Ryan ChartrandHello Mustang Daily reader, Sean Michetti and Lee Barats here. This year’s humor column will feature the two of us debating on the tough issues that matter to you most, from historical figures to the parking enforcer who just ruined your day. So pick a side, debate with your friends, and then get new friends that think the way you do. You’ll have a better year.
Sean: Hey Gutenberg! If you think you can invent the printing press and then be immune to criticism, you’re dead wrong. Your kerning was closer than the Olsen twins, while your leading had more gaps than Michael Strahan’s teeth.
Lee: Gutenberg invented a machine that revolutionized Western culture. How can you be so picky?
Sean: Gutenberg rode the fame of inventing the printing press, but is rarely held responsible for putting thousands of scribes out of business, therefore leading to the Black Plague.
Lee: The only thing you’ve ever invented, Sean, I’ve had to flush for you. And if I didn’t, there would likely be a miniature plague of our own around the house. I don’t see how you get off demeaning a noted historical figure, when you can’t even wipe yourself; I’ve seen those empty bowls.
Sean: Point taken. But I’ve seen you in the gym, Lee, and you can’t even curl a girl’s hair.
Lee: Sick burn. Where’d you get that joke off of, a Popsicle stick? I wonder how that joke got on that stick. Oh yeah, Gutenberg – he’s a freaking genius. You can’t even print your own jokes, and then you have to turn around and make fun of the guy who can.
Sean: As I was saying, Gutenberg’s bibles weighed in at more than 50 pounds. That means school children across the land were illiterate, for they couldn’t carry their weighty books to school. Are you willing to support the man who created child labor, because without school, these children were forced to be chimney sweeps and work in factories that would eventually be owned by Nike and Gap?
Lee: You’re retarded.
Sean: You shouldn’t use “retarded” as a negative insult; it’s a serious condition that doesn’t need to be used as a stereotype, you money-grubbing, war-mongering, white, Christian conservative. I’ll bet you love oppressing minorities, dictating women’s birth control methods, and hosing down gay pride parades.
Lee: Do you see how accurately you’ve just described me as a person? That’s the magic of stereotypes; someone can know exactly what a person is like without even meeting them. Now that’s cultural integration.
Sean: Sure it’s easy, but that takes the fun out of being diverse. I mean, I’d rather give you the benefit of the doubt for being a good person, instead of just hating you from the get-go. Your stereotype limits communication.
Lee: Takes the fun out of being diverse? What’s the point in being diverse if we can’t treat people differently? If we treat everyone alike, we might as well be the same race, sex, and creed. Sure my stereotype limits communication; it eliminates meaningless small talk that “helps you get to know someone.” If I wanted to get to know someone, I’d go down to a retirement home and talk to a war vet. But I don’t want to do that because they’re probably too busy pooping their diapers.
Sean: Lee, my God, that was such an evil remark. Don’t you realize that you are being controlled by the dominant culture? Our culture views old people as senile and deadweights. Your brain has a harmful selective process; you instantly categorize people you’ve never met. Don’t you see the evil in that?
Lee: Yes. But that evil is trumped by the evil of everyone who is different from me.
Sean: You’re just mad because you can’t dance as well as a black man, can’t do calculus as well as an Asian guy, and you don’t have the fashion sense of a gay man.
Lee: Well that’s true.
Sean: You aren’t as rich as a Jew, you can’t cook like a woman, you don’t love mother earth like the noble Apache, you can’t take your vodka like a Russian, you don’t have a butt like a Brazilian, you can’t carry your basket on your head like an African, you aren’t as funny as a midget, you don’t have the upper body strength of a guy in a wheelchair, and you’re not as hopeful as an orphan.
Lee: Teach me.
Sean: No. Let’s go barbecue and get drunk in wife-beaters like a Texan.
Lee: Yeeeeeee-doggie!