File under "engage brain before opening mouth"Follow

Bodhi, you're welcome to mess with me anytime you want.

And what if your interpretation is wrong?



If you read carefully, I didn't say that you consider it a barb, I said that you are trying to re-write it into one by saying "All I see is your ethnicity". That is the barb in question. And if THAT is what you are hearing, then yes, you do see it as a barb, not tacky. In the OP you say one thing yes, but your language indicates something else.

For the rest of what you said, I don't care if certain people take offense to it. For the purpose of the argument, I care about why they are offended by it, and whether that explanation is founded in reason.

I have no idea what possible condition my mother-in-law's anatomy might be in, and no interest in speculating, sorry.

God I hate it when threads get bogged down like this.

The general concensus is 'mentioning someones heritage is ok as long as no negative connotation is given. However the person in Ambryas example is an idiot for saying japanesey, even if no negative connotation was meant, because its just a stupid facking thing to say"


However you two will continue to argue tangents, semantics and make me wear out my scroll button. Shame on both of you.

So sorry for boring you, Bodhi. I would have indulged your more salacious remarks had they not involved my mother-in-law. *shudder*

I knew two guys, who I'm fairly sure never met, both were half jewish and half mexican.

Both of them refered to themselves as "Spikes", so this must be a fairly common thing. Everyone seemed to find it quite hilarious and take it in good humor.

I think that if a co-worker said that my shirt made me look particularly WOP-ish (WOPey?) I would either be stunned, or put on my worst New York accent and said somthing like "Hi, my name is Guido, nice to meet you."

Which would have been equally un-funny.

If you're allowed to make hyperbolic analogies to make your point, then so am I.

The person in question didn't know about your husband's ethnicity. All he said was that the glasses made him look more Japanesey, without knowing that he is, in fact, half Japanese. Okay.

If he'd said they made him look kinda Latino, or sort of Italian, would he have been offended? And don't say neither of you was offended in the slightest; if that were true then by your third post you would have said "Okay, just checking. I had a different take on it." Instead you're going on and on about how it really, truly wasn't appropriate, which is a PC way of saying mildly offensive.

And no, it is not AT ALL like touching someone without their permission. Had the person put his hands to your husband's face and pulled his eyes out into a slant, THAT would have been the equivalent of touching someone else without their permission.

It always amazes me that folks take such offense to what others deem offensive. If a remark makes you pause because you feel it's inappropriate, you let the person know that you felt that way. At that point, if they just want to breate you for the invalidity of your feelings, then they just get to be the pompous asses they are and it doesn't reflect on you one bit.

I've been called Asian many times, and I've always thought to myself "more cultures than Asian ones have slanted eyes", but pretty much just kept to clarifying that I am, in fact, not Asian. If the person insists that I must have "some Asian, somewhere" then I take that as an excuse to go into my fu[Black][/Black]cking family tree and outline the fact that my grandmother on my mother's side was indigenous (no, Bodhi) and that's where the eyes come from, and that the puffiness/no lid aspect that they deem Asian is from my Italian side. At this point, it does become annoying where before it was just innapropriate.

The first time I ever became truly aware of my race was when a guy I dated introduced me as such. Until then, I hadn't noticed he looked at me that way. You may think it's obvious to someone born into a different culture that they are different, but people come into ethnicities sometimes the same way others come into sexualities, and like sexualities, not everyone is at the perfect state of enlightenment and comfort that makes it okay to say whatever the hell you please. Does this mean you won't? Of course not, but it also doen't make it any less insensitive.

Edited, Wed May 17 11:27:17 2006 by Atomicflea

Sam, in some places it's already that bad.

If it makes you feel any better Ambrya, I like Japanese people and I think you have a nice rack. =)

What about the Eskimos? Can we still make fun of the Eskimos? Just askin'

Because "fat" has a negative connotation, while someone's race should not.

All I know is for me personally, I don't get bothered or annoyed if someone states the obvious to me.

"Hey Nad, you look like an ugly, fat, drunken Irish chick that I used to date!"

"Really?? When was it, might have been me!"

That's kind of the stuff I hear a lot, anyway.