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Santa Banta and Trump..!

By Robert Clements. Dated: 4/26/2016 11:31:11 PM

It is with a sense of sadness I write today's column: Can't we crack jokes without making fun of a community? Many years back as I grew up, I used to hear a number of 'Pat' jokes. Pat I remember was a fictitious Irish boy, who supposedly did stupid things and so jokes were made up about him. For many years because of those jokes I thought the Irish were stupid people till I met many Irishmen and discovered they were anything but stupid.
But the jokes made them out to be stupid, obviously made up by their seemingly dignified and seemingly intelligent English neighbours! The Englishman made the same jokes about his Scottish neighbours too, jokes about how stingy they were; cruel jokes that had everybody but the Scot in the room laughing. I also thought they were stingy till I met Scotsmen and realised they were careful, but not stingy!
It's usually the big bully who makes fun about a smaller person. It's usually the majority in a room who make fun of a minority in the same room! The Englishman in London knew he had numbers with him, as he made such jokes in his local pub, and would not have dared do so in an Ireland or Scotland bar.
So with Trump!
So easy for Mr Trump, to make fun of our Indian accents as he sits in New York or Washington! He would never dare do so in India!
Most bullies are cowards inside! When incapable of producing good humour; when they can't hold people with intelligence they resort to cheap jokes, poking fun at somebody who can't hit back, and such jokes always gets a laugh.
Sadly the people who laugh are people like us. We laugh, quite often unknowingly! We laugh without thinking!
Start thinking from today! Especially now as the world gets more and more sensitive to any kind of statement, we need to also become sensitive to what we say or laugh at.
All we need to ask ourselves is, "If this joke was about me or my community, would I get offended or not?" Put yourself in the shoes of the victim, then have the courage to stop such wisecracks!
I feel sad as my Punjabi friends had to react to this new film being screened. What was the necessity of putting them through the nightmare and ordeal of protesting in public? Instead couldn't the people behind the movie been more thoughtful? I hear the movie is a big bore! Is that why they gave it that name? Because they couldn't make the script funny?
Let us teach our children, our friends, our neighbours how jokes can be funny without crude digs at communities and people!
We have a growing bully in America, we don't need any in India..!
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