Major problem with the burkha

[meridannight]

it is true, in Europe we laugh. at others and ourselves. we've been doing it for centuries and gotten pretty good at it.
[MENTION=21866]Hardheaded1[/MENTION] you are really wrong on this one. it's not bigotry. you're inventing it now when you say it's a cover for racist fears. i'm calling bullshit on that one.

[Hardheaded1]

To say that we disagree is obvious.

It is equally true that Europe has been regarding its colonies' inhabitants as inferiors for centuries.

And there is no need to invent what is already replete.

When I hear a mosque-attending Muslim laugh this one off, I'll change my mind.

[meridannight]

lols with the colonies again. what century are you living in? maybe we should bring up what the Roman Emperors did while we're at it too. so relevant to what's going on right now. and when was the last time you were on European soil? Europe has been bending backwards for some of these religious minorities, and all it's gotten in turn have been bomb threats, and people taking jokes way too seriously. grow a sense of humor or don't, but stop painting it something it is not and advocating in favor of censorship.

[Hardheaded1]

Who is the extremist now? "Advocating in favor of censorship"? Hardly. Social, intellectual, or literary disapprobation is hardly censorship. Censorship is the suppression of ideas, by force, be it direct or other. There is no such request being made here. I'm sorry, but you'll have to debate the points being actually asserted, not some straw man you create in preference to the real opposition.

As for colonialism, speaking from a former colony and a current imperial power, and having visited Europe in the last decade, I stand by my perceptions. Europe is every bit as suffused with the biases of race, culture, and nationalism that it has ever been. The new clothes of these prejudices are just refashioned in the politically-corrected style of the day. As a great many European colonies were not released until sometime within the last 100 years, I'm living very accurately within the current century.

The U.S. gets tarred with headlines-du-jour about this or that outbreak, but in reality, we are much more plurastic and multicultural on the whole. We make it through the adjustments of multiple ethnicities constantly while a great deal of Europe copes with a few engineers or merchants from China, India, or the like. Whenever Europe has to deal with real growing minorities becoming citizens in significant numbers, we see the same reactionary attitudes that have always arisen.

The Iron Curtain was never lowered in Europe when the Pound, the Deutchmark, Franc, or Euro was sufficient to keep the poor at bay, but then the low birth rates made that ineffective over time. Someone has to do the cooking.

[meridannight]

calm down. so i exaggerated it a little. just like you are exaggerating the assumption these jokes are an insult. and some people do use the illogical points you made as a pretext to censorship. i was cutting it off before it got there.

and you're not making any sense at all with your mumbling about ethnic minorities (or colonialism for that matter). sure, there are some concerns about ethnic minorities in Europe. so what? what has that got to do with having a sense of humor? what has colonialism to do with it? you're just stirring up a subject that has nothing to do with this in order to justify away the viewpoint that jokes are offensive. find a better pretext, this one's transparent.

maybe your own personal experience plays into it. i don't know, but obviously you're not capable seeing this objectively at all.

[meridannight]

and just because you asked nicely [MENTION=21866]Hardheaded1[/MENTION], here's some more laughs for you:

[princealbertofb]

Who is the extremist now? "Advocating in favor of censorship"? Hardly. Social, intellectual, or literary disapprobation is hardly censorship. Censorship is the suppression of ideas, by force, be it direct or other. There is no such request being made here. I'm sorry, but you'll have to debate the points being actually asserted, not some straw man you create in preference to the real opposition.

As for colonialism, speaking from a former colony and a current imperial power, and having visited Europe in the last decade, I stand by my perceptions. Europe is every bit as suffused with the biases of race, culture, and nationalism that it has ever been. The new clothes of these prejudices are just refashioned in the politically-corrected style of the day. As a great many European colonies were not released until sometime within the last 100 years, I'm living very accurately within the current century.

The U.S. gets tarred with headlines-du-jour about this or that outbreak, but in reality, we are much more plurastic and multicultural on the whole. We make it through the adjustments of multiple ethnicities constantly while a great deal of Europe copes with a few engineers or merchants from China, India, or the like. Whenever Europe has to deal with real growing minorities becoming citizens in significant numbers, we see the same reactionary attitudes that have always arisen.

The Iron Curtain was never lowered in Europe when the Pound, the Deutchmark, Franc, or Euro was sufficient to keep the poor at bay, but then the low birth rates made that ineffective over time. Someone has to do the cooking.

Now you're being unfair, or ill informed.
While I was going to commend Matt23 for his sensitivity to what could be construed as an issue, I must admit that I object to the way you phrased that, which was a gross generalisation and exaggeration. Maybe it was a joke too ?

What happened to us in France for a few satyrical cartoons has shaken us enormously, but that doesn't mean we are as reactionary as you are saying. We try to be inclusive and do it quite well, but not to foresake all the principles that brought us where we are now. Of course we have problems of racism, but we're working on them too. And while Paris and London are hardly representative of the rest of their respective countries, I can assure you that we deal with multiculturalism much more than you seem to think.

[princealbertofb]

It's easy to laugh when the joke isn't about you

Thanks for making this sensitive comment, Matt. However, the ones the burkha probably hurts the most is those women who are deprived of their personal choices (not that they'd all consider that they were losing those options, some CHOOSE to wear them, I'm told).

[Hardheaded1]

It usually comes down to class. A few educated middle class people are well received but a growing underclass of poor immigrants may constitute a real threat, or merely serve as whipping boys for xenophobes.

As for unfair, it is the starting premise of the cartoon. In order to satirize the oppression of the conservative strains of Islam, we reduce them to incestuous rapists. Yeah, seems fair, huh?

[princealbertofb]

It usually comes down to class. A few educated middle class people are well received but a growing underclass of poor immigrants may constitute a real threat, or merely serve as whipping boys for xenophobes.

As for unfair, it is the starting premise of the cartoon. In order to satirize the oppression of the conservative strains of Islam, we reduce them to incestuous rapists. Yeah, seems fair, huh?

That's the name of the game of satire. But it wasn't necessarily the name of the game of your post, or how your post came across.
I don't think there's much ground here for the kettle calling the pot black. Not much room for aggrandisement here, except for misplaced pride, maybe?