C'Mon, It's just a Joke!!

In all the hoopla surrounding Conan O'Brien, I wish someone had taken the time to connect some dots.  I wish the point had been made that one 'harmless, little, joke' is much more than harmless when it is but one is a sea of jokes and insults.

No one ever thinks that off-the-cuff remarks, or snarky unsults mean much.  And, they don't.  And, if it were just one, it wouldn't.  But, when it's endemic, when SNL, Craig Ferguson, Adam Corolla (the same one who is presently putting-down women comics), and Conan O'brien make the same 'Harmless Joke' it stops becoming harmless.

When it happens, over and over, it becomes hate.  And, to a Trans person, that hate is real.  It's palpable.  And, it's  threatening.

On their own, each one of those jokes and insults are not threatening.  They're lame, at best.
Just a drop-in-the-bucket.

It's when those drops continue to fall, day-after-day, week-after-week, and month-after-month, year-after-year that we see we are actually being inundated.  Each drop a tickle.  Combined, a torrent.  And then, a flash-flood.

I wish more time had been spent connecting those dots, because I often think that we let our feelings get the better of us.  Sure, I scream at the television, throw food at it and call these people assholes.  But, that doesn't change anything. 

I don't know these people.  I don't know that they are genuinely evil and vile.  Ignorant?  Yes.  Obviously.  And, judging by their remaarks in these situations, they believe themselves to be none of these.  That's the part that's the scariest.

We need to communicate to people (and, comedians) what it feels like to face a flash-flood of hatred everytime we turn on our television -from those who claim to entertain us.  We need to educate them that their harmless little joke is what those that would deny us our rights and dignity chuckle at, and use to bolster their hate.  They need to know how many Trans people are killed and abused because of that hate.  We need to tell Conan, and anyone else who hides behind the 'it's only a joke' excuse that its' not.

We need to tell them that maybe they aren't the cause of the hate.  No.  But, they need to know that ignorance is no excuse, that they are responsible for perpetuating ignorance and hatred.

There's an old quote that says something to the effect that for evil to flourish, good men must do nothing.