what do u call a muslim standing in the middle of the road?
An oppotunity
I'm embarassed to confess there was a time in my life, when I was much younger, that I might have found this joke funny. Thankfully I've outgrown it.
Here in the U.S. one could do a cut/paste on the word muslim and insert any of the following: black, pollock, Jew, etc. I'm embarassed to even write them, and I won't go on. A frighteningly large number of people might also write in: fag, homosexual, lesbian, cross dresser,
transgender. Indeed any of the GLBTQ alphabet soup.
The point is, the joke is only funny if said from an us/them point of view where "us" implies Right Thinking, Worthwhile, Respectable, and "them" can imply anyone else the "us" find offensive (or even different). As a transgender woman, I cannot take offense if someone makes that joke about me (and all who read this in the public forum) if I laugh at a muslim.
The second reason I object is that thus far in my journey the person who has been most accepting, most encouraging, most human, is my Jordanian, Moslim, primary care doctor. He is, by any measure, a remarkable person. And because we (perhaps more so than most) should always care when someone makes of joke about "them".
From Dr. Becky's site:
When they came for the Communists, I did not stand up, because I was not a Communist. When they came for the Jews, I did not stand up, because I was not Jewish. When they came for the Catholics, I did not stand up, because I was not a Catholic. When they came for me, there was no one left to stand up.
Martin Niemoller