So, Who's Up For A Pointless Argument? Me Either.

Okay, this is me with a migraine, so adjust your expectations of coherence accordingly downward.

Over at Tbogg's place the other day, Michelle Malkin was mentioned. As always, someone decided to make the apparently obligatory ping pong joke, because that kind of thing always gets a laugh. We've all seen it. We've also all seen what happens when someone calls the person on it. There's an entertaining range of responses. I'm going to go on about a few of my favorites, by no means all represented at the link in question, but I'm guessing we've all had the opportunity to spot them elsewhere. Really, if you haven't seen the defensive reactions by the witty jokers it probably has more to do with an unwillingness on the part of the rest of the commenters to call them on it, since there's no shortage of the ping pong jokes themselves.

My favorite reaction will always be: I'm just doing it because it gets a rise out of her.

I'm not sure how you can interpret that in any way other than: I'm being offensive to offend her. I'm being provocative to get a reaction.

And if you're doing that, you should probably be aware that you will be, you know, offending people. And not just the person you meant to offend, since the jokes are based on broad generalizations in this case involving race and gender. Lots of people share the woman's race and gender, and they may be offended. This is not the smart bomb of snark. There will be collateral damage. And those people you've sideswiped may tend to be angry at you and attempt to retaliate, just to stretch a metaphor. If you make sexist jokes, you create angry women.

But that's okay, because then you get to use a selection of other responses. The most obvious being "You women are too emotional and serious. Lighten up." This isn't necessarily a second-tier response, you can use it as your first reaction to being told you're being offensive. It's probably the gold standard of rhetorical defense when you have offended. "Lighten up" can be said to women who think your comment was sexist, to ethnic minorities who think your comment was racist, to gays who think your comment was homophobic, to liberals who think your comment was eliminationist, etc. It's your basic multi-tool.

You can also launch into "You're trying to censor me, you fascist." Molly Ivins once noted that there was no one quite so self-righteously angry as a privileged class that fears it's about to lose that privilege. I suspect this can be applied to members of a majority who feel their right to offend the minority is being called into question as well. It's certainly popular among those who feel their god disapproves of what you're doing with your genitals. "Gays are trying to outlaw Christianity with hate crime laws!" Well, no. But it sounds a lot better and gets you more sympathy than "They object to my saying offensive things!"

The funny thing is, rather than trying to censor these people, I've noticed a tendency to just ignore it. They're trolls, it's what you do. You ignore them. And if you don't ignore them, they go into full-on defensive Lighten Up, You Fascist Over-Emotional Feminist Bitches, We're Only Doing It To Be Funny And Get A Reaction Out Of A Skank Anyway mode. You're not going to change their minds. You're not going to shut them up (if anything, quite the opposite). You're not going to shame them into knocking it the hell off. You are, in fact, going to have no effect except to transfer their animosity to you. And who needs that? We all know this will happen, and people who speak up do so in spite of knowing that, rather than, as portrayed, simply because they are hypersensitive killjoys unnecessarily leaping all over people who are just trying to be funny.

So most of the time, nobody bothers to point out that these people are being assholes. Which is a shame, because they could use it. So every once in a while, and by no means often enough, I feel compelled to support one of these brave people, even though I really do hate getting my insecure, undermedicated self flamed. And then you get told to lighten up, you fascist, and the next time you see the whole thing happen again, you probably keep your mouth shut. Which, really, may very well be the point.

Seriously. If the worst thing you can come up with to say about Michelle Malkin is that goddamned ping pong crack, you are lazy. Lazy, and unimaginative, and you may even be giving people the impression that you more or less agree with the offensive things she says, since you have made no attempt to challenge them.

And regardless of whether we will ever change their behavior, I can't help thinking that people who routinely say offensive things for the sake of offending should not remain unchallenged every time. I'm guessing that if, every time someone did this, we all piled on with "You're being a creep", it would happen less often. That's the same tactic that often keeps us quiet when we see it, after all. But I personally can't blame people for not wanting to spend all their time being slapped at by creeps for pointing out that they're creeps. And if you let them have the last word, it reinforces for them that they're very clever, and they'll do it again, and there's really no way not to let them have the last word. I'm unemployed and insomniac and I haven't got the time to spend arguing with them until they get tired of it.

So it really is easier to ignore them. And there's very little to be gained by not ignoring them. But I just can't shake off this belief that once in a while, someone does need to tell them we don't approve, and I'm grateful to the people who do stick their necks out there now and again, and will try to support them a little more often.