Nairobi News

“Kwani hujui jokes? (can’t you take a joke?)”

This has to be ranked among the top five most painful words a victim of humiliation can be told by a perp.

We live in a world where humor/jokes often serve as a unifying factor between acquaintances, friends, family and relatives. They are normally used as ice breakers because everyone is open to a good laugh every so often. But then, there continues to be this unsettling phenomenon: the ease with which some individuals make jokes as a camouflage for disdain and disrespect towards another person.

“Why are you so fat? Are you being paid to eat?”, “Umenona umebeba mpaka majirani (you’ve become so fat, are you carrying your neighbors’ weight for them)? “you only work to afford taxes?” and “the most this one can afford in life is a kabambe (small, semi-smart phone) are just some of the jokes made but with the intention of dissing the receiver.

For perpetrators, what should be a tool for laughter and connection is, for them, a weapon wielded with reckless abandon. The question arises: why do some find it so effortless to hide their cruelty in the guise of humor? Do these people have no social antennae? Can’t they read the room before spewing their ill-tasting jokes?

To such people who make disrespectful jokes, we know the type of person you are. You have your own insecurities or feelings of inadequacy so you use disrespectful jokes to mask and deflect them on others. You are basically a bully who sets out to target and harm others from sunrise to sunset, you are insensitive and lack empathy, full of bias if someone does not meet your standards and are an attention seeker. You use disrespectful jokes to provoke others and get their reactions, whether positive or negative.

And here’s a message for you, for when you remember to take a beat in between your disrespectful jokes. While it is all fun and games for you, to the victims of your jokes, you are doing nothing but causing them emotional distress. You can have your 10-second laugh but your victim will be left with feelings of sadness, humiliation and anger. You targeted them for no reason.

Your continued disrespectful jokes also leave your victims suffering from low self-esteem and self-worth. Over time, your victim will begin withdrawing from your social circle and will begin believing they were deserving of your ridicule. You basically took a wholesome person and reduced them to an anxious and depressed person. Will you pay their medical and mental health bills when it comes down to it?

You may have thought of that disrespectful joke in a blink of an eye but the consequences of making unfiltered comments will leave your victims damaged because their relationships with other friends- even family- will take a hit if no one stood up for them. So basically, you are also ruining wider social circles and families for your 5 minutes of fame and laughter.

But at the end of the day, remember, your disrespectful jokes, can and will land you in hot water. If your victim suffers greatly and can prove their suffering because of you, they can file legal proceedings against you. Harassment, discrimination and defamation are just some of the things they can use against you.

So, was your ten-word disrespectful joke worth it in the end?

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