I often face the problem of hearing something I don't agree with and wanting to confront it but knowing the response will invariably be 'it's just banter', or someone condescendingly explaining I've taken it the wrong way. So the problem becomes do I confront these blatant racist, homophobic or discriminatory comments and become that person who 'can't take a joke', or have everyone sigh loudly when I start to talk or do I stay silent and maybe laugh along thereby lending further credibility to these asinine and clearly derogatory remarks?
I was recently watching tv with some friends and there was a fictional storyline in which a teenager was chatting online, with what we later discover to be a groomer, the episode ended with this teenager getting in to a car with this older man who she'd been chatting with. One friend, who many of us consider to be the most outwardly moral of the group- a vegan to try and promote animal rights, always on protests, vehemently anti-war etc, said 'how much of an idiot would you have to be', feeling like I had to clarify what she meant I probed further. She was happy to expand - firstly she made the point that surely that doesn't happen because who would be stupid enough to talk to someone they didn't know online and even if they did once they met the person they'd been chatting to and realised they'd been fooled about age/ appearance whatever, if there then idiotic enough to go with them they deserve everything they get. To say I was appalled is an understatement- how can we propose to help victims and convince them that what has happened in their past isn't their fault if we don't believe it? After a lot of discussion about the different types of grooming, and when these all seemed to bring her to the same conclusion I asked how she could make such a sweeping generalisation and she pointed out she wasn't making a public statement she was just talking with friends. Talking with other friends a common theme was yeah I know your not meant to say it's there fault, but they put themselves in these situations....
Now this is something different to banter, people aren't afraid to voice banter aloud and they expect people to agree with them. This idea is more covert, more insidious in my opinion. The idea that people don't say their real opinions aloud- there essentially forced to be PC in public but privately they're condemning the victims, and how far would this this spread? All victims of abuse? rape victims?I found this profoundly disheartening, we the younger generation the people who should be looking to make tomorrow better than today are comfortable with banter and adhering to what's PC in public but privately scorning victims. Obviously this is me making a sweeping generalisation of my own not everyone partakes of banter and I'm sure some people do believe in the PC things they say in public and maybe not every one agrees that we should be trying to make tomorrow better than the day- people are different, which is why most of the time it's safest to avoid generalisation. But I don't want to.
Some people say banter especially when it's at a minority group's expense is a sign of how far we've come- that young people are comfortable making these jokes with each other because we're just THAT comfortable. Women belong in the kitchen- it's funny because most of us don't actually think that, and women aren't discriminated against any more so it's no big deal. Jokes about passports-it's funny because even though your skin isn't white they've given you a british passport, hilarious and again no big. Your so gay - it's funny because you were acting in a way that I would characterize as 'gay' but your actually not. To be honest it isn't that funny and it masks real prejudice because anyone with ridiculous archaic views can voice them with impunity -if they're ever questioned that magic word 'banter' is thrown around and suddenly it's fine. For me I wouldn't mind sacrificing some unfunny jokes for the sake of tackling real prejudice when it appears, and here's a novel idea instead of proving just how kool we are with all these different groups by making jokes about them, why not just prove it by respecting each other equal amounts and treating people as we'd want to be be treated. I'm not waging a war on all jokes and I fully accept that there's different types of humour out there. But a generalisation that I want to be able to make about young people is that we all want a brighter tomorrow and I also want to be able to generalise and say this generation is more tolerant than the last, banter is getting in the way of that.
What I want is people to think a little more before they say things and instead of going for a cheap laugh that's guaranteed because when it first came round it was genuinely discriminatory but now we can laugh about it because it's oh-so ironic and hipster, maybe think about those genuinely prejudice people that your sheltering in your midst. I hope that if we can do this we can start to have some more honest debate without people simply hiding behind what they think is PC or calling it banter - if we want to be able to confront prejudice we need to be able to find it. One of the many incredible things about young people is we're still at the stage where we're willing to learn- while many people claim that young people think they know everything I'd like to know exactly how many adults go to work everyday with the idea that they might learn something new? Whereas young people go to institutions where we admit we're being taught new things...we're just not always sure we need them. Anyway this ability gives me faith in the idea that if we could actually find these people who are actually prejudiced or actually are just mimicking PC things because they think they have to we could use reason and evidence to confront these views and hopefully make them happier that they've been given a platform for honest discussion and make the communities they live in happier that there's not a young bigot who's going to turn into an old bigot with untold amounts of power and influence.
That in essence is why I hate banter.