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At first glance, he checks all of your soulmate boxes: He’s tall, funny and he even looks like Captain America if he smiles just right. You can’t believe your luck in meeting this handsome stranger during your weekly girl’s night … until he tells an intolerable joke that makes your jaw drop. You look around, expecting someone to point out the racist punch line, but everyone else is laughing too hard to notice.
Sound familiar? Then you know how awkward racist jokes can feel – not only when you’re the only one not laughing, but also if you laugh and regret it later.
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So what can you do to stop the cycle? Here are five ways you can take the laughter out of racist jokes.
How many times have you laughed at a joke just to be polite? When it comes to racist jokes, this is the first behavior you have to change. Laughing tells jokesters that you agree and approve of their point of view. Laughing also encourages others to laugh too.
If you’re the kind of woman who struggles to control her funny bone no matter how bad the joke – or struggle to not give into to peer pressure – remind yourself of this: Racist jokes are no laughing matter, as Aragon Outlook explains. Instead, these jokes are based on hurtful stereotypes that perpetuate racism and give racists a way to “pardon themselves.”
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Bottom line? When people choose to treat racism like it’s funny, they lose the privilege of receiving polite laughter.
So what are you supposed to do when you’re not laughing? There are a variety of approaches you can take, as Franchesca Ramsey at Everyday Feminism explains. Some of your options include:
The next time you feel like you have to laugh at a joke, remember that you have plenty of other actions you can take instead!
Now, maybe you laugh because the person who’s telling the joke is a family member or friend and you don’t want to cause trouble. However, it’s still important for you to address the issue – you just want to do it in an educational, rather than judgmental, way.
Before going on a tirade accusing the jokester of being a bigoted racist, ask the person a few questions, such as: Where did you learn or first hear the joke? Do you realize that the joke is racist? Most likely, he or she doesn’t even recognize the consequences of the “funny” line. Once he realizes that his joke is encouraging stereotypes and racism, he might change his ways or, in the very least, know to not crack the same joke in front of you.
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Your reaction should also differ depending on who is telling the joke, according to HerStoriesProject advice columnist Nina Badzin. If you hear strangers telling a racist joke, you might not want to get involved. A public area probably isn’t the time or place to hold a controversial argument. When it comes to closer friends or family members, you might start by saying something like: “I don’t agree with that joke” and waiting until you can have a private conversation to explain why.
So how can you actually make a difference when people seem to love their racist humor? Appealing to shared values might be one way to persuade others to rethink their racist jokes, says the Southern Poverty Law Center. If your brother is always making racial jokes when you meet up for family dinner once a week, try mentioning the family values you learned growing up – like accepting each other’s differences.
You can also try to approach the situation with empathy. By helping people see the jokes through someone else’s eyes, you could give them a different perspective on racist jokes. And if all else fails, at least tell them to respect your wishes and not tell the jokes around you. This won’t totally solve the problem, but it will show that you’re serious.
At the end of the day, following a cliché must be your best bet for standing up to a racist jokester: Listen to the golden rule and treat others how you want to be treated. Although people might argue that they have the right to fair speech, people also have the right to not be subjected to racially offensive jokes, according to The Telegraph.
Furthermore, stopping someone from telling a racist joke isn’t just about “censoring” comedy. As poet and author Soyini Denise explains, “I don’t think you should censor humor but you should censor hate … under the guise of comedy. If you are able to empathize and feel some responsibility to your subject matter then that should be sufficient to prevent you from needing to be censored.”
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By standing up to someone telling racist jokes, then, you aren’t just being politically correct. You’re empathizing with the people who could be offended by that joke and fighting against hateful stereotypes.
If you are surrounded by laughing people, it may feel awkward to not laugh along at racist jokes. However, jokes are more than forms of crude entertainment; they can spread ignorant stereotypes that affect an entire society’s well-being.
The next time you hear a racist joke, encourage people to not only stop telling them, but also for others to stop laughing at them. By yourself, you’re just one less source of laughter. But if a racist jokester receives a group silent of shocked faces in response, everyone might slowly understand that racism is more than a punch line – it’s a line that no one should cross.
