Bart,

I'm just suggesting we consider thinking awarely about these things.

There are a lot of groups who have historically been targeted by jokes mocking or attempting to portray their culture from outside of it. These cheap laughs help keep a lot of wrongs firmly fixed in place.

There are higher levels of humor that lift people above that rigidity of thinking. I try to head in that direction when I am passing on what I think is funny. I don't forward, for example, male-bashing jokes I get in my e-mail. I'm as hungry for a good laugh as anyone, but I try to be responsible about what I release into the world, especially if it has my name on it. (I fail, often, but I keep trying.)

I don't see this sort of thread as an attack on "me," but as an attack on entire groups of people veiled as humor. I object to this not primarily because this hurts the members of the groups mocked, but because saying nothing is to fail to try to reach people who I would hope would like to have a greater effectiveness and tolerance as they deal with their world.

~Curmudgeon in Training