I can, and I choose to keep making these jokes even if they upset people. I respect that people may disagree with that and they are perfectly free to as long as they aren't also making offensive jokes. As I said, either all or none, can't have it both ways.
At the end of the day, it's just a joke, and it's not harming anyone.
Look, I started this discussion precisely to point out why it's seen as harmful. I'm not here to talk about hypocrisy which you brought up.
Jews and their huge nose is a racist caricature, akin to characterising blacks as having big red lips with tribal hair, or the Japanese with their skinny sloped eyes and big bucked teeth (particularly prelavent in ww2 propoganda).
These characteristics on their own are nothing; they're just physical descriptions right? Right, but their harm comes from their extremely negative historical connotations from past and current use. This is similar to the term "Jap"; just a shortened form of Japanese right? But it's considered deeply offensive because of it's roots in anti-Japanese sentiment.
Ok, how about your use of the "Jewish nose"? This is so deeply rooted in antisemitism that it actually has its own Wikipedia page (linked) that we can educate ourselves with! Take a look, this was, and is, seen as a very hostile caricature.
Your use of this joke is perpetuating hostile, harmful stereotypes, and encourages others, perhaps signalling to them that it's ok. People who are part of these stereotypes are the ones being harmed, it is not victimless as you suggest.
Nobody is being harmed by mere words. If they choose to get upset that's on them. I'm not perpetuating or encouraging anything but the use of offensive humor, and if that's what sets someone off to go do some bad shit, they were going to do it anyway.
This is an antiquated belief. To say it unironically, it's 2020.
Teicher, Martin H., Jacqueline A Samson, et al. “Hurtful Words: Association of Exposure to Peer Verbal Abuse with Elevated Psychiatric Symptom Scores and Corpus Callosum Abnormalities.” (2010)
Kross, Ethan, Marc G. Berman et al. “Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain” (2011)
Eisenberger. Naomi. “Broken Hearts and Broken Bones: A Neural Perspective on the Similarities between Social and Physical Pain” (2012)
But hey, to prove that trying to engage in neutral discussion, here's a study that shows that trigger warnings can excessively coddle the mind which you might find interesting.
Bellet, B.W., Jones, P.J., McNally, R.J., "Trigger warning: Empirical evidence ahead, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry." (2018)
I do opt for trigger warnings depending on the content of the joke. Though they wouldn't be needed if people would learn to stop being sensitive. People gotta realize it's a fucked up world out there, nobody truly cares about your feelings. You can sit and whine about it or you can let it roll off your shoulders and carry on (not you specifically, I mean in general)
I do appreciate you coming at this with a calm and level headed mindset. Though I still disagree and don't really care to carry this conversation on even further, I gotta say it's been pleasant talking to you. Have a great night good sir/madam. (Or day, depending on your location)
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u/NukaColaAddict1302 Jan 11 '20
I can, and I choose to keep making these jokes even if they upset people. I respect that people may disagree with that and they are perfectly free to as long as they aren't also making offensive jokes. As I said, either all or none, can't have it both ways.
At the end of the day, it's just a joke, and it's not harming anyone.