In the hot tub after my water aerobics class this morning, a woman told a joke I found offensive. Before telling it, she told us we might find it offensive.
I responded by saying that I didn’t find it funny and that I was offended by it. She said that she had warned us that we might find it offensive.
Does warning people that they might the joke offensive give the teller carte blanche to actually tell the joke?
In hindsight, I wondered if I should have suggested her before she told the joke that if she thinks we might be offended she shouldn’t tell the joke. Would this have been a better strategy?
If it matters, based on the conversation of the rest of us before she told the joke, she had to be aware that we would indeed have found it offensive.
If I know them well enough to know that they’re an okay person who just happens to be tone deaf, then I’ll probably roll my eyes and sigh in response. Unless the joke personally offends me, and then I’d probably let them know that they just hurt my feelings.
But if it’s someone I don’t know, then I’d probably would let my silence and my stony face do the talking for me. If they then have the nerve to express butthurt over this, then I’d probably get my stuff and leave. I wouldn’t trust myself not to write a check my ass can’t cash.
I don’t think I would stop the person who said “this joke might be offensive to you” or whatever, because if it was about sex I wouldn’t be offended, and that is what a lot of people would mean. But if it was about something racist or sexist or whatever, I would give the stony face. And (as I have done) maybe say “oh ugh”.
I’m kind of hoping the OP doesn’t spread a joke that is (according to her) both unfunny and offensive. That would put her (okay, possibly him, but if so I want the name of the gym) in an even lower category than the woman s/he’s talking about, who at least apparently thought it was funny.
Anyhow, two thoughts:
Being offensive is the privilege of anyone willing to bear the opprobrium; and
Warning someone that you’re about to do something offensive does not absolve you from the consequences of being offensive.
To answer the OP, I’d have continued with: “And you were right. You told me you were about to be offensive, and you were, and now I’m offended and think much less of you because of it. I’d have told you this before, but your warning showed that you knew the risks.”
I’d think less of her for it. Telling people “you might find this offensive” isn’t blanket immunity for telling jokes that make the teller a jack-ass … or worse, smear the people around the teller if they don’t speak up.
A good exercise?
When you hear “You might find this offensive…”, say “Then you should know better than to say it out loud, shouldn’t you…?”
Maybe she could use spoiler tags, so those who are concerned about being offended don’t have to take that risk, and the rest of us can hear what the goddamned joke was so we can decide for ourselves.
Give the jokester a puzzled look and comment that you don’t understand. Few things ruin a joke more than having to explain it. Especially offensive jokes.
So much depends on context and my relationship with the person telling the joke. My reaction might range from a blank stare and uncomfortable silence to a shake of my head and, “You’re right, that’s offensive…” to saying outright, “I don’t like jokes like that, please don’t tell me more in the future,” to playing stupid. The last one is my favorite, and what I do when I don’t like the person and there’s a crowd.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Can you explain?”
One rarely looks any smarter for explaining a joke, not even a not-offensive one. And it forces them to be explicit about the offensive -ism. It has the bonus of making the joke immediately unfunny as well as offensive, even if it was a funny offensive joke.
In a hot tub?
In that case it’s safer to laugh. If they are trying to be funny and no one laughs their back-up plan is probably to fart. Do you really want to risk that?
I’m not that easily offended. Sometimes shit that might be offensive to the wilting snowflake social justice warrior is actually totally funny. So my response when someone gives a warning before the joke is, I’ll be the judge of that, go ahead and tell it.
And if it really is inappropriate, I’ll say so. And also not laugh.
I either laugh or I don’t laugh, accroding to how funny it is. Humor is not dependent on political correctness. A joke is a joke because it contains the elements of humor, not because is is instructive or corrective as to sensitivity to whatever classes happen to be protected at this point in time.
Like, if you hear a joke read by a voice synthesizer, how do you know if it Chris Rock or Stephen Hawking telling the joke? And if you can’t tell, what the hell is the difference? Does the humor have anything to do with the joke or not, or is it all about who has the social license to tell it?