this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2024
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The potato joke is also a joke about a genocide, though.
Like "How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?"
"None"
seriously.
insert potato joke
"why is that funny?"
let them try to explain
"oh, I thought it was about he Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole."
see how awkward it can get.
Even worse, the famine was entirely caused by landlords and especially the English. It wasn't a natural disaster, but a product of monoculture that was forced on the people through no fault of their own.
It was caused by the government of England subsidizing the export of food from Ireland.
Initially, yes. And then when it went wrong? They doubled down on it because they WANTED people to be desperate.
That's when they ostracize you for being a killjoy and not appreciating their "humour"
That’s when they ostracize you for being a killjoy .
Fuck that toxic place, never liked any of those cocksuckers anyway.
As someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
Yep, basically this. To most non Irish people or those who haven't bothered to learn, its just a commonly socially acceptable racist joke.
My experience is that almost all of them are selfish hypocritical bullies, though I do seem to have just had astounding low quality people around me for much of my life. I have had a few genuinely nice neurotypical friends, but they're a small minority.
(I actually just think David Bowie had the right idea being afraid of Americans. We're boorish, ignorant cocksure, backstabbing assholes compared to everyone I've ever met or know from another country.)
The vast majority of neurotypicals I've known who constantly give me shit and often don't even realize they are doing so?
They either have nervous breakdowns or become physically violent when I dish back 10% of what they've thrown at me by simply explaining their own hypocrisy to them.
Doing so is funny to me because to me their hypocrisy is self-evident and thus they are just are absurd but it breaks the brains of people who seem to just say shit with very low self-awareness.
sure, it's an "accepted" racist joke, sucks when the turns have tabled.
This is true, (see my second to last paragraph) but ... that is not as widely known.
Most people just think 'Idk, Irish people like potatoes'.
Most people think it is just in the realm of dietary preferences and cuisine and don't know why.
Even though there is a fairly direct equivalence if you actually know the history of the stereotype, most people don't.
Thus you are perceived as overreacting if you jump right to genocide.
To attempt an analogy:
It's like if a boomer tells a millennial or gen z to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and they point out that the original meaning of that phrase was meant to encapsulate the literal physical impossibility of doing so as analogous to making a decent living for yourself in an economy where very very few people have the means/opportunity/connections/dumb luck to earn more than basically a subsistence wage.
The boomer just gets offended or bewildered because they didn't know that, or they don't believe it, and they're too arrogant to admit they have no real, useful advice, and that all they have to offer is infantilization.
Their ignorance (and inability to admit their knowledge is flawed) allows them to keep using an offensive phrase and not see this as offensive.
And yet, if you said something about black people and watermelon or fried chicken, or Chinese people and cats, you would immediately be treated like a racist, because you would be.
I laughed
Can you explain how the joke references “a genocide”?
Please learn about Irish history.
Is every use of the word “potato” a reference to famine in the 1800’s?
OK, so there's something called "context", which in this case is the person being questioned being Irish.
All Europeans eats potatoes so singling out the Irish in this way means you are referencing the famine.
There’s literally a dish called “Irish potatoes.”
Lol, oh you little trolls
the joke was in reference to the irish potato famine which was caused by the uk subsidising the export of food in ireland so potatoes were literally the only thing they were able to eat because the british would force them to hand over everything else
How does the joke reference that?
By using the concepts "potato" and "Irish"
The only reason those concepts are linked is because potato was the emergency food during the period during which England was trying to kill all Irish people
That’s an insane misapprehension of the potato famine
You, who needed an explanation on how a joke about Irish and potatoes was offensive, are an expert on the famine?
I don’t think you have to be an expert to know that the Irish Potato Famine wasn’t a situation where potato’s were all there were to eat. I think you just have to be someone who didn’t fail out in the 5th grade.
is every use of the word “yellow” racist? no but context matters
Sure; an important part of this context is that the Irish bombed more hospitals than the Israelis have