Post #92118 by AquaZombie on Thu, May 20, 2004 11:52 AM

I am not going to apologize or explain anything again - in deference to Martiki's wishes, and also because I have nothing to defend, since I know I am not a racist and do not feel the need to prove that to anyone - but I find it odd no one took note of the fact that in the quote, which I included to illustrate the difficulty in explaining our Tiki thing to "outsiders," the Asian lady said to MY ruddy face, without blinking, "I didn't know white people had their own culture," and my reponse, without flinching, was a simple joke we both laughed at. I didn't feel the urge to launch into a tirade defending Andy Griffith. Then she realized that a convention celebrating Polynesia by non-Polynesians was never meant to be taken that seriously anyway.Most of the music I love is Lounge which is "whiter" than Liberace's teeth, for God's sake.

I was going to respond snidely by saying "Hey, I couldn't replace the world 'white' with Mexican or Filipino in that sentence, because they HAVE a culture!" But I won't.
Might hit some thin skinnned folks the wrong way.

This reminds me of the "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry's dentist converts to Judism and starts making all these Jewish cracks to him as well as Catholic jokes, since he feels he's entitled to make 'em now that he is a Jewish ex-Catholic. Jerry takes his grief to a priest:

Jerry: "I think he converted strictly for the Jewish jokes!"

Priest: "And this offends you as a Jewish person?"

Jerry: "No! It offends me as a comedian!"

Then Kramer accuses Jerry of being a "rabid anti-dentite":

Kramer: "Next you'll be saying they (dentists) should have their own schools!"

Jerry: "But they DO have their own schools!"

As a white person (by birth, not conversion) I reserve the right to poke fun at my own people sometimes, and God knows, they deserve it. Most faces on American TV and movies are White, (and sadly, their shows suck, too), so I don't see how anyone would think I somehow missed the fact we dominate the Culture, therefore my "joke" was an ironic riff on this fact (and also the fact that a lot of the stuff we dig is derived from other cultures, but so what, I promote the mingling of cultures - it's the eventual way to World Peace. Jeez, I married a Mexican-Navajo, isn't that "pennance" enough?). I just won't make fun of us whiteys around here again because it is never my intention to offend anyone, ever. That is not how I get my kicks.

I never said I was leaving the board, by the way, just this tired topic. Aloha.