I'm sorry, there's something terribly wrong with him

[Pirate Smile]

77. The featured comment to the piece on Jezebel does a good job of explaining this IMO.

"You know, I don't mean to stereotype, but these kinds of "jokes" seem to be mostly thinly-veiled passive-aggression popular with super-privileged old white dudes. The technique is often used to assert their authority, to do something that's basically cruel or mean b/c they know the people around them will basically be forced to laugh it off.

My dad (a CLASSIC super-privileged old white dude if there ever was one) was HUGE for these "jokes". Growing up, he loved to "joke" about how much he hated paying for things like my riding lessons, about how his kids were obviously going to grow up to be failures, about how my mother didn't dress as nicely as he wanted her to. They were obviously hurtful things to say (and things he obviously DID feel upset about) but if you ever confronted him it was always, "I was JOKING! Can't you take a JOKE? Geez!" God forbid if you ever tried to "joke" with him in the same way, though - he'd freak out, or pout about it for days.

My husband's grandfather is also big on these kinds of "jokes". Also see John McCain with his "jokes" to Cindy like: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."

After literally years of effort, I've finally gotten my dad to agree that these aren't actually "jokes" and aren't acceptable (at least not in my presence). All of these Romney pranks sound like exactly the same thing to me - thinly veiled bullying and leveraging of privilege over people he knows have to tolerate it, and an inability to take what he likes to dish out. Honestly, it makes me really, really dislike Romney."

I am familiar with this stuff - my Grandpa (who we all loved) did this kind of stuff but we all knew it had a kind of mean tinge to it - my Mom (his daughter) always said he was worse with boys (we saw it with my boy cousins - his grand kids). She always said they were lucky he had two daughters (and then she had two daughters) so we didn't get the full brunt. He was "rougher" with the boys. He was a white man but not wealthy or very privileged in that way - grew up poor in a large Irish Catholic family. I have no doubt it was the type of behavior he probably saw growing up. But it is definitely a passive-aggressive power/intimidation "joke"/teasing.