Is America Safe, Or Not?

[dualstow]

And just so you know, curlew (now that I'm on a full keyboard), there's rarely a good reason to casually invoke death camps. Certainly not because of some imagined slight against small towns when the original speaker grew up in one, thank you very much. That's the kind of ignorance that proves my point. If an African-American from the north comes along and says he wouldn't feel comfortable in say, Tennessee, then pointing out the cosmopolitan demographic makeup in Nashville or the stats in Memphis would be ok. Saying, "You're probably safe from the slavers" would not be ok. Dumbshit.

[curlew]

And just so you know, curlew (now that I'm on a full keyboard), there's rarely a good reason to casually invoke death camps. Certainly not because of some imagined slight against small towns when the original speaker grew up in one, thank you very much. That's the kind of ignorance that proves my point. If an African-American from the north comes along and says he wouldn't feel comfortable in say, Tennessee, then pointing out the cosmopolitan demographic makeup in Nashville or the stats in Memphis would be ok. Saying, "You're probably safe from the slavers" would not be ok. Dumbshit.

Ok. Thanks. I'll make a note of that in my PC notebook.

[ochotona]

So is politeness now derided as PC in America?

[WiseOne]

Reub was banned for no worse than this. Where are the moderators?

Not advocating a ban but this is not about PC, this is about an extremely offensive statement to a frequent contributor to this forum. An apology is called for.

The forum has just started to evaporate in the past week or so. I hope this is only temporary.

[curlew]

Reub was banned for no worse than this. Where are the moderators?

Not advocating a ban but this is not about PC, this is about an extremely offensive statement to a frequent contributor to this forum. An apology is called for.

The forum has just started to evaporate in the past week or so. I hope this is only temporary.

No need for a ban as I promise this will be my last post. Having offended Christians and Jews alike I realize I have overstayed my welcome (probably Muslims too but I don't think there any of them here to complain).

For the record, I thought the suggestion that it wasn't safe for a Jew to live in a small town or the countryside in America was ridiculous and I see no need to apologize for it. I put the idea alongside the suggestion I heard recently by someone in the National Parks Service that black people don't visit the national parks because the trees make them think of lynching. It was made by a black person so I guess it was okay. Suggesting that maybe we should plant watermelon patches alongside the trees would obviously not be.

Now if it had been suggested that it might be unsafe for a Jew to live in an all black neighborhood in a big city because he might be mistaken for a white person, that might have been more credible.

And with that thought I bid you all a fond farewell.

[I Shrugged]

What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here?

Obviously I have missed or not retained past posting history between people here. I didn't realize that Curlew was such a bad guy. I recall there was someone who was very outspoken against religion. Must have been him. There were posts that made me cringe, but I managed to let it slide.

But to get all worked up about a joke, jeez. I mean, it was funny! I'll admit my sense of humor is more wicked than some people.

Then again, nothing's funny if you don't want it to be, if you insist on being literal. All humor is based on discomfort of some type. Reub's final strike was the same way. Our whole society is now full of special snowflakes. Holy crap.

You all need to lighten up. If someone really bothers you, put him or her on ignore. I have someone on ignore here. It works fine. There are a bunch of smart, insightful, witty people here, and reading all your thoughts is a big attraction to me. I suspect that is true for most others. But at the same time, realize that you can't hang with that kind of group if you expect to not be exposed to thoughts that are outside of your comfort zone. There is always Bogleheads.

Wow. Just wow.

I will say that every forum that has a folder for politics and religion always ends up with this sort of problem. Oh well.

[dragoncar]

I think the comment is forgivable if not intended to be be offensive, but the correct response is to apologize not rage quit and imply that the offended party is wrong.

I say this because it didn't initially strike me as offensive either, but dualstow made it extremely clear with his analogy.

[I Shrugged]

But Dualstow joked, or so it appeared, about looking "too Jewy" to be safe in a small town. It's only natural for someone with a sense of humor to respond to a joke with a joke.

There is obviously something more to the situation than what was written in this thread. Whatever.

[dualstow]

Back from a trip. Just a quick reply, before this all gets too bizarre.
Sometimes the line between humor and offense is closeness between listener and speaker. And sometimes distance is created by the written word on a forum.

I've got friends who can do ethnic humor all day long and I'll give it right back, because we know each other. And, if you go to see a comedian like Bill Burr or Jimmy Carr, you go in preparing to be insulted. If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't go to see either of those guys.

Since I spent some of the last two weeks reading articles about the overshoot of the politically correct, you may think it's strange that I was on the offended side. It's sad that Chris Rock won't play colleges anymore, and even Seinfeld who works clean said that kids "can't take a joke" anymore. But I get it. They're right!

## KEY PARAGRAPH HERE ## I haven't read curlew's later post, but what bothered me about the initial one is that I felt he was trying to put me in my place or to admonish me for being overly sensitive Maybe I'm wrong, but that was my perception of his perception. So, it's not that I run through life covering my ears at any mention of the Holocaust (nor rubbing it in other people's faces as some kind of macabre badge of honor). I suppose you have to walk in someone's shoes to really understand.

I spent my entire childhood and young adulthood in a small town where I was treated very well by classmates. I won't pretend that the few racial incidents that did come up would be enough to make someone consider fleeing to another place. They mostly just kept me up dwelling on them on occasional nights. When they happened to someone other than me, same deal. And there were more positive things associated with being different than bad. Best days: passed for Italian!

I'm sorry if this is too long, but maybe being too concise in my first post in this thread is part of what got me into trouble in the first place. It was the latter part, the Stephen King/the Stand reference that had me thinking about violence (and with zero racial dimension). No streetlights, small police force (or just a sheriff and some deputies), good ol' boys in both the north and the south, east and west, who feel they can get away with whatever they choose.

The Jewish thing is something that has more to do with today's world, like what's going on in Malmo, Sweden, than it did in the relatively innocent 70's and 80's. And even now, I think bad events in my hometown would be few and far between. Sorry, I don't need I-Shrugged to tell me that.

It's just how I feel. More comfortable in the city. That was my answer to the OP's question. And wasn't joking. People are more attuned to what passes as a tasteful joke, or even the right time and place to tell a tasteless one! No, not super-sensitive PC types who need a so-called safe space. Just people who have lived with many other kinds of people and know what's up.

I can't say I'm that surprised that some of the reactions here were it's funny so what's the problem. I hope I shed a little light on it, because I kind of feel like I'm in a very alien tavern right now where any kind of explanation is going to be met with, at best, blank stares and at worst, blame on top of insult. I'm not upset as I write this, just confused. Confused that others are confused.

[dualstow]

I read curlew's replies.

the suggestion I heard recently by someone in the National Parks Service that black people don't visit the national parks because the trees make them think of lynching. It was made by a black person so I guess it was okay.

I guess so, too. That's just one of the rules. I don't make them up, but I recognize them. Chris Rock has a joke about hiding money in books that I would never tell as my own.

Howard Stern was once describing hanging out with his wife and a handsome male celebrity. "She looked (beautiful) (Barbie reference), he looked like a Ken doll, and I look like Ken's moneylender." See? That's funny. But I wouldn't find it very funny if Pat Buchanan said it.

[Xan]

I can't say I'm that surprised that some of the reactions here were it's funny so what's the problem. I hope I shed a little light on it, because I kind of feel like I'm in a very alien tavern right now where any kind of explanation is going to be met with, at best, blank stares and at worst, blame on top of insult. I'm not upset as I write this, just confused. Confused that others are confused.

For what it's worth, I think there's some middle ground here. I don't think the original remark was in good taste, but I also don't think it was meant as a personal attack, nor do I think it's worthy of a ban (even a self-imposed one). But I also don't think you're wrong for disliking it and calling it out.

MediumTex says this shouldn't be a place that raises your blood pressure. Let's not take each other so seriously!

[dualstow]

Yeah, I mean a ban should probably be the result of repeated problems, and this does look like a one-time misunderstanding. Maybe curlew could just put me on ignore and I'll try to recuse myself of this kind if of topic.

[WiseOne]

I didn't register curlew's comment as a joke, which is a risk of typing something into an online forum. You're skimming or jumping through conversations and maybe not catching all the nuances. Still, even rereading the post with that in mind, it remained cringe-worthy to me even though I thought I was relatively immune to the "PC" issues. I guess I'm not.

There's also the factor of living in a large East Coast city, as opposed to a small town, and working at a large university with many international faculty & students where the "melting pot" is real. When there is a shared culture, these racial/ethnic issues just don't come up, and I've gotten used to that. In my laboratory currently there is a Mormon, a UK citizen, a Taiwanese student, a black resident, a Canadian, and a resident who (now that I think about it) is probably Jewish. The shared culture is key here...the problem, to me, are groups who don't want to join our culture, but want to create their own subculture (including language) and then require us to adapt to it and even offer special privileges. It's "PC" to go along with this unstable arrangement - at great cost and inconvenience to the rest of us, and at the price of blocking these groups from most of the American opportunities they could otherwise participate in.

Somehow I'm walking this tightrope between the "dark side" of PC (above), and the good side, where you try to be just a bit sensitive to people who have a different heritage.

[dualstow]

WiseOne, you said it better than I know how.

[I Shrugged]

deleted by poster.

[Libertarian666]

I'm ethnically Jewish and I didn't find curlew's comment personally offensive. I didn't find it particularly funny either, but so what?

And for the record, I live in a VERY small town and feel quite safe, much safer in fact than in my mother's neighborhood in Philadelphia. Somehow the sirens I hear every time I visit her don't make me feel any safer.

[dualstow]

For the record, I did not at any time state that Jews are unsafe in small towns in the U.S. Those were words that were put in my mouth and then called "ridiculous" which is fine, because it is was never my statement anyway.

Clearly, I made a mistake by being too concise and also by wrapping my first comment with the reference to violence in a fictional novel.

I did not feel unsafe growing up in my hometown, which was smaller in population than many universities. I could probably live in most dense urban areas in the U.S., no matter the location, but I don't think that I would feel as comfortable in small towns in any location.
There's a reason for that. For example, as middle school student, I didn't quite know what to make of it when I was in the bathroom and I overheard a guy say to his friend, "I want to kill some Jews because a Jew stole my girlfriend." My first thought was, There's another Jew within 10 miles of here? Does this guy know I'm Jewish?/ Is he saying it for me to overhear? Or is it just a colossal coincidence?
(When I got older I thought, why not go after a guy with orange Nike sneakers b/c a guy with orange Nikes stole your girlfriend?)

At the same time, if I returned to the same hometown that I know so well, even though it has changed drastically and become something of a drug- and crime-ridden area, I would feel fairly safe. None of my issues with it would be racial.

I could go on, but lest further clarifications come off as backpedaling, I will just say that it was my own perception, just like my reaction to the casual reference here to the camps was my own. I don't claim to speak on anyone else's behalf.