Joy Killer

I constantly get into situations where I say things out of “built in patriarchy” in my mind. It is not easy to stop this shit from coming and it is a daily struggle that I admit and apologize even if only for myself for it.

Jokes with sexual connotation? Yes can be funny. Jokes about religions and political leaders? Great ones. Making fun of ourselves? Yes can be releasing. Saying extremely nonsense and silly jokes after being in lockdown for months and we have reached the bottom of not being able to think of smart ones? Yes totally! That’s what we need. But Mixing that with misogyny and racism and accuse people who object about them being the party pooper is not representation of free mind. Why people don’t have sense of humor without being racist or misogynists’?? Patriarchy and racism are structural (not individual) issues. It is not about individual knowing themselves and the limits between them joking and their actual life. Those thoughts in the jokes are real struggles that people are facing and living with for their lifetime. I am not sure if the problem is that this kind of humor is out there because it is a representation of what society is. The deeper problem is not being able to  listen to people who are objecting it because there is the “freedom of expression” banner.
The same discourse have to be used again and again just to give a voice for oppressed people. Being from an oppressed layer of the society is not something to laugh about especially when you are on the other side and not living this oppressions. Why isn’t sarcasm about patriarchy and racism normalized? Because they’re the strong structures that you don’t know how to mock? Because most people are part of them? Because mocking people oppressed by them is easier?

If the only way to laugh is overpower laughter then I’ll prefer not laughing my whole life. And that’s how we are labeled as Joy killers just because others have a ridicule disgraced sense of humor.

And finally, what is really the difference between being serious and joking? If you say the same racist or misogynist story, once in a serious way and another time in a funny way, aren’t they both freedom of expression then? When we say our actual thoughts and perceptions, this is when we expect others to take us seriously. While humor is mostly about this element of surprise/ discrepancy between our absolute/imaginative ideas and rational/actual perception of things, for most of us that can create amusement, for others it is fear/sadness/anger because this difference does not exist for them. They live your “joke”.