Jesus, Mary and Joseph

 

There is an advantage for not having a huge audience for my work. There is much less of a chance that I will be chastised for offending someone. But when it comes to my designs and my blog, I don't really give a flying bucket of fudge if I offend someone. No one pays to read my blog. And unless you buy something with one of my designs on it (and why would you if it offends you) you aren't paying to look at my designs. So I can be as offensive as I want to be.

Now I must caveat that I would not intentionally post anything that is racist, sexist or makes fun of someone's disability. But after sitting through a staff meeting today where we were informed of the words and phrases we use that aren't inclusive and can be considered racist, you don't have to be intentional to offend someone. 

The problem with being forced to listen to lectures at work about what makes you a racist person is that you cannot protest or dispute what you are being told or you will be accused of microaggressions and being triggered by accusations of racism because you are racist. So pretty much you can't win in that forum. Even me stating this is a declaration of my white fragility and racist nature. I can throw out accusations of ageism but I am not allowed to use that to deflect accusations of being racist because I am old and don't know any better. I wouldn't do that. I am old and use phrases that I always did until I truly find out that they have racist origins. Then I stop. But I do draw the line at people to determine certain phrases are racist because they read it on the Internet so it must be true.

But back to my offensive image of Peter, Paul and Mary...no wait, that is okay...my offensive image of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Ironically, the most offensive thing about them is that Artie, my Art AI friend used classic illustrations of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as white people because that is the way European artists depicted them for centuries. 

I think this makes my design all the more funny. And there is no evidence that Jesus or Joseph played classical guitars or that Mary belted out tunes into a classic Fatboy microphone. If the truth were to be told, Mary, of Peter, Paul and Mary, didn't play the guitar. So my design is rife with inaccuracies.  But again, I don't give a flying bucket of fudge.

BTW, I am proud to say that I just invented the phrase "Flying bucket of fudge" to avoid saying fuck. ChatGPT was very gracious when I asked it about the phrase and that it might be used in a "humorous, informal, or whimsical way to describe a chaotic, messy or surprising situation." 

I'm feeling a t-shirt design coming on.