Is making fun of someone's pronounciation racist?

[almostwitty]

A work blogger I respect recently made a joke about their local Chinese takeaway mixing their Ls and their Rs when making a mythical dish. The in-house work magazine recently pointed out a menu slip-up meaning that a dish was described as "Lice" instead of rice, not noting that the two letters are very very far apart on the keyboard.

Naturally, that's immediately raised my hackles and slightly offended me, but I can't decide if it's racist or not. On one hand, people do impersonations of Polish or Birmingham accents all the time. On the other hand, said jokes wouldn't work if you were attributing them to a Turkish takeaway.

Then again, my native-Chinese mandarin teacher habitually mixes up her Ls and her Rs, which rather rankles with me internally. Oh, and the cartoon illustrations in the textbook she uses helpfully distinguish Chinese people by giving them slanted eyes.

*sigh* Oh it's so confusing. But I definitely feel a whiff of genuine offence.

Comments

[sioneva.livejournal.com]

I think it's definitely racist...but I will readily admit to thinking that Kim Jong Il singing "I'm so Ronery" in "Team America: World Police" was hilarious.

Then again, they were spoofing EVERYONE in that movie.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

I think that racist =/= bad. Making jokes about the way some people speak is not inherently bad, as long as you have actual respect for people of that race.

I'd rather hear a hundred guys make gay jokes or black jokes or chinese jokes than see one person terrorize or worse yet hurt one of those people.

I can make a black joke or a gay joke, sure. Especially if they're funny, but sometimes if they're not. but that's not the same as hating people of that race. Hell, my friend steve (gay, jewish, furry) is the butt of every joke we have and he makes most of those jokes. but we love him dearly and the jokes don't mean we think less of him. In fact, that we make them (especially with him around) proves, to me at least, that we DO like him. I fully expect people that I like and respect to be able to take jokes made at their expense often and loudly. I certainly can. It's a mark of strong character and self worth, IMO.

[almostwitty]

I think it's absolutely poking fun at an individual/group's personal characteristics eg being a queen, loving fried chicken etc., as long as they're laughing along.

I mean, I'll joke along with anyone about the Asian propensity to take pictures of *anything*, to eat rice with *everything*, to be geeky, love calculators or whatever. But for some reason, the accent thing really annoys me - mostly because I don't have that problem.

oooooh it's complicated.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

I guess i can see that. Is it the accent in general, or is it when it's misplaced? I would never, for example, make fun of you using the accent thing, because you lack it (unless we were talking about how you can't say aluminum or elevator properly), but would it be as bad on someone who actually has an accent (my old TKD instructor used to get it from us bad on that end, but in all fairness I think he faked half his accent).

[almostwitty]

The way I see it, I'd no more make fun of someone mixing their Ls and their Rs than someone who was stuttering. Neither of them can help it.

Then again, I will attempt to do a terrible American accent at the drop of a hat. Fortunately, the joke's often on me just because my impersonation is so terrible.

[brenda-k-a.livejournal.com]

A Chinese (but not Chinese owned) place here caught so much hell for the fact that their menu was completely littered with those kinds of jokes that they caved and made new menus. Personally, I was glad to see them shamed into changing it. It's high time we got past the need to poke fun at everyone different from us.