Why do people live in Australia?

[Righ]

Not all Scots are white. Just saying. Indigenous peoples of Scotland, you say? Not rally a valid concept any time in recorded history.

[Endie]

Nope.   Scotts are white.

And now the Australia thread travels to Politics.  Onward!

Significant difference in mindset between us: to me, Scots are anyone who comes here and says they feel that they're Scottish.  Whatever colour, creed or place of origin.  And we all get to be the butt of the "you're mean" jokes.  It's just the price for the cool accent.  :-D

[Tale]

Identity politics, thankfully, is sooo 1990s.  I am relieved that "appropriateness" as a weasel-words way of criticising humour is on the retreat.

I don't think it is on the retreat. There is simply humour in toeing the line and even crossing it, or pretending not to have any respect, while actually having respect. Many people in the audience and on the Internet are mistaking this for a return to cultural disrespect.

But the buzzphrase "weasel words" is a crutch. If you don't like my word "appropriateness", you've a problem with my personal choice of words, not some kind of global 1990s movement. It looked to me like you were mimicking the sound of Aboriginal words without knowing what you were doing. It's not a major problem, it just gave me an opportunity to mention stuff I care about.

As a Scotsman, I hear plenty of drunkness humour, meanness allusions and kilt/skirt jokes.  I don't care!  I find lots of Scotsman humour very funny.  And I certainly don't feel threatened by the stuff that isn't funny.  I don't understand, though, why a person can tell a drunk Scotsman joke - God knows that there are enough of them - but not a drunk Aborigine joke (that would be professional suicide for most comedians).  Do people believe that Scots can stand up for themselves but that Aborigines somehow need protected from the big bad comics on account of some weakness?

As a Scotsman myself - I was born and raised in Edinburgh before moving to Australia - I like and accept self-deprecating humour the same way. But the Scots have survived. And laughing at yourself is a quality. Whereas if you went back to when William Wallace has just been beheaded and the Londoners standing over him make a drunk Scotsman joke and roar with laughter, it's fucked up.

Australian Aboriginal people are still in a struggle for cultural survival. Alcoholism is one of the major problems in Aboriginal communities. The current government has put things back about 20 years by dismantling their political representation and community funding (there's an attitude that everyone should just have to integrate into white Australian culture). A white Aussie making a drunk Aborigine joke signals a right-wing political position.

Aboriginal humour itself is all about taking the piss and comedy set-ups for deep belly laughs. You get drunk Aborigine jokes and mimickry of fellow Aborigines. But at the same time, vicious racist jokes are rampant in white Australia - it's got elements of apartheid South African attitudes, except the black people are the minority here.

But the blackfellas (acceptable non-racist term) usually have the last laugh.

The indigenous writer Tyson Yunkaporta recalls the story of the settlement of Goodna, in western Brisbane. As the white settlers evicted the Aborigines, they asked what they called the area. "Goona" was the reply. Only later did the settlers discover goona was the Aboriginal word for shit, forcing maps, signs and deeds to be changed.

This kind of thing went on a lot. There are still places today called Goondoowindi, Coonowrin, Coonabarabran, Goonawarra, Coongulla, Goornong, Cunderdin, Goona Gully.

P.S. The comments about racist humour are in response to your mention of drunk Scotsman/Aborigine jokes - I don't think anything you said was racist at all, I'm just trying to detail some sensitive issues.

[Endie]

Fair enough on your points about the specifics of the Aborigine position: during the later years of the anti-apartheid struggle I was surprised that any attempt to raise Australian treatment of their own native population was consistently - and I mean this quite literally - shouted down.

As regards the wider issue of the retreat of identity politics in liberal thought: well, I suspect that if I start arguing, citing stuff and tempt you into replying then others will pile in and it will, indeed, be off to politics with a massive, predictable and regurgitated, right vs left argument.  Precis: identity politics is maintaining a position on the campus, but with increasingly illiberal legislation being promulgated, the importance of the defence of traditional western, liberal (not US "liberal") ideas about jury trial, habeus corpus, freedom of speech and presumption of innocence is increasing.

[Sky]

The sounds of different cultures were ridiculed because people didn't know enough to respect them.

Or because it's funny if you're not an uptight cunt.

Precis: identity politics is maintaining a position on the campus, but with increasingly illiberal legislation being promulgated, the importance of the defence of traditional western, liberal (not US "liberal") ideas about jury trial, habeus corpus, freedom of speech and presumption of innocence is increasing.

You know how to take the fun out of a joke. You do realize you can joke about things but have responsible views supporting freedom for all mankind, yes?

Cunts. Oh, how I hope that didn't offend any women in the audience. I must want all women in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant! 

[Roac]

The sounds of different cultures were ridiculed because people didn't know enough to respect them.

Or because it's funny if you're not an uptight cunt.

On cultural issues, good comics will often do one of a few things; make fun of their own race/culture/group, make fun of someone else's and then have them turn the tables during the routine, or make fun of everyone, including themselves.  Bad comics will make fun of others to build up a sense of superiority within themselves / their audiance.   

Edit:  Look, the news goes and offers me a wonderful example of what I mean.

[Signe]

I'm sure Endie, Tale and Righ will be offended by the word "cunt"... because Scottish men are so sensitive in that respect, you know.

[Endie]

On cultural issues, good comics will often do one of a few things; make fun of their own race/culture/group, make fun of someone else's and then have them turn the tables during the routine, or make fun of everyone, including themselves.  Bad comics will make fun of others to build up a sense of superiority within themselves / their audiance.   

You're right.  I think Sacha Baron Cohen is a superb example of this: an idiot could watch Borat and just see someone making fun of illiberal post-Soviet successor states.  And on that level alone, it would probably be funny.  But when you watch him using that very humour to make fun of the prejudices of his American interlocutors, it's hilarious.  Getting an audience to laugh and to consider their own views is a rare trick.

And Signe's spot on.  As far as offensive terms for genitalia go in Scotland, "cunt" barely ranks in the top thirty or so.  It's just a term of endearment used, for example, when I phone my mum.

[Sky]

Bad comics will make fun of others to build up a sense of superiority within themselves / their audiance.   

Bad comics are those that don't make you laugh. The material doesn't mean shit, it's all about the funny. That 'sense of superiority' is a crock of shit promulgated directly from your ass.

[Merusk]

Not all Scots are white. Just saying. Indigenous peoples of Scotland, you say? Not rally a valid concept any time in recorded history.

Significant difference in mindset between us: to me, Scots are anyone who comes here and says they feel that they're Scottish.  Whatever colour, creed or place of origin.  And we all get to be the butt of the "you're mean" jokes.  It's just the price for the cool accent.  :-D

 

Yes, yes I'm the bad insensitive guy. Boo hoo, I'll go whip myself in the corner now.

Next we'll discuss how many south africans can get 'african american' scholarships...

[Endie]

Not all Scots are white. Just saying. Indigenous peoples of Scotland, you say? Not rally a valid concept any time in recorded history.

Significant difference in mindset between us: to me, Scots are anyone who comes here and says they feel that they're Scottish.  Whatever colour, creed or place of origin.  And we all get to be the butt of the "you're mean" jokes.  It's just the price for the cool accent.  :-D

 

Yes, yes I'm the bad insensitive guy. Boo hoo, I'll go whip myself in the corner now.

a) There are some people on the Scottish political scene who would agree with you when you say "Scotts [sic] are white."  I spend a lot of time arguing with these people, and am involved in a couple of organisations to counter such bigotry.  If you say it without qualification then yes, I'm going to argue.  If you meant something more complex or subtle than that then I apologise for the misunderstanding.

b) If you play the aggressive identity politics card then you're always going to be vulnerable to that sort of riposte.  Yours was a cheap, low blow ("What would you know, honkey-ass Jocko?") and nobody involved in political debate over the past decade or two has survived without knowing how to counter that sort of thing.  I just happen to believe what I said.  I'd guess that, given a moment, you'd probably agree, too: nationality and statehood have nothing to do with blood or soil.

c) As an aside, your quoting makes it look as if I was somehow managing to argue with Righ, which of course was anything but the case.

[Ironwood]

OK.  I'm Scottish.  This Thread took a retarded turn somewhere.

Seriously, it seems that we on f13 will fight about ANYTHING these days.  Yes, I'm including myself in the list of stupid people.

We gotta stop it.

[Merusk]

Yes, Endie, I meant something completly different than a jab at Scotts, or that somehow there weren't any non-white Scotts.  It was a jab at the "omg you're white and a male, you should feel bad because of all this evil you've unleashed on the world" politics of the last 10-15 years.  See, it's ok to make fun of Scotts as drunks, because they're "white".  "White people are 'bad' so it's ok to mock and denigrate them."

Nothing I post in 'serious business' is ever completely serious.  It's at best a very, very dry or dark jab at something.  But of course now someone will come along and tell me that I'm wrong about the politics statement, blah blah blah.

It's a web board, stop taking it so seriously, have some joy, it's free.

[Endie]

Cool, but you should use more green if that's what you're doing.  My irony sensor is obviously only functioning at Utah levels.

And we're Scots.  Scotts are like him or even, God forbid, him.

[Ironwood]

Significant difference in mindset between us: to me, Scots are anyone who comes here and says they feel that they're Scottish.  Whatever colour, creed or place of origin.  And we all get to be the butt of the "you're mean" jokes.  It's just the price for the cool accent.  :-D

Of course, I disagree with this mightily, if I'm reading it right.

[Endie]

Of course, I disagree with this mightily, if I'm reading it right.

Come on.  Argue.  Fight about it.  You know you want to.  Give in to your aggression and your journey to the politics forum will be complete.

[Engels]

As someone who emigrated to the US during adolescense, I have some sense of what it takes to truely become 'nationalized' in a country you're not originally from. I think its all about the individual. Whereas I have clung to my European origins fiercely, despite having an American mother, I've met immigrants who shook off their old world heritage as quickly as they could and soon blended into American society far more succesfully than, I did, despite my mixed origin.

I've met Spanish immigrants to Germany who no longer speak a word of Spanish and have little to no sense of connection to Spain. On the other hand, just down the street from me in Seattle there are Chinese communities where folks live their whole lives within their cultural enclave and barely speak English.

[Ironwood]

Of course, I disagree with this mightily, if I'm reading it right.

Come on.  Argue.  Fight about it.  You know you want to.  Give in to your aggression and your journey to the politics forum will be complete.

I look at it like Prison :  If you haven't served your time here, you don't get to call yourself an ex-con.

[Johny Cee]

OK.  I'm Scottish.  This Thread took a retarded turn somewhere.

Seriously, it seems that we on f13 will fight about ANYTHING these days.  Yes, I'm including myself in the list of stupid people.

We gotta stop it.

You mean like this guy?

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=19901054