampoon Parody of Southern White Culture. Probably not my best choice in a recently forcibly integrated south Georgia high school."</h2>
<p>Curmudgeon - At least you didn't try to make a persuasive speech on Martin Luther to your college classmates in southern Louisiana. ;) Even my very best friends weren't too happy with me. (Not that I mean to get us headed down the road to heresy again...lol!)</p>
<p>My take on the Daily Princetonian article is that it failed miserably at what was intended (and it wasn't funny). Kind of a surprising literary misstep coming from the editor of one of the most respected school newspapers in the country imho.</p>
<p>I guess I must be part of a group of low-lifes, because I and my co-workers (about 6 of them- lawyers and paralegals) thought it was funny. This included one Asian, who thought the language was over-done, but that the article was funny. My 20 year old son though it was really funny and said he wouldn't apologize if he were the editorial board. It can certainly be considered in bad taste, which puts it right along with much of the rest of our modern day culture. D, who is more refined, hasn't given me her verdict yet, but will probably find it disgusting.</p>
<p>OK, M of WC, I'll join you in the low-life club. I thought it was funny--in the outrageous "Borat" kind of way. I bet there are a lot more people, even Asians, laughing at this than taking it seriously.</p>
<p>I didn't think it was funny or well done. When someone makes fun of him/herself or everyone in an intelligent way it can be hilarious. This wasn't that.</p>
<p>Even my sensitive and refined daughter thought it was funny. She did say that the Rice paper got in trouble in the not too distant past for its joke issue (the back page of one of the editions). She said there was a real uproar, so I guess this is just one more college paper screw up.</p>
<p>If a black person sued Princeton for something widely considered frivolous or controversial, and the Daily Princetonian wrote a fake op-ed from "his" perspective using ghetto/gangsta slang, African-American stereotypes and cracks about slavery and other historical insensitivities, would you and your lawyer/paralegal buddies have laughed over it?</p>
<p>If a Jewish person sued Princeton and the Prince issued a fake op-ed from "her" perspective using jokes about being sneaky, money-counting, having big noses, and crudely referencing the Holocaust, would you find it funny? Would you have guiltlessly chuckled over retreads of Jewish jokes with a bunch of professionals?</p>
<p>If not, why would those be different? Why is it simply comedic that the Prince can use references to dog-eating and railroad building to make fun of an individual who happens to be a certain race, but if the person had been another ethnicity, it would be reacted to differently?</p>
<p>Just wanted to know whether if the op-ed had been used black stereotypes or Jewish stereotypes for jokes, you would have also found it so charming. Since its still acceptable to mock Asians in American society, I was wondering if you in particular would manage to be fair about it and would admit to finding, say, black stereotypes funny as well.</p>
<p>I don't know, Kate. I guess if someone put themselves in the public limelight they would be fair game. I would have to see it and then judge. There has certainly been humor aimed at blacks, including that by Eddie Murphy.
I can't defend my reaction, and I'm sure many Asians were offended. However, many were not. Blonds are the brunt of humor all the time. Lots of groups are the subject of parody and it is not always PC. Like I said, I guess I and all my co-workers are towards one end of the spectrum.</p>
<p>Jian Li might have put himself in the public limelight, but that doesn't mean every other Asian did. The mud is flung fairly wide, certainly not just at him.
Making fun of "blondes", though really also not kind, is not the same as making fun of a minority ethnic group, is it? Well, to me, anyway. Guess i"m just too PC. (Though it seems to me that what's called political correctness is more accurately plain old civil respect and good manners, but I'm old fashioned that way.)</p>
<p>To me, the problem is that there were so many non-Asians who were NOT offended (or at least the Princetonian thought there would be), not that their were Asians who were.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I guess if someone put themselves in the public limelight they would be fair game.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>To an extent. But fair game racially? A person whose actions are controversial or widely unfavorable can be ridiculed for those actions. But its a different thing all together to ridicule someone by taking cheap shots at their race. What does laundry and dog-eating have to do with Jian Li the person? Nothing besides cheap stereotypes associated with his race. And that's low to the core, to express disagreement with someone by going after their race. Isn't that actually --- gasp!--- racist?</p>
<p>
[quote]
There has certainly been humor aimed at blacks, including that by Eddie Murphy.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Why exactly did you use this example? Explain, please. There's a difference between a black comedian using black jokes-- tongue-in-cheek-- in his routines and a Princeton University newspaper staff publishing this article, hoping that people would find it charming and clever enough to be marked as effective satire.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Blonds are the brunt of humor all the time.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Since when were blondes racial minorities with a history of systematic and institutionalized discrimination and ill treatment by the majority group? Yeah, don't try to equate blonde jokes with racial jokes, because that's plain stupid and revealing of a lack of insight in regards to race.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Lots of groups are the subject of parody and it is not always PC.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet you "don't know" if you'd laugh at black jokes or Jewish jokes the same way you laughed at the Asian "jokes" in that article.</p>
<p>The only good thing about you is that you at least admitted you can't defend your reaction. And that's about it.</p>
<p>For the record, I thought the Princetonian article was not at all clever and was offensive and in very poor taste. </p>
<p>But reading Garland's and MOWC's posts above reminded me of an incident from when my D was in middle school. While I was chaperoning my D and a group of her very good friends on a school trip to an amusement park, I was standing with one of the girls who happens to be black while the other girls went on a ride. We observed one of the other girls doing something really stupid (throwing her backpack to the ground from the top of a very high set of steps while waiting in line for the ride). I said to the girl whom I was with, "That was a really dumb thing that xxxx just did!!!" And she replied, "What do you expect! She's blonde !! :) "</p>
<p>There is plenty of humor aimed at Jewish people out there, too- I guess it's only OK if the comedian is Jewish? </p>
<p>My bad. I thought it was funny. I have handed it out and emailed it to a number of people and tried to come up with a good sampling. I asked what they thought and if they believed it was in poor taste and if they thought it was funny. I wanted to check and see if I am truly deranged. I was concerned since I am the Ethics officer for a large, publicly traded corporation, so I need to be pretty sensitive to things like this. Everyone thought it was funny. None of them are on CC, though. I guess we have a more respectful population (with a few exceptions :) )</p>
<p>"To me, the problem is that there were so many non-Asians who were NOT offended (or at least the Princetonian thought there would be)..."</p>
<p>Do you know how many non-Asians WERE offended? No, I thought not. Nor do I know. As to the what the Princetonian staff supposedly assumed (also), wrong again. Maybe because I continue to work with adolescents, including through college, I see poor judgment and assumptions made all the time -- by the brightest of them. What I mean by assumptions in this case is the belief that the intention would be perceived as the authors/writers meant it.
People on this forum & the other boards were lamenting & criticizing the weaker first apology versus the better follow-up, as if the first were evidence of bad intentions. To me, the first (weak, half-) apology was evidence that that they assumed just the opposite of what mini said: they assumed, in their limited perspective (and as editors of college publications often assume), that the audience would & should understand the satire. It doesn't excuse the piece. But to me, the greatest blame is to be laid at the lack of administrative supervision.</p>
<p>I mean also the poor judgment that does not make the kinds of distinctions that an adult would have been able to project -- i.e., the consequences of content vs. form, the importance of sensitivity to controversial issues with "personal" impact (for lack of a better word). Some students on CC have this perspective, sure. However, again as another parent pointed out, a tunnel vision sometimes develops in these "quasi-newsrooms" which fails to put it all in perspective. That's why adult guidance is critical.</p>
<p>While I agree with the first part of your post, epiphany, I have to disagree with the second. While we may not have the maturity of more experienced people, college students ARE adults and need to be treated accordingly. Some of the people who are senior editors on the Prince this year will probably be working professionally in journalism in a matter of months, and they need to learn the consequences of even decisions made without ill intentions. The truth is, comedy is a dangerous business for anyone: by its nature, it needs to walk close to the line to be relevant, yet that runs the risk that it will at times cross it. This isn't unique to student newspapers, although the relative inexperience of their editors and writers makes it more likely. The Prince has in the past had joke editions that included ethnic humor and parodies of real life people and situations without sinking to the crass and offensive level of several of this year's articles, the Li one merely being the most blatant.</p>
<p>Not really.
While college students are considered "adults" and "of age" in terms of certain legal decisions/independence, etc., they are not considered adults in a fuller sense , esp. psychologically. (There's a reason that age 21 is considered the traditional age of adulthood; some of that pertains to legalities, others, loosely, to the growth that is still expected to be happening between ages 18 and 21, minimum.) More realistically, and for practical purposes with regard to campus policies, campus oversight, college students lie somewhere between partial and full independence. Yes, I am fully aware of your point regarding the need to practice independence (a point I also made in an earlier post) -- with the related responsibility to accept consequences for actions, but a college newspaper, associated as it is with the college name, requires a degree of supervision not shared by either an informal on-campus or off-campus student-run publication, and an independent, non-college publication owned and run by what would probably be college graduates, minimum.</p>
<p>You do make an excellent point about previous joke issues, including if offense was not taken at those. (And again, I am definitely not excusing the piece.) Either those same or previous writers had better guidance or more of it. Or if they didn't, Princeton was lucky that the writing was skillful and/or better thought out, and that it worked.</p>