Class, No Class

[R. Richard]

A US Navy cruiser is anchored in Mississippi for a week's shore leave. The first evening, the ship's Captain receives the following note from the wife of a wealthy plantation owner:

"Dear Captain, Thursday will be my daughter Melinda's Debutante Ball. I would like you to send four well-mannered, handsome, unmarried officers in their formal dress uniforms to attend the dance. They should arrive promptly at 8:00 PM prepared for an evening of polite Southern conversation. They should be excellent dancers, as they will be the escorts of lovely refined young ladies. One last point: No Jews please."

Sending a written message by his own yeoman, the captain replies:

"Madam, thank you for your invitation.
In order to present the widest possible knowledge base for polite conversation, I am sending four of my best and most prized officers.
One is a lieutenant commander, and a graduate of Annapolis with an additional Masters degree from MIT in fluid technologies and ship ` design.
The second is a Lieutenant, one of our helicopter pilots, and a graduate of Northwestern University in Chicago , with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering. His Masters Degree and PhD in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering are from Texas Tech University and he's also an astronaut candidate.
The third officer is also a lieutenant, with degrees in both computer systems and information technology from SMU and he's awaiting notification on his Doctoral Dissertation from Cal Tech.
Finally, the fourth officer, another lieutenant commander, is our ship’s doctor, with an undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia and his medical degree is from the University of North Carolina . We are very proud of him, as he's also a senior fellow in Trauma Surgery at Bethesda."

Upon receiving this letter, Melinda’s mother is quite excited and looked forward to Thursday with pleasure. Her daughter would be escorted to the social event of the season by four handsome naval officers without peer (and the other women in her social circle would be insanely jealous).

At precisely 8:00 PM on Thursday, Melinda's mother hears a polite rap at the door which she opened to find, in full dress uniform, four handsome, smiling Navy officers, all with black faces.

The lady's mouth falls open, but pulling herself together, she stammeres, "There must be some mistake."

"No, Madam," says the first officer. "Captain GOLDSTEIN never makes mistakes."

 

[Stella_Omega]

Oooh, a liberal joke! HAHAHAHA!

Here's another;

Q: What do you call a black man flying a jet?
A: The pilot!

 

[talismania]

Oh my gosh, this is so funny!

Hoist on her own petard and all that. I just love a good back at ya joke.

 

[McKenna]

Ha! Nice!

 

[stephen55]

An airline pilot is flying with a new co-pilot. The pilot is edgy, irritable and muttering to himself. The co-pilot asks, "What's wrong?"

P: I don't like you.

CP: Why?

P: You're Chinese.

CP: So what?

P: The Chinese attacked Pearl Harbor.

CP: That wasn't the Chinese. That was the Japanese.

P: Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese...all the same to me.

A few hours go by with no conversation, but the co-pilot is getting more and more edgy, irritable and is muttering to himself. The pilot asks, "What's wrong?"

CP: I don't like you.

P: Why not?

CP: You're Jewish.

P: So what?

CP: The Jews sank the Titanic.

P: The Jews didn't sink the Titanic. It ran into an iceberg.

CP: Iceberg, Steinberg, Goldberg...all the same to me.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Wow, there aren't very many redneck ignorant Jews around. That pilot was a rare one.

 

[R. Richard]

Prejudice against a group is stupid and. in some cases, illegal.

The woman, in the story, was prejudiced against a group, actually two groups.

The ship Captain, in the story, used the woman's prejudice against another group to illustrate the stupidity of said prejudice. A simple, but effective lesson.

 

[Stella_Omega]

You think the lesson worked? A single confrontation balanced against a lifetime of ingrained racism and class privilege...

Oh, it must have. Otherwise, why tell the joke?

 

[sr71plt]

You think the lesson worked? A single confrontation balanced against a lifetime of ingrained racism and class privilege...

Oh, it must have. Otherwise, why tell the joke?

Naw, I'm sure the stereotyped plantation matron merely did with fewer escorts at the ball (and deepend her stereotyped impressison of smartaleck Jews).

Good joke. Could have been shortened in the middle, though, to maintain the pace and rhythm.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I notice that it allows the hearer to disassociate with their own racism;
"I wasn't expecting white men at the door by default, unlike that dumb rich broad," and possibly pick up the lesson by proxy. We should be so lucky.

The second joke, mine sounds a bit... bitter. Oh, darn, so sue me. The third assumes that Jewish families raise ignoramuses who don't know the difference between Chinese and Japanese, which suggests that some dumbass redneck wrote the joke. Ignorance, in the Jewish tradition, is far more offensive, even, than being gay, my friends. Any Jewish mother would welcome her child's same sex spouse if they were a doctor or lawyer.

 

[sr71plt]

I take this joke pretty much like I sometimes wish Moby Dick would be taken, as in "maybe it's just a whale." I see the joke as a surface zinger on prejudice in general. I don't really need to have it disected.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I take this joke pretty much like I sometimes wish Moby Dick would be taken, as in "maybe it's just a whale." I see the joke as a surface zinger on prejudice in general. I don't really need to have it disected.

I'm laughing at R.Richards oh-so-unnecessary explanation, actually. I forgot the sarcasm smilies.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm laughing at R.Richards oh-so-unnecessary explanation, actually. I forgot the sarcasm smilies.

Ah, yes, I did get that. I made a similar comment to his entry on another thread where he assumed we all missed the obvious merely because no one posted the obvious.