Post #3110040

@Remittancegirl Jokes indirectly reference shared understandings within a community. "Getting" a joke involves the pleasurable sensation of retrieving that shared understanding at the same time as other members of your group do, in response to hearing the indirect reference to it. It's a form of bonding within a community. But sometimes the shared "understanding" is a pejorative view of a particular group, such as women, immigrants, intellectuals, people of color, and so on. And so when the perpetrator of a joke based on such a sexist/racist/etc. "understanding" is called out, their response is often to say "I'm joking--can't you take a joke?" That defense is not a retreat from the bigoted position; rather, it is an attempt to distinguish the implicit reference to a bigoted view from an explicit endorsement of that same view. But there really is no difference. Except that the "joke" version of bigotry is more insidious.