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Originally Posted by miami_fan
So I am the only one who grew up being told not to say certain things around certain people so as not to be inappropriate to them and for my own safety?
You guys were lucky.
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Eh, At 17 anything can happen, I certainly did dumb shit of my own. And despite the snark in my last reply Warhammer has owned up to the fact that of course his kid did something dumb, and that there certainly deserve to be some consequences. And I agree completely that the punishment does feel a little harsh. But honestly, just a little.
Let me expand a little instead of just leaving my previous shitty, snarky reply (not TO miami_fan, just... well, I'm in this reply now):
Do this at age 21 to a professor or 23 to your boss, or even at the water cooler where you think only your male coworkers who are probably fine with the joke heard it, but oops, a female coworker walking by heard it and was offended. Honestly though, take gender out of it. Your male coworker didn't like it. Its harassment. You'd certainly hope your boss would have a conversation with you about appropriate behavior, but its a fire-able offense. You can be pissed if you got fired for it, but the company is 100% in the right to do so.
So yeah, punishment probably a bit harsh here. Taking responsibility for your actions and not excusing the kid, good stuff. Being frustrated for your son's situation, absolutely, understandable. But these posts are just LOADED with "yeah, but" that absolutely bother the hell out of me.
The 60 year old older generation woman wasn't offended, it was that damn 28 year old who the kid has never even met. Even the person he told the joke to just had the attitude of... "whatever" - So what? It isn't the 28 year old teacher's fault for being there. She didn't ask to be put in a situation where a teenage boy is telling a sexual joke. It's my responsibility to be fully aware of my surroundings. We're getting dangerously close to victim blaming here. And yeah, it's one joke from one kid who usually means well. But that one kid (and his dad) could stand to learn a little more empathy about the sexism and sexual situations pushed unwantingly upon women all the time. This is a good opportunity to teach that, instead of add an extra layer of frustration that some random woman happened to hear a sexual comment not intended for her and then she ran off tattle-taling on the poor kid. Nah, fuck that. The woman deserves to be able to go to her job and not have to deal with this shit. And the more we call out these situations, the more we have a chance to change and improve our culture going forward, the younger the better.
Multiple posts refer to the fact that the woman who reported it wasn't the one he told the joke to. That is how the real world works. You make jokes about your boss behind his back but one day he overhears you and you get fired? Do you protest "But I wasn't even making fun of you to your face, you weren't supposed to hear that!!" - How, exactly is this different, except for a little perceived sexism. How dare that women not be okay with being put in an uncomfortable situation when that wasn't the intent of the student? Bullshit.
Finally the comment that
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"All that this has taught the kid (any time there is a chance for him to get the short end of the stick, he does), is if you have money or are part of a special interest group, you get special treatment. Which leads him to resent others."
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-- Listen, if that's what your kid is coming away with from this, then EVERYONE has failed this child. Seriously, it is literally unfathomable that anyone around this kid is going to allow him to have the takeaway of "fuck life is not fair being a white guy SUCKS" and to resent anyone. I'm letting my external bias from reading Warhammer's posts in other threads about all of the advantages non white people have these days color my judgement, so I'll admit to that but I'm not apologizing for it. Teach the damn kid a lesson about responsibility, about having respect for women, about how the world has worked for the last 2000 years and will continue to work for the duration of all of our lifetime's no matter how hard we try BECAUSE of these attitudes.
I posted this quote earlier in a reply to Jon, but now that we're down to the root of things here:
“Equality can feel like oppression. But it’s not. What you’re feeling is just the discomfort of losing a little bit of your privilege.”
Of course I don't know the individual situations your son has experienced, but I know your feelings on affirmative action and "fairness" and they come from a place of complete lack of empathy, they reek of desperately trying to hold on to a white privilege that honestly isn't going anywhere. Your kid comes from a good, white middle class family. He's got literally every advantage in the world. If you let him walk away from this situation resenting blacks or women without learning about the decades.. centuries of institutionalized racism and sexism and learning just the tiniest bit of empathy to understand that not everyone wins the genetic lottery like he did, then you've not only failed your child but you've failed our society as a whole.