Culture, humor, homophobia.etc.

[glevy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I've been away for a while but it seems to me that the threads on culture
and homophobia can be connected. In practice, homophobic, racist, and/or
sexist remarks often take the form of "humor" in contemporary culture. It
is easier for people to acknowledge intellectually homophobia, racism and
sexism than it is for us to rid our language and discourse of such
remarks when they are presented as humor.

While I don't want to jump wholeheartedly on the PC bandwagon, we, as
Marxists, have to be aware of how the language that we use (including
humor) affects our ability to communicate and organize.

It also occurs to me that the depth of humor in US dominant culture is
rather shallow since it requires people to make insulting remarks against
social groups. Maybe we just have a rather humorless society.

Jerry


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