It was great reading through everybody's posts, but I found myself agreeing with all of them, no matter what side of the question they examined!
I agree that if people we used to call gypsies prefer to be called (to go back to my own example) Roma rather than gypsy it's no hardship to do them the favour - but I also think that, like Whistler says, if you keep getting censured on the words you use quite innocently, you react by wondering why you should give a damn about any minority in the first place, thus doing more harm than good.
So, I guess it needs to be the golden middle way all around.
Prim, yikes, those rules for children's books you mentioned remind me of the social experimenting of communist Europe!
Acting against the upkeep of traditional roles by disallowing children of academics access to University etc.
A while I ago I heard somewhere that the cookie monster wasn't allowed to express a craving for cookies anymore!
I think that stereotypes are only used against "the others" - we do see a lot of diversity among those we consider part of our own group.
I think there are two pretty harmless reasons for it:
- for one the human brain needs to organise information, sort it into groups etc to be able to work with it. The less detail is known about a subject, the coarser the grouping will be. This happens with people we don't know well, while the more we know them, the more we split this organisation up into sub-groups.
- as humans we also need to belong to a group. But you can only belong to a group if you identify those who are outside that group. I think the achievement of civilisation is not to get rid of thinking in groups but to avoid seeing the other groups as hostile. Of course, we might arrive at thinking in terms of one big group of all humans - but that's very hard, not just because there would still need to be an "other" group, but because in order to be comfortable in a group you need to know it well - and you can never know all humanity well. (I guess this is where all that monkeysphere thing comes in.
)
So, yes, if you want a generalisation about whites as a group, you need to ask a non-white.
As a European I make generalisations about Americans and only just about remember not to include Canadians in them - I would certainly not be able to distinguish between different parts of the US. But if US-Americans make generalisations about Europeans I can't believe one cannot see the vast difference between the different countries.
Lastly - hmmh, vison, I think the "We're only joking" excuse isn't really because it's meant to be inclusionary, but so as to make sure no one can complain - you wouldn't let anyone accuse you of lacking a sense of humour, would you?
I also prefer jokes that don't target anyone, at least not in a meaningful or negative way - and I do think they are possible!
