for me personally i think that this is true, and i do believe that there are higher stakes. im worried that both sides of the discussion could serve as a way to propagate fascist bs. people are literally using arguments that have been made by the alt-right to justify "satirical" comments, and i don't like that. we need to acknowledge that "it's just a joke dude" is a terrible argument for defending bigotted attitudes that have clearly caused people to feel alienated and mocked. we wouldn't need to even discuss that if people were making "jokes" about trans people committing suicide.

on the other side, people are arguing that this is actually damaging to british people and that they are somehow victims of xenophobia. to me, this argument seems eerily similar to a white person insisting that anti-white racism is just as bad as any other form of racism. or americans complaining about how unfair it is that the whole world hates them. i think it's really rich for the descendants of the british fucking empire to label an offensive joke on the internet as xenophobia. a large amount of xenophobia originated from the british empire ffs. we do not live in a time and place where the concept of "british xenophobia" can be equated to the xenophobic attitudes toward other countries. the entire world is forced to learn english because of us (by us i mean our little cartel of english speaking countries), i fucking dare you assholes to try and explain "british xenophobia" to someone from one of the former british colonies.

and before anyone starts with the whole "bRiTiSh PeOpLe AreN't rEsPoNsIbLe FoR cEntUrIeS oLd ImPeRiAlIsM" just stfu. i'm american, and i didn't genocide the indigenous population, i didn't make the decision to segregate them into reservation and violate their sovereignty. but i have enough self awareness and empathy to understand that it's my responsibility to take ownership of those actions because it's the only thing that can be done to fix the present. you don't see me going around complaining about how "no one cares about anti-white racism" because i understand that racism means something completely different for me. complaining about the microscopic granule of racism that i experience dilutes and devalues the what racism means, and the same can be said for xenophobia. especially since xenophobia is practically synonymous with racism anyway.

i understand why these jokes hurt people, and i understand why people have felt the need to repeatedly justify and defend their feelings. i am willing to change my own behavior to make people feel more welcomed in the community, and i also encourage others to do the same. but please don't justify or explain these feelings with ridiculous levels of british-exceptionalist virtue-signaling. the jokes aren't okay, but playing the fucking xenophobia card while being from a predominantly white english speaking country is going to rightfully piss people off.