Report the Israeli to HR for the potato joke before anyone reports you. Also mention everyone else and say that they were all laughing and pointing at you.
Go ahead and warm that resume up too lol
Resume? I’d have a lawyer on the phone. No money for a lawyer? Kill your boss and then yourself, fuck reality.
Everything ok at home man?
Actual autist here: Took me a loooong time to figure out a whole bunch of social concepts when it comes to what neurotypicals basically deem as small talk.
Firstly, you basically just have to accept that for most people, a level of classist, racist, other kinds of stereotypical insults are socially viewed as basically acceptable, even though its usually quite obvious they are, in fact, insults.
Then you have to understand the concept of proportionality in small talk. You have to reply with something that’s very obviously and directly relevant, and of the same magnitude.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
Encapsulating this entire social interaction is the setting: coworkers of mixed nationality likely and an after work dinner likely implies an expectation of basically corporate social etiquette, ie, back handed compliments to establish a social dominance hierarchy, where the name of the game us getting as close to breaching the invisible ‘wow what an asshole’ line without actually stepping over it.
To avoid looking meek, docile, awkward or antisocial, you have to figure out an appropriate small talk style reply, which actually requires a fairly detailed knowledge of the other persons you are conversing with. Their culture, personal history, personal beliefs, etc.
If you don’t do this at least semi-regularly, then you are a pushover who will be given higher workloads with no extra compensation and likely will not advance very far in your career, as you seem to be fine where you are.
So ok, if you know a bit about Israelis, you might attempt to insult back along the lines of dietary preferences.
But, its a faux pas to escalate even within this realm of responses: If you retort that you ‘prefer your potatoes with pork’, well, that’s probably going to be viewed as quite rude, as that’s still a higher magnitude, as it references something that is commonly known to be forbidden to most Israelis.
What might be a proportional response would be ‘Sorry, I’d make them (the potatoes) into latkes for you, but I don’t have any eggs’.
But that may still be deemed as overly offensive, depending on the temperament of the Israeli and the level to which the other coworkers feel the need to be defensive toward perceived anti-semitism.
So, as an autistic person, you have to consciously have all this knowledge and think through it all logically in real time, all while your actual emotion is anger because you don’t give a fuck that the potato comment was supposed to be a joke, because it was in actuality a racist insult that actually references a fucking famine and a dietary stereotype that exists largely due to imperialist exploitation of your ancestors.
In summary, yeah small talk is an absolute nightmare for autistic people who are in an aggressive, hostile social environment, which, at least in my experience, is almost all of them.
(Jumping from an insult about dietary preferences to an insult about war crimes is not the same magnitude)
The potato joke is also a joke about a genocide, though.
Like “How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?”
“None”seriously.
insert potato joke
“why is that funny?”
let them try to explain
“oh, I thought it was about he Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole.”
see how awkward it can get.
Even worse, the famine was entirely caused by landlords and especially the English. It wasn’t a natural disaster, but a product of monoculture that was forced on the people through no fault of their own.
It was caused by the government of England subsidizing the export of food from Ireland.
This is true, (see my second to last paragraph) but … that is not as widely known.
Most people just think ‘Idk, Irish people like potatoes’.
Most people think it is just in the realm of dietary preferences and cuisine and don’t know why.
Even though there is a fairly direct equivalence if you actually know the history of the stereotype, most people don’t.
Thus you are perceived as overreacting if you jump right to genocide.
To attempt an analogy:
It’s like if a boomer tells a millennial or gen z to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and they point out that the original meaning of that phrase was meant to encapsulate the literal physical impossibility of doing so as analogous to making a decent living for yourself in an economy where very very few people have the means/opportunity/connections/dumb luck to earn more than basically a subsistence wage.
The boomer just gets offended or bewildered because they didn’t know that, or they don’t believe it, and they’re too arrogant to admit they have no real, useful advice, and that all they have to offer is infantilization.
Their ignorance (and inability to admit their knowledge is flawed) allows them to keep using an offensive phrase and not see this as offensive.
I laughed
As someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event
Yep, basically this. To most non Irish people or those who haven’t bothered to learn, its just a commonly socially acceptable racist joke.
Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.
My experience is that almost all of them are selfish hypocritical bullies, though I do seem to have just had astounding low quality people around me for much of my life. I have had a few genuinely nice neurotypical friends, but they’re a small minority.
(I actually just think David Bowie had the right idea being afraid of Americans. We’re boorish, ignorant cocksure, backstabbing assholes compared to everyone I’ve ever met or know from another country.)
The vast majority of neurotypicals I’ve known who constantly give me shit and often don’t even realize they are doing so?
They either have nervous breakdowns or become physically violent when I dish back 10% of what they’ve thrown at me by simply explaining their own hypocrisy to them.
Doing so is funny to me because to me their hypocrisy is self-evident and thus they are just are absurd but it breaks the brains of people who seem to just say shit with very low self-awareness.
sure, it’s an “accepted” racist joke, sucks when the turns have tabled.
Can you explain how the joke references “a genocide”?
Please learn about Irish history.
Is every use of the word “potato” a reference to famine in the 1800’s?
is every use of the word “yellow” racist? no but context matters
Sure; an important part of this context is that the Irish bombed more hospitals than the Israelis have
I’m autistic and I’ve learned to stop trying to play this game. Instead, I just make assholes like this explain their sideways ass comments in a straightforward fashion for the group. Forcing people to explain bigoted comments and not allowing the subject to change has now made everyone uncomfortable. Not so fucking funny anymore. I usually don’t have to do this more than once or twice within a specific group.
“Well, you know, Irish cuisine has a lot of potatoes in it.”
Joke fucking explained. How do you figure the guy’s going to be on the spot, exactly?
“Does it? What’s a good dish to try?”
Corned beef hash? Colcannon? Literal Irish potatoes?
Well played, though I doubt some Israeli making genocide jokes is going to be that familiar with Irish cuisine.
Everybody knows about Irish food, just like everybody’s heard of hummus
… Hummus is a popular staple of cuisine all over the eastern mediterranean and much of the middle east.
The word ‘hummus’ itself is from Arabic.
Hummus is not particularly unique to Israel.
You’ve apparently heard of hummus but you don’t know much about it.
Not necessarily, and if they have, they might not know the ingredients. Even hummus, many people don’t know what it is made from. If someone is making a joke about genocide and forced to quickly switch gears to a culinary discussion, I doubt they’d play it off so well. They might, but I doubt it.
“I guess I don’t know. Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” With a look on his face that clearly shows confusion at why you spent two whole responses about something as insignificant (in his mind) as potatoes. Everyone else probably has similar looks.
For small talk like that you get one response on the topic. If someone said I should order potatoes because I’m Irish I’d lean so far into it, adapt an obvious accent, and say “Oh I do loove me potatoes.” If I wanted to backhand him a little I’d tack on “Except during the famine when there were no potatoes. Those were daark days” to the first statement. There’s enough humor in the accent to cover the callout mass starvation he probably unwittingly referenced.
“shouldn’t you be bombing hospitals” is better.
I guess you never heard of the potato famine then, which was a type of genocide visited upon the Irish by the British. Hence the 'sudden’jump from potatoes to bombing hospitals.
That’s the source of potato jokes people crack about the Irish.
I’ve heard of it. It happened in the 1800’s on another continent. Can you explain what it has to do with eating potatoes?
It is the link between irish people and potatoes.
The joke wasn’t about potatoes it was about the link between irish people and potatoes.
Irish cuisine has a lot of potato dishes. Because they were cultivating potatoes.
Because the british bought all out their food sources, subjecting them to a famine where they had to grow potatoes to survive.
I also stopped playing ‘the game’ long ago and no longer put up with shitty people, but I can only do that because I’m on SSDI and don’t have to interact with people in an employment setting.
Anon here is learning the hard way that basically, to advance in almost any modern, monetarily lucrative career, and most non lucrative ones, welp, you have to play this stupid social jockeying game because that is subconsciously how most others determine your worth as an employee, as a coworker.
You can do the ‘explain why thats funny’ angle, but that just makes … you look like an asshole, a killjoy … to the people whose jobs are their lives, their selves.
SSDI?
Google says social security disability insurance
It has been working for me, and I’ve been getting promoted. I also tell the truth to executive leadership against advice. I just don’t have the bandwidth to fully mask and complete the job I’m paid to do. I mask the essentials, but I’m not playing games. We have work to do.
Well damn, I am genuinely shocked that is working for you, but also very glad to hear that at least its working out well for you!
I had a job like that once.
Also autistic here. Let’s say you reply with “So why is that funny” and that person or a third person says “Don’t be so sensetive”. What’s the best way to force the explanation?
“Im not trying to be overly sensitive i genuinely just dont get the joke. Explain it to me. Make it funny.”
Violence.
“I’m sorry, please carry on with your racist jokes”
No need for sarcasm, deadpan works fine
Also autistic here, I feel calling people out works pretty well for me. No need for extended knowledge except about your own culture, just point out the offensive part and make them regret.
Example: “Are you referencing the Irish potato famine?”
It forces the person to either back out or admit that it was offensive. Third option could be “Don’t be so sensetive, it was a joke”. Then you can say that you don’t mind jokes but that you found that one offensive.
With knowledge about the person’s culture you can always use it for a counter-attack with “I thought that Israelis would know that some jokes are off limits”.
Most people are not aware, but potatoes are a reference to a holodomor-like government-induced famine that occurred in Ireland when the government of England made a policy of paying far over market rate for people to ship food out of Ireland.
This weakened the Irish food market, leading to a situation where many people subsisted on the one crop that they could grow on their own property (as collective farm output was put on ships to elsewhere), which was potatoes.
In that brittle situation, a fungus called a potato blight caused many people to starve to death because they were down to one last food source after the English mucking about.
It didn’t happen in a time of war so it wasn’t a war crime, but what the English government did to the Irish people was definitely genocidal.
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Honest question: Are neurodivergents functionally a protected class from discrimination in the US, the way religion, race, sexuality, gender are?
The only even theorerical backing for that I can think of is the ADA, and I have never once heard of it or any other law being actually used by a neurodivergent against discrimination.
Functionally? No. Legally? Yes.
When I’m applying for jobs, I do check the box that says disabled, because according to the US gov’t, developmental disorders like autism spectrum disorder are considered disabilities. (Probably ADHD also, but that evaluation isn’t complete yet.) OTOH, it’s unlikely to help if i am subjected to some kind of workplace discipline that’s the direct result of being on the autism spectrum, or if I fuck something up because i have severe ADHD. The kind of accommodations that they would need to make are… Pretty limited, TBH.
That’s not “a nightmare for autistic people”. He had every right to be angry about a famine and this was all just “submit to my authority” bullshit. I don’t care who you are descended from, that is not logical nor fair nor reasonable in any social setting. I literally would have just decked him in the face and stormed out because that’s the only scenario where OP is making it clear that authority does not equal privilege. Respect your employees.
He had every right to be angry about a famine
A famine in 1845? Caused by Irish reliance on monocrop agriculture?
Why would any living person in 2024 have a right to be “angry” about a joke that barely refers to it?
A famine in 1845 that was caused by…
“As someone who lived 5 years in ireland and saw the history its absolutely fucking horrible. If you think about it its kinda ironic. Uk occupies a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. Israel is occupying a country, controls everything there and commits a genocide. By the way as a neurotypical who has autistic family members and friends, in this case what happened is that the irish potato famine got normalized over time but the genocide in gaza is a current event. Also the israel one is political. Third thing is most neurotypicals are pussies, if you spend time with neurodivergent people you realize that a lot of things they say are funny as fuck, even if its a bit raw sometimes.”
That was by Altoothbrush in this topic, if you didn’t see it.
I’m not Irish, nor do have an issue with Israelis. This whole issue just reeks of “casual dismissiveness” and I’m autistic myself so this hurts deep.
One thing specifically about Irish vs Israeli is that, if I’m not mistaken, Ireland and Israel are not on remotely good terms and haven’t been for a while. If the Israeli was a natural-born Israeli citizen they may have truly meant to piss Anon off.
Fuck, I’d actually forgotten that. You could be right.
I bid that non autistic people be named and categorized in a way that highlights their subtly hostile, backstabbing, cruel nature. You know, the common household “psychopath” who doesn’t actually meet the requirements for real psychopathy, but is still pathologically a dickish cynic playing a social game for minor wins in wealth and status, instead of simply being a friendly and polite contributor to society.
They named us.
Maybe we should name them.
Describe the traits that define them. Go into detail about what exactly is so wrong with them. Why they
killrally for warmongers. Why they sabotage eachother. Why they face obvious long term problems with such oblivious nonchalance.instead of simply being a friendly and polite contributor to society.
Do you think allistic people are inherently incapable of doing this earnestly?
I propose we start Zionism for Autists.
I’m sure that’ll go well rofl.
Words aren’t bad in and of themselves, usually. For one, “psychopath” freely translates to “suffering soul” but you could also do “mind in disease”. Neither sound too insulting, per se, do they?
You’ll alway have euphemisms and if there’s a difference that can be noted, then usually the people’s who differ from the norm will be called something “bad”.
Take left-handed people. Sinister. That’s where the word comes from. “Sinister” as in the Latin word for “left”.
Then we’ll just end up on the
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
Why care about what words someone uses if you know you have better ones yourself? It’s the intent behind the words that most often matters. To neurotypicals, anyway.
“Remember when a colonizing power tried to exterminate your people?”
Haw haw.
Though seriously most Americans think the potato famine was a natural disaster and have no idea why it is called the great hunger.
During the American War of Independence the reins were loosened a little. Further concessions had to be granted during the French Revolution. Ireland rose so quickly that her people threatened to outstrip the English. The English government drove them to rebellion and achieved the Union [390] by bribery. The Union delivered the death blow to reviving Irish industry. On one occasion Meagher said: all Irish branches of industry have been destroyed, all we have been left is the making of coffins. It became a vital necessity to have land; the big landowners leased their lands to speculators; land passed through four or five lease stages before it reached the peasant, and this made prices disproportionately high. The agrarian population lived on potatoes and water; wheat and meat were sent to England; the rent was eaten up in London, Paris and Florence. In 1836, £7,000,000 was sent abroad to absent landowners. Fertilisers were exported with the produce and rent, and the soil was exhausted. Famine often set in here and there, and owing to the potato blight there was a general famine in 1846. A million people starved to death. The potato blight resulted from the exhaustion of the soil, it was a product of English rule.
Through the repeal of the Corn Laws Ireland lost her monopoly position on the English market, the old rent could no longer be paid. High prices of meat and the bankruptcy of the remaining small landowners further contributed to the eviction of the small peasants and the transformation of their land into sheep pastures. Over half a million acres of arable land have not been tilled since 1860. The yield per acre has dropped: oats by 16 per cent, flax by 36 per cent, potatoes by 50 per cent. At present only oats are cultivated for the English market, and wheat is imported.
With the exhaustion of the soil, the population has deteriorated physically. There has been an absolute increase in the number of lame, blind, deaf and dumb, and insane in the decreasing population.
Over 1,100,000 people have been replaced by 9,600,000 sheep. This is a thing unheard of in Europe. The Russians replace evicted Poles with Russians, not with sheep. Only under the Mongols in China was there once a discussion whether towns should be destroyed to make room for sheep.
– International Workingmen’s Association 1867 Record of Speech by Karl Marx
Racism was the cause.
It was colonialism and the primitive accumulation stage of capitalism, but racism often runs in the same circles
honestly I just read it as Irish people liking potatoes, similar to the stereotype that Germans like sauerkraut
Irish people were forced to eat potatoes because they were subjugated by british lords who took everything else they farmed. When the potato “famine” happened, they were actually still producing plenty of other food, just that the British lords didnt care and still forced them to hand it over.
Admittedly this is the extent of my knowledge on the situation, so you should look it up yourself if you want to know more.
The “Joke” at the irish guy in the greentext is actually pretty insensitive and rude, much moreso than asking a german why he didnt order sauerkraut.
Potatoes aren’t even native to Ireland.
Yeah about a million Irish died and a million emigrated.
Ireland lost a quarter of it’s population.
If the story wasn’t gake and fay, and if that joke about bombing hospitals gets someone into trouble, then the potato joke definitely should as well.
Insult someone, get insulted back with a good burn and threaded to go to HR. Loads of adults in that room
I would have spat my drink out laughing.
Fuck them all if they deal it out but can’t take it.
That’s the their entire MO…
Israelis are fuxking idiots if they think anyone is going to suffer them going forward.
No quarter for genocide enablers.
One thing I learnt in Ireland is you better have a thick skin because no quarter is given when it comes to slagging and taking the piss. And the more you take yourself seriously and the more they will gang up until you learn to shut the fuck up. Absolutely love it.
That is some savage shit. If Eminem were at the table, he would have taken notes.
Edit: I mean, yeah, he did go overboard, but that Israeli guy started it with the stupid ass potato joke. That shit was (1) uncalled for and (2) played out. If the Israeli guy goes to HR, they need to reprimand his ass, too, for trying to being offensive and sucking at it. At least my man here knows how to strike. You want him on your team.
The potato joke is also a joke about a genocide.
Oh, then what’s the problem?
The Irish genocide is far enough in the past to have become sort of “folklore”.
No one who experienced it is still alive or in living memory.
That makes it better suited for small talk, and not equivalent to the Israeli genocide.By that logic we’ll be allowed to laugh about Jews and ovens in about 60 years, right?
I don’t know what you mean by “allowed”, AFAIK there is no western country (not even Germany) where it would be illegal. I don’t know the law in Israel.
My friends and me made lots of those jokes 30 years ago.
Not proud of it at all, but we were edgy 12-year-olds.
Wasn’t the potato famine a natural disaster though?
Not entirely. Yes there was blight affecting crops but there was more to it than that.
Huge volumes of unaffected produce were exported to England for profit - the decreased yields only impacting the market for locals. Previous famines has seen the British ban exports to ensure the local population had access to food (which also decreased the prices) but not this time around.
English landlords of Irish property were evicting their tenants who weren’t able to pay (since the blight impacted many people’s ability to work) with zero notice or rights for the tenants. Absentee landlords were extracting huge amounts of capital out of the Irish economy, owning vast swathes of the entire country.
The Irish were widely dependent on the potato as a primary form of sustenance but it was due to the potato being high in calories, cheap and easy to grow, and high density yields from relatively small plots of land (landlords dividing up the land into incredibly small divisions whilst simultaneously extracting the highest rent possible for the land).
The Irish were, in essence, forced to eat potatoes due to the extreme economic exploitation they were subject to.
Yet there was no aid from England; she simply sat by reaping profit and leaving things up to the divine - “the market will provide”. There had been efforts to change tariffs and laws but the contention in the governing party about providing aid caused the Prime Minister to resign and the subsequent government threw out all efforts (except those such as offering relief to those without land which forced many Irish to sell what land they had to gain relief and aid).
A Prime Minister at the time launched a commission to investigate and it was found that the absentee landlord system was abhorrent and principally responsible for the famine.
Sadly 1/4 of the population perished, and another 1/4 simply left the country. In some ways, Ireland never recovered.
The potato blight was a natural disaster.
The famine was caused by the British exporting the same amount of potatoes out of Ireland as before.Ahh, I see.
They didn’t export potatoes out of Ireland, they exported everything else. Meaning there was no other food but potatoes for the Irish to eat.
That, the rent system, and the British actively preventing aid (not at their expense!) really turned a bad situation into a full-blown genocide.
guy punched me, it was only fair to bomb them!
to be fair, we’re talking about racismGotta say, it’s fun to read in-depth conversation explainers from other autistic people. As an autistic person myself I think it’s quite fun and informative.
i want to like this but I have to assume anyone still using pepe against the creator’s wishes is a shitbag
The only response to that should have been a “too soooon!” Followed by uproarus laughter
That’s a hilarious retort imo.
“Haha, remember that time the Irish were nearly exterminated via forced famine?” Odd thing to joke about with a random coworker. Should’ve instead suggested potato vodka served by a teenage split-lipped ginger mother of six and then segued into the specific reasons Ireland deserved the troubles. Or just avoided atrocities entirely. Either/or
“Haha, remember that time the Irish were nearly exterminated via forced famine?”
Doesn’t seem too out of character for an Israeli.
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Fuck Israel but don’t blame your coworker.
The same goes for the Irish car bomb drink. As I heard one comedian say “imagine how many Americans would be up in arms if I made a drink that was two kamikazes in a Manhattan and called it a 9/11.”
Maybe get rid of any walkie-talkies or pagers you might have.
