Owning Up

Last week, our American Studies class went to see Clybourne Park, as I blogged about in my previous post "Sorry My Brother, Can't Let You In."  Outside the theatre, there were voting polls that people could drop a slip of paper in to a glass box that everybody can see as shown below.  One of these that I found interesting is the one below that says, "I have told an offensive joke."  Roughly one third of people responded "no" to this, making the claim that they have never in their life said something offensive.

Now I don't know a thing about any of the people who voted in this poll, but I can guarantee that almost everyone who answered that they have never told an offensive joke is lying.  Everybody has told offensive jokes.  They might not mean any harm, but they will still say them.  I certainly have and don't know anyone who could honestly say they haven't.

So why did a fairly large population of people in this poll claim they have never told an offensive joke?

First off, these are open polls, so everybody can see which box people drop their vote in.  Nobody wants to be labeled a racist, so in public places like this, some people lie to avoid any awkwardness or conflict.  If this poll was done privately, I believe the results would've been very different because people are much more honest when nobody is watching, but in public they put on different masks to hide their poor qualities.

Also, I believe people voted no because everybody wants to believe that they are a part of the solution and not the problem.  Everybody sees racism take place, but nobody wants to think they helped cause it.  The people who say no to this have too much pride to admit that they have done wrong because they want to place blame on others and make themselves seem perfect when, in reality, it is very likely that they have said something offensive but just can't own up.

Everybody does some bad things.  Everybody says some mean jokes.  They can be very little and unimportant, but sill it shocks me that some people can't even own up to little mistakes that have no consequences.