Do You Think This is Funny?

[paulpablo]

Someone here at AF sent this to me and I’m having a hard time figuring out just how to respond. This person is not stupid—not someone that any of us would think of as an asshole. But that makes it all the more puzzling and unexpected.

All good Rhonda... nothing to complain about! The wife never listens anyway!
The last time I asked her "what did your last slave die of", she responded: Not sure, never bothered to check? Hehe

I know the history of the country this person lives in. it’s not a history of slavery. It’s a history of extermination. His people just hunted my people down and cut up their bodies for dog food. Can you see why I’m having a hard time with this?

I don’t think race should be a taboo subject at AF. Still, how would you take what this person said to me?

Race wasn't mentioned in the sentence there so I don't think it's offensive in the sense of racial involvement.
As a person who likes good comedy I'm offended, that joke is crap.  I guess you might be offended if you had any slaves in your family within recent enough generations for you to remember.

Additionally all this talk of "His people" and "My people" reminds me of a convo I had in work with some guy, he basically said my dead grandmother was probably a bitch because she was Russian and Russians killed a lot of his ancestors in some war.  I don't pay attention to that type of bullshit talk but I was in shock about him calling my dead grandmother a bitch so I told him I'm glad that my people exterminated his people and I thought it was funny.  Then he seemed a bit shocked but we still remained genuinely friendly to each other after that convo that day. 

All that I took away from that convo is that it was probably the weirdest convo I've ever had in work, I don't know I he meant to be as offensive as he was but my knee jerk reaction is to instantly be offensive back.