Originally Posted by
upthemaggies
"it's just a joke" was more often than not used as a defence for all sorts of race humour back in the days when self-deprecation and taking the pee out of one another was an integral part of British working class culture.
Maybe there's a case to be made - if anybody is ever brave enough to do it - that 60s/70s humour did actually serve as a pressure release (including for early Black, Asian and Irish comedians) without which you might have seen an awful lot more violence and general unpleasantness at a time when people were still trying to make sense of a brand new situation, but for that to be the case today it can't only flow in one direction. Either we have a free for all or we decide that the targeting of immutable features is a term of abuse without exception.
If it's not acceptable for black people to call other black people "coconuts", "Uncle Tom" or "white supremacy in black face", then "Gammon" is not acceptable either.
I'm not trying to place myself on a pedestal here, Jerry Sadowitz is one of my favourite comedians of all time and he is probably the most offensive human being that's ever taken to a stage (makes Bernard Manning seem like somebody you'd have hired for a slot on Junior Showtime). I just think the world would be a much better place if people were more troubled and offended by physical violence and actual crime instead of caring so much about words, but it's far far easier for every poilce officer, keyboard warrior and his dog to deal with the latter.
The risk/reward ratio for tackling words rather than violence is now ruining us as a society.