No offence Rob, but in my whole life, the only people I've ever heard offer that explanation are the ones that tended to make the jokes that they count as humour. And in England, it has always been White Englishmen. Or Northern Irishmen. I'd almost bet my life you'd feel a whole way different if you spent an evening in Kingston or Detroit or even Stockwell being the butt of a continuous stream of "condescending towards Whites" humour aimed in your direction. And I'm not talking about the mild stuff. I doubt many of us would stomach a half-hour of a stand-up comedian cracking jokes about our Mothers' menstrual cycles or wives/girlfriend's/partner's lopsided vulvas or dry vaginas and applying a racial or cultural tag to it.
That all said, lots of unsavoury things
are actually funny. To some people. I'm sure I could think of a few funny comments on the subject of someone's Mother dying on the loo and not being found for a few days or someone's baby bouncing like a newly blown-up basketball when dropped down the stairs by their big brother or someone flying like Superman straight through the windscreen of a car hitting a bus head-on.
It's not so much that there needs to be a committee on what is and what isn't funny. It's more that, after decades of having shitty comments and crap flung in one's direction, under the guise of "humour", those on the receiving end rather had enough and stood up and said, "Hey, you know what ? I don't like this. I never did, but now I'm going to tell you I don't and you can go suck on a horse's...um, mane
if you don't like me saying so."
I do find it somewhat amusing that there are many people that complain that they can't get away with being condescending any more.