Acceptable?

Andrea Burns post 8

A major concent of our discussions this week was the usage of specific words for members inside and out of the race it's about. While many agree that members of the race it names can use these terms, I pose a question regarding certain circumstances. It is considered okay for members of a race to joke about hardships they've gone through in the past? The example I have in mind is a black guy I went to high school with (my ex-boyfriend actually) wearing a shirt saying "Just another cotton picking day." Personally when I saw it, my reaction was along the lines of what the hell. Maybe since I'm outside of the race my opinion will vary, but I think that was wrong of him to wear. Granted, he was black so it couldn't be said that the shirt was racist. Actually, if I remember correctly he was allowed to wear the shirt for quite awhile, despite it clearly being against the school dress code. Yet even though he was black, I really don't think it was okay of him to wear. Actually the shirt shouldn't be sold to begin with. To me, it was him making a mockery of a terrible situation that his ancestors had gone through. Should he be allowed to mock it though since they were his ancestors? In my eyes, it would be a similar, less extreme version if a Jewish person were to mock the Holocaust. While his shirt was making light of a negative situation, I feel that it is one situation that shouldn't be made light of. The Civil Rights Movement worked hard to bring equality to African Americans. A shirt such as that almost backtracks it.