Lazy racism
If there's one thing that makes my blood boil it's jokes about the county where I was born and grew up: Norfolk.
People who would never dream of making a racial generalisation to a black or Asian person, will quite happily quip about the perceived backwardness of Norfolk to my face.
You know the kind of thing. We didn't get electricity until 1980, cars are still waved at, "Normal for Norfolk", etc.
Of course, it's not seen as racism, mainly because I'm white-skinned and English, you can't be racist about a white English person, can you? And it's so obviously a joke, you can't possibly be offended?
Yeah, well I am. My father, grandfather and great grandfather were all born in Norfolk. Quipping that Norfolk folk are stupid is suggesting that my family are stupid, and I feel rightfully aggrieved when people do it.
Touchy, aren't I?
I've been mulling over this for a while, but what brought it to mind tonight was discovering Isobel's new blog. She's a darn sight cleverer than me, and she lives in Norfolk. Reading between the lines, she may even have been born here.
But even if she wasn't, she takes nice pictures of places around here. The kind that calm you down after a rant.
Mmm... pretty flowers.
What was I talking about?
People who would never dream of making a racial generalisation to a black or Asian person, will quite happily quip about the perceived backwardness of Norfolk to my face.
You know the kind of thing. We didn't get electricity until 1980, cars are still waved at, "Normal for Norfolk", etc.
Of course, it's not seen as racism, mainly because I'm white-skinned and English, you can't be racist about a white English person, can you? And it's so obviously a joke, you can't possibly be offended?
Yeah, well I am. My father, grandfather and great grandfather were all born in Norfolk. Quipping that Norfolk folk are stupid is suggesting that my family are stupid, and I feel rightfully aggrieved when people do it.
Touchy, aren't I?
I've been mulling over this for a while, but what brought it to mind tonight was discovering Isobel's new blog. She's a darn sight cleverer than me, and she lives in Norfolk. Reading between the lines, she may even have been born here.
But even if she wasn't, she takes nice pictures of places around here. The kind that calm you down after a rant.
Mmm... pretty flowers.
What was I talking about?
Try being from Merseyside...
Deny it if you can :)
I always say, "There are two types of people: scousers, and people who wish they were scousers." I guess you could adapt that to Norfolkians ('Norfolkians' - w.t.f. !!!)
I wouldn't hear a word against Norfolk. One of my friends is from there and he's lovely.
I have never heard anyone from the North of England having a go a la Clarkson - is this primarily a southern trait ( jealousy perhaps?)
Or is it because I cannot ever recall being slighted by any one from East Anglia compared with a woman I remember stood at a bus stop in Torquay when I was on holiday as a small child."I do feel sorry for people from the North" she said out loud to no - one in particular..." I mean .. it must be awful for them" So are we more tolerant - or thicker skinned?
Anyway as I said Norfolk - lovely place - lovely T Girls
Yes, I'm Norfolk born and bred, and I do get a bit touchy about those comments too. This prejudice cuts both ways, though. My parents were treated to it in the 50's, when they moved down here from Northumberland. Comments were made about eating black pudding, wearing clogs, etc. despite the fact that they'd never owned any.
These days, due to overspill developments and population migration, a pure Norfolk accent in Norfolk is quite rare, and so the boot is now on the other foot.
And I really do have a tractor license.
It's lazy stereotyping, and wherever you come from someone will have a stereotype of you based on that. Whether you are a southerner, a northerner, a scouser or an inhabitant of that strange sit-com county that seems to encompass both Somerset and Norfolk.
Although the best thing is to embrace it and turn it back at everyone. I'm part jewish, and the best teller of jewish jokes was my jewish grandfather.
Isn't that the point that much of humour is based upon stereotypes? The difference between stereotyping people on the basis of ‘all Norfolk folk wear straw hats and drive a tractor’ or us (Salt of the Earth) Northerners, spend all our lives dahn t’ pit an’ live in em back t’ back ‘ouses like on’t Coronation Street’, is that when real life comes in to play, the chances are we’ve never actually been refused a job based on the accent that we speak with and it’s been quite a few decades since even the Irish were refused a place to live because the landlady’s sign said ‘no Irish’. I knew an English lass of Afro-Caribbean descent who was refused nurse training twice in the early eighties, despite having more ‘O’ levels than I had, who was accepted first time. And she was told ‘we find people of your background make better care assistants’! Only she was one of the best nurses I’ve ever worked with and a lovely person too.
So once you get over your PMT, get back out on your combine harvester, ya straw hat wearin’... :-)
The 'real' Radio Norwich has just gone on air in the building next to me.
I waiting for the abuse to start very shortly.
Ahaa
I can't reply during the day, which is annoying sometimes. But...
@ Miss K: Best insult ever. :-)
@ Abby. Yes it's the originality thing that bugs me. If you're going to be sarcastic, be original! I can take it!
@ Sandie. Yeah there is a lot of anti-celtic jibes. Personally I'm not sure about the "British when they're winning, Scots when they're losing" thing. If Andy Murray had done better at Wimbledon, I think it would have been rightly seen as a Scottish triumph. Losing was definitely seen as a British defeat, not a Scottish one.
@ Isobel: A licence at last! I was getting tired of you practicing three-point-turns on my street.
@Softy: The people of Norfolk not a race?? NOW I'm insulted!! ;-)
@Kath: Yes you're right a lot of humour is about stereotypes. I'm not against it per-se, I just hate it when the same old hackneyed stereotypes are used over and over again.
If you're gonna make jibes about Norfolk, why not modernise a bit? We've got Michael Carroll now! King of Chavs! That's got to be worth something! :-)
And we're not all inbred - my mum's from London and my dad's from Bedfordshire.
Lets add sexism to the mix?
It's not funny I'm not laughing I'm insulted. You demean Bex by implying that her ire at being stearotyped is somehow not fully worth consideration and you insult my sex by implying that we are slaves to our hormones and not capable of real anger.
Not the best turn of phrase. Not at all.
Anyway moving on.
A good friend of mine from Yorkshire once told me about his new job in London and how his colleagues constantly harassed him about being a "Last of the Summer Wine" bumpkin.
Being new, he let it ride for a while. But one day they started saying how he'd probably never used an inside toilet before. Straight away he nodded and agreed with them. This really surprised them...
"You mean you use an outside toilet?"
"Of course, where else?"
[smug laughter]
"Well inside of course, we are civilised people here you know!"
"You mean you sh*t in the same place where you eat and sleep? Thats f*king disgusting!"
My friend being a bit of a star then went on to totally annihilate their perspective. I suspect that when they got home none of his colleagues went to the loo that night!
And they never "teased" him again. But of course it was only "a bit of fun".
Stereotypes and prejudices are used by weak people to prop up their own self worth (in my humble opinion).
Well, we've certainly got enough fairy mounds around here, for that.
Just thought I'd annoy Siobhan.
And at the risk of reinforcing stereotypes, until about 11 months ago I had an outside loo.
...
But that aside, I think one of the more damaging aspects of using stereotypes as a basis for humour, is that they instill the notion that it's "OK" to then use them as shorthand for disparaging comments.
I was reading a magazine the other day, and it had one of those "Gross fashion mistakes" features in it - you know, various 'celebrities' wearing unadvisable outfits. And on one example there were big labels saying "rubbish coat", "nasty skirt", and "tranny shoes" - lazily using "tranny" as a synonym for "tasteless".
It really riled me, that seeing as how we're still regarded as a "joke", it's seemingly acceptable to cite us in that way.
I have always worked in an industry that is disproportionately female biased and I can’t recall ever having a male boss. I’m actually not sexist, and I do know women who work in other industries who really had to be better than the men just to stay level with them, if that. There is, IMHO a massive difference between stereotyping in humour and ‘bullying’ or treating people in a disparaging manner without even realising it because you aren’t even self-aware enough to notice. Karol, again, there was thought that went into using that expression but it was aimed at showing that things have ‘moved forwards’. At the end (?) of the 19th century miners from Lancashire & Wales migrated to the Kent coal fields only to find that lodgings were for ‘local people’ only, (I can’t remember dates). In the mid 20th and earlier it was the turn of the Irish. Prejudice on the basis of ignorance. And still it continues. I hope that what happened to the woman I mentioned back in the eighties wouldn’t and couldn’t happen now, although I’d be inclined to think that such prejudices still remain but are more subtle, so where as she went for ‘feedback’ on her refusal for training and was told honestly, that the panel were racist, now she’d perhaps be told ‘you didn’t come across confidently’ or ‘you came across too confidently’. Fortunately, the type of person she is, she simply smiled, thanked them, and got on with applying somewhere else. Me, being the type of person I am, faced with that, would probably have told them to stick it… Mark Twain said travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness and being an eternal optimist, I believe that as travel becomes easier, prejudice, bigotry & narrow-mindedness will indeed, slowly disappear.
The point is, humour can reflect stereotypes and still be funny, especially if it is self depreciating with it. Where it is a problem (IMO!) is where it is only ever used to ‘attack’ or ‘belittle’ others and where respect for the person is missing at other times. If I respect someone and know they respect me, I will know them well enough to understand if they will be offended by a ‘joke’ and visa-versa.
I feel like I’m rambling without actually making my point, which is, I believe that generalising stereotypes can be a source of humour. Bullying, harassment and oppression can never be funny.
And come on, a transvestites anger being dismissed due to her being pre-menstrual is a teeny bit funny isn't it???
Only when it's said by a woman
Why?
Why is it ok for one section of society to be able to say something and it not be ok for another section?
When I make a joke along thie lines of "Ha! Those shoes are so tranny" for example, the humour isn't contained in the ideas of what a tranny is or isn't - it's funny because it's me saying it. It's ironic. It's like me leaving a comment on Becky's website saying something like "Becky I hate you", when that's blatantly not true - it's funny because it's an obvious lie.
To make a joke about something that has the potential of offence, you have to have some personal understanding and experience about it in the first place. This is why Chris Rock is funny, and Jim Davidson isn't
For example a woman saying, "It must be PMS" to her best friend might be taken as humour but the same woman saying it to a complete stranger can be just plain offencive.
Also there is a current ad here in Aus for tampons wrapped in brightly coloured plastic (now there is a marketing idea, bright colours, doesn't make any difference to me what colour they are when I have to clean them up off the floor of the ladies at the end of the night at the club!!!). One of the colours is: "Tranny Pink Stilletoes!" Hey this ad could have been written by a drag queen for all I know, I still find it offencive (Pink? I have never worn pink in my whole damn life!) So personal knowledge means nothing unless your audience knows you.
In short there is no boundries if you know the intended victim of your humour (I still call my mum a whinging bloody pomme) but otherwise the sex/race/sexual status plays no part in humour if you don't know your audience.
One last point. Chris Rock... funny?????
Victus - I disagree, there are plenty of places I would like to stick that pipe here in Australia!
Cathii
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