I don’t believe neurodiverse people make racist jokes as a matter of course. At least, that hasn’t been my experience.
I think journalists are also able to tell the difference between “some dude made a poor-taste joke once” and “dudes were always making poor-taste jokes targeted at one specific minority when the employee was present”.
I’ll also say that, at my reasonably woke US company, I’m not aware of any neurodiverse person getting in any trouble for making a bad-taste joke.
I fully disagree with your sentiment. Yes there are outright bigoted jokes, but I believe many people have a different line in the sand of where appropriate and inappropriate are. There are many jokes that one workplace may deem 100% harmless and another might cause offense. My general assumption is that the person didn't mean to be bigoted, they just didn't understand where the line was.
This of course is not speaking of outright racism, but an example might be wearing a sombrero on Cinco de Mayo. Some workplaces would find this perfectly acceptable, whereas others might deem this racially insensitive and rude. It's not outright bigoted, (in my opinion), and not meant to cause harm, but the workplace culture is the what determines if it is acceptable or not.
I agree, it is in peoples nature to make fun of those who are different, be it by gender, etnicity, height, intelligence or whatever. But in most cases, this is harmless fun between two people that don't share that trait.
Only when you are actively, openly insulting said people and treating them different then anyone else you are doing something very wrong.
Some racist jokes are just really funny, but that doesn't mean I'm racist.
Also, I feel like this is more of an issue in the US then in Europe. I really couldn't imagine someone being fire for a picture posted on twitter by someone else accusing you of something nasty in The Netherlands.
In general, if you make jokes that a member of another race would perceive as racist, you've already done something wrong, even if you don't perceive it as racist, but just as some sort of "weird" humor.
If it made the interviewee feel unwelcome at the company, there is no possible explanation that would make this ok -- the simple fact that they feel excluded is what makes it not ok.
Making people feel excluded, or even doing or saying things behind closed doors that would make people feel excluded if they knew about them, is part of the problem that makes people who are not part of the majority feel unwelcome in a company's culture, and in the industry as a whole.
Racist “jokes” make people uncomfortable because it’s directly adjacent to racist insults, racist hiring/firing practices, and even racist violence. Employers have a duty to workers from employees that are potential threats, and to remove employees that are walking legal liabilities. And that very much includes employees who claim to be “equal-opportunity offenders.”
I understand that it’s more complicated when you are making jokes about your own ethnic group. But please understand that it’s not an issue of “bad culture fit.” As an example, employees who make relentless personal criticisms of their coworkers aren’t gruff people that have trouble fitting in to an upright corporate culture: they are jerks whose behavior rightfully makes them difficult to work with and hard to justify hiring. It is the same with making ethnic / racist jokes in the office. Just don’t do it.
(There is also a difference between ethnic jokes about Poles and racist jokes about black people or Jews, but that’s a different discussion. Both are really not appropriate for the office.)
Some of the drier subjects in my CS degree were considerably enhanced by quirky lecturers at least trying to make a joke here and there.
Did you read the bit in the article about teaching feedback?
To be clear I am not arguing for the right to make racist, sexist jokes etc in a place of work. I am pointing out that if I was in the neuro-diverse lecturer's shoes, fear of offending somebody I don't know for reasons I don't understand would probably dampen my teaching style.
I think the point being made is that jokes don't imply hatred per se.
If I say "Spanish people are lazy fucks" that sounds offensive and might be considered racist, but I myself am Spanish and that context changes its meaning. We generally strive away from racist jokes because as a society we are concerned that we are furthering racist ideologies otherwise.
For a more explicit example, if a person says "I'm tired of them fucking n-words" it matters a great deal, socially, if that person is black or white. But this is an AI. It has biases, sure, but no past experience and no beliefs. If an AI says that same phrase, what is the meaning behind that?
I wonder about cultural differences here. Ethnic/national jokes used to be very common in the workplace, but in the last few decades have become increasingly taboo. However, I don't think that change has happened to the same extent in all countries. I think in English-speaking countries (and especially so in North America) it has happened to a much greater extent than in many non-English speaking countries. To assume that all workplaces globally adopt the standards of your workplace, or workplaces in your country, is itself a failure to be aware of cultural diversity.
One thing about these kind of jokes, is they vary a lot in how much prejudice they encode. For example, there is a stereotype in Australian culture of the "whingeing pom", the person from England who always complains, and there is a tradition of jokes based on that stereotype. Does that mean the English are oppressed in Australia, or that Australians hate English people? Or is it more like when you gently tease your friends and family? (To use an Americanism, "joshing"). It is not like the English recipients of this kind of teasing don't have plenty of comebacks – jokes about Australians being all descended from criminals, etc. (See also [1].) I think there is a big difference between those kinds of gentle jokes which don't really encode any significant degree of racial/ethnic prejudice, and other sorts of jokes that do – it depends a lot on who is making the joke, which group is the target, and the nature and history of the relationship between the joke-teller's group and the target group.
Regardless of all that, I wouldn't tell those kinds of jokes in a work environment – some people are likely to be offended, and causing offence isn't worth it. (Plus I rarely tell jokes of any sort, since telling jokes has never been my strong suit). But if other workplaces, in other countries, have different cultures in which those kinds of jokes are more acceptable, I'm not going to judge those cultures negatively because of it, and try to exhibit enough cultural sensitivity to realise that cultures like that exist, and I'm not going to say that my culture is superior to theirs.
(You also mentioned the gendered aspect of the jokes; I would expect that attitudes towards gendered jokes and how they are experienced also vary from culture to culture – and that women experience them differently in different cultures, and even individual women may experience them differently in the same culture – but I don't feel like I know enough about that whole issue to say more than that.)
There was a time in the US when racist/cultural jokes about groups one was a member of were considered harmless and funny. But, for better or worse, that time is not now.
The set of things you can comfortably joke about at work is pretty small these days and almost never includes jokes about any kind of group identity.
I'm generally of the opinion that racist jokes are not as far separated from actual racism as the joke teller would like themselves to believe.
Same goes for sexism, ageism, etc etc.
I used to crack jokes about black people back in college (of the same character that ugh linked to) - I didn't think it was racism, after all I didn't actually have anything against black people, right? Then I graduated, moved to another city, and made a lot of black friends that bucked the stereotypes so dramatically that now I find the same jokes at least mildly offensive.
Racism is a spectrum, it isn't as binary as "lynch 'em" vs. "I love them", there are many shades of gray, and many places where you're subtly contributing to it by believing in, and spreading extremely damaging stereotypes.
The article even gives a better example here: casually
introducing yourself to the CEO and making a joke.
[...] How am I supposed to know which authorities it's
okay to make jokes with?
Well, it's a good example.... but not in the way you or the author necessarily intend.
The answer is right there in front of you: you don't fucking know!
You -- spectrum or no spectrum -- don't know who you can joke around with until you actually know them. Humor is hard, even for comedians, and successful humor relies on some kind of rapport or shared sensibility between parties.
Walking up to a stranger, CEO or otherwise, and cracking a joke immediately is actually fairly bizarre behavior and there's a good chance the joke is going to fall flat. Also sometimes you'll get lucky and make a friend for life or something, but it's a total dice roll and it is frankly an idiot move to risk your professional standing on it. I think that's a thing you can just learn and memorize whether you're on the spectrum or not.
That said, I as a lowly engineer have successfully joked around with a lot of C-level types at large-ish companies.
More than anything else, circumstances matter. Is this a social situation? Are you interrupting them? Are you introducing yourself out of the blue and expecting them to laugh at a joke like a total weirdo? These things matter.
Assuming you're actually interacting in a social situation...
As a general rule they love to laugh and pal around like normal humans. Getting along with people and being personable is actually a pretty big asset when it comes to climbing the ladder and more often than not these people have it. If you're skilled at humor you'll know how to feel out what kind of humor they're gonna laugh at and which kinds of humor are safe. If you're not good at humor and intuiting things, just fucking know that and play it safe.
Then without any more details we'll probably just assume "some offensive jokes" are actually horrible, it's the most common defense by people like that.
"But it was just a joke!"
"No Grandpa, you're just a racist."
You're right though, it is a lot more prevalent than just high profile cases. But I also assume your friend deserved it.
These jokes are definitely inflammatory. It is a brand of humour that identifies things other people think are important then points out that they are ridiculous. His colleagues could be quite upset. I would expect being fired from most tech companies for making the observations in the "Kind of Racist" routine; although I have the wrong skin colour for it so the ice is presumably thinner for me than for him. There is some real girl from HR that was doing that in his company who is probably quite committed to the work.
It seems wrong to apply logic to people's perceptions of humour and offensiveness, since perceptions are rarely logical. But going with this, if the person telling this same joke were black, would that be OK? Or equivalently, are there classes of jokes that may only be told by black people?
(also I feel I should point out that jokes about race tend not to be equivalent in offensiveness to jokes about sex, so this whole premise is largely irrelevant)
I would, although as with everything it's context dependent. My boss is African and has on more than one occasion got my name mixed up with another colleague (we're white). In a meeting he did it again, realised his mistake and was on the verge of saying something but caught himself. I offered in mock outrage - "Well, all white people look alike - is that it?" to which he burst out laughing as that was exactly what he was going to say. But that kind of humour (whether it's funny or not) is not at anyone's expense. It also took place between colleagues who have worked together for years now and in a setting we're reasonably sure no-one is going to take offence.
I don't think someone is a "bad human being" even if he or she thoughtlessly makes a bad joke.
Moreover, lynch mob can hit someone wasn't bad at all. Someone just mishears or misunderstands, is mightily offended and the twitter storm starts. Like that guy who joked about dongles. It is not inconceivable that someone might make a half-tone joke that is completely harmless, and someone mishears and thinks it was racist or sexist.
There is no way to defend against that. "I didn't say that (in that context)" is not going to work.
Ah I wasn't aware the effect was so pronounced, although I can definitely see how that would happen. Out of curiosity, what's the consensus on how an overtly sexist or racist joke told among friends in a non-serious way affects social dynamics? I'm sure we're all familiar with this type of humor and I would hope that the joke would serve to make fun of the stereotype and not reinforce it but I'm not sure.
And there's a complicate split between just telling a race-base joke and "dehumanizing". As well as just going by what you perceive as other person's gender vs v doing that on purpose.
If he's anything like a guy I used to work for (and his job post sounds almost verbatim like something he'd write), subtle and not-so-subtle sexist and racist remarks are made under the guise of joking. Most of the time women and minorities (and, well, everyone else) just thought he was an asshole.
I think journalists are also able to tell the difference between “some dude made a poor-taste joke once” and “dudes were always making poor-taste jokes targeted at one specific minority when the employee was present”.
I’ll also say that, at my reasonably woke US company, I’m not aware of any neurodiverse person getting in any trouble for making a bad-taste joke.
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