Groups It’s OK To Make Fun Of
This article was originally posted in 2010 on an earlier version of the Daisybrain blog. Does it holed up? Are things any better now? Worse? I invite comments.
In the year 2010, in the United States, it’s acceptable to make fun of some groups of people. To find out which groups, you only need to turn on a children’s TV station, such as Nickelodeon, or wait until Halloween and see how people dress up. In fact, you, dear reader, may occasionally be promoting some cultural stereotypes without the slightest awareness that you are hurting anyone. I certainly don’t blame you, since some of the most wonderfully open minded people I know engage in this behavior. This post is an opportunity for you to contemplate cultural stereotypes that might at first seem like innocent fun, without being confronted directly. What you take from it is up to you, of course, but I hope that you realize that my feelings are genuine; these things bother me and they may upset other people who generally remain silent about them in public.
Mexicans
It’s pretty common for non-Mexican men to put on big sombreros and fake mustaches, and perhaps wear a shawl, called a sarape. There may not seem to be any harm in this to most people, but to me it’s akin to White people wearing black face makeup.
