Why is one acceptable and one not?

I guess everyone gets old, and we accept that, but disabilities aren’t really as accepted as being “natural”. For example, if I see a person missing both legs, I assume they used to have them but went through a horrible, life altering experience.

He wasn’t making fun of the person he called a pensioner with a walker. He was making fun of himself. Context is important.

Because ageism is alive and well in our society.

Neither are acceptable.

I’m with @talljasperman It’s not acceptable in either case. It is funny, though.

Don’t know. People are dumb.

Nobody would be surprised if he said this guy raced passed him in his wheelchair.

Either or neither could be offensive. There will be older people who laugh at the comment and others who are offended. Same with the use of a paraplegic person in the statement. It’s all about stereotypes and generalisations. Most people don’t like being on the receiving end of generalisations.

If I become an elderly pensioner with a walker, I hope people make jokes like that about me if I pass them. I totally see the humour in it. It seems that some people have left their sense of humour at the door.

I may hold this opinion because I have a blind father.. and he gets quite amused by what people are offended by. If a child says something about his eyes, for example, he finds it silly when the child’s parents get offended. To him, it’s an opportunity for the child to understand blindness better.

Growing older is just an acceptance of life.

A paraplegic in a wheelchair could be a person of any age.

Its a human perspective of how we view each individual situation.

A cousin of mine is a paraplegic and he would pass me in a heartbeat and our grandmother had a walker. And personally, I didn’t take the comment to mean the pensioner was slow. And I certainly wouldn’t like to think that a paraplegic has an ancient unwieldy style wheelchair. I took it to mean the runner was slower than his own self if he had been walking. His running was pathetic, poor guy.

^ Yeah, exactly. People with walkers and wheelchairs aren’t necessarily slow just because they need something to help them move.

It’s interesting the direction a question can take. The point I was making and questioning is that, in general, society finds it acceptable to make jokes about older folks but not about a handicapped person. I wonder why it is okay in one case and not the other. Kudos to those who are the object of the humor and take it good naturedly. I personally think for me it would depend upon the intent of the joker, is he laughing with me or at me. I don’t like sexist jokes and society frowns upon racist jokes but ageist seem to be acceptable (as @syz said above).
Actually though you could take the racist jokes one step further, it still seems to be acceptable, here anyhow, to tell Irish jokes. Is that true in the USA as well?

The world runs by a funny set of rules.

It seems like we see this differently. I don’t think he was making a joke about the pensioner. I think he was making a joke about himself and explaining just how slow he was. He didn’t make the pensioner look bad. He made himself sound really, really slow. Let’s say that pensioner is really slow. What would be the difference between him saying that and him saying “I was so slow that a turtle passed me!” if a turtle happened to be on the same path as him at the time? It seems like the pensioner was there, so he used the pensioner to make his story sound more entertaining… to make fun of himself. If it had been a turtle instead, would we be questioning if it was appropriate or would we all see the humour in it?

Something else:

I walk slow a lot. My friends tease me for it. I don’t even get to use the excuse that I’m old and I definitely don’t think I’m against people who are old enough to be my grandparents. I don’t see anything wrong with walking slow. Why not? I can appreciate the scenery better. I had this guy friend in High School who I walked with sometimes after school because we could walk in the same direction to our homes for a bit before we parted ways. He was a speed walker and it was quite difficult to keep up with him. I’m sure he still speed walks. I remember seeing him in the neighbourhood one day when I was going to the library and he was out for a walk and he gave me a hug and walked with me there and then continued his walk down to the parkway. He was still quite fast.

I don’t think it’s an age thing. I think it’s a slow thing.

The comment was indeed really more about the guy running slow.

When I think of society poking fun at wheelchair-bound people, Joe Swanson from Family Guy pops into my mind… it’s funny when he gets made fun of simply because it’s so distasteful.

Neither of those are unacceptable. If the guy had been making fun of either the old person or the disabled person, that would have been unacceptable. He wasn’t. He was making fun of himself, by saying that he’s not even fast enough to pass someone who’s obviously slow. I see nothing wrong with that.

^ I totally agree with that. :)

I guess it is okay if the old/handicapped person does not mind being the straight man to the running guy’s joke, whether it was aimed at himself or whomever. In other words, he was using the other person as fodder for his funny without permission.

As one who is closer to the walker stage than the younger person, I don’t think I would find it particularly amusing if I were the straight person.

I still think my point is being missed, if the “line” had included a remark about a race of people instead of an age, it would have been deemed distasteful by all. I still find that ironic.

@rooeytoo Well, all of this stuff is subjective; this isn’t new news. A religious joke may be received well on an atheist forum, but not on a christian forum.

@rooeytoo I ended up talking to my Dad about this. This resulted in him ruining the joke for me. He agrees with you and doesn’t find it funny at all, even though I was sure he would see the humour in it. He asked me why pensioners should be considered slow and made it seem like the guy was purposely trying to mock the “pensioner” with his choice of words. He also seemed annoyed with me that I saw the humour in it and told me it’s not funny. :/

@AnonymousGirl – I think it all depends upon your perspective and current place in life. I probably would have found it really funny when I was in my 20’s, now in my late 60’s it’s not so damned funny anymore! :-)

Yes. Maybe we should have given our ages along with our opinions. I am in my early 20s and my Dad is in his early 50s. :)

You are right that if race was brought into it, people might be making a bigger deal over it as it then would most likely be seen as racism.