I know I am late to the party to talk about this but who cares. I am not about to take sides but just put my observation here. So, one person made jokes on someone’s condition and resulting appearance, and other party went and slapped the person as they did not like their loved one to be hurt through a ‘sick’ joke.
I wondered if Will Smith had not gone up and slapped, would anyone have observed the nature of jokes that were being made? Until someone stands up to it, don’t we keep laughing along and not think about how sick the joke is? This is not to say hitting is ok but a pause button came for people to make note only when hitting happened. It was only after that, people started wondering about whether hitting is justified or not. Most of us are hopefully clear that physical violence is unacceptable and ofcourse legal systems also enforce this. But, what about non physical violence?
Making fun of others based on their appearance or condition, isn’t that violence in a different form? Cambridge dictionary defines violence as actions or words that are intended to hurt people. We seem to be more tuned to think of act of violence but violence in the form of words is brushed aside. This could partly be because physical violence can put one’s life in danger while violent words are seen to be less severe. Isn’t it likely that many are living dead due to violent words?
I also wondered if another reason violent words are not considered as bad as physical assault because we expect the person at the receiving end to either take it as a joke or ignore? When I coach clients I also tell them that when someone behaves in a hurtful way and uses words that are inappropriate, it shows they have a problem, it has nothing to do with us. That does not mean it is ok for them to continue their hurtful behaviour. Just because it is upto the person at the receiving end to ignore or be hurt, does not give us the right to speak anyway we want. As a fellow human, we must respect and empathise.
We can take a moment to consider how what we say will land on others. People do not think like us, each one has their own filters so taking a step back to pause is a good idea. As the saying goes, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing. Each one must take responsibility for our words and how we express our emotions. It must be part of our value system not to make jokes on other’s expense; not to seek pleasure by putting other people down. Jokes are not an excuse to say whatever we want, let us not use humour as a weapon.
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