This Joke About Domestic Violence Is A Quick And Easy Way To Get Fired

By Melissa McEwen in News on Jan 4, 2015 5:00PM

Photo by tipster Jessica Gretch

It's been posted around the country from Texas to Philadelphia and each time the person responsible seems to get fired. Yet people keep posting it. And news outlets keep covering it. And internet commenters are outraged that people got fired over a "joke."

Recently, the joke showed up in Lincoln Square at neighborhood bar Gio's. DNAinfo reports the person who put up the sign has—surprise!—been fired.

Some people have misattributed it to Bill Burr, but the routine where he mentions it is about one of the incidents where someone got fired for it. A routine where he makes light about people offended by the sign. He asks if we really think jokes like this spur people to commit domestic violence.

But that's not why domestic violence jokes are offensive in a way some other jokes about violence aren't. The problem isn't that it "makes" people commit violence, it's that a lot of people who don't commit domestic violence also don't take it very seriously. And some of these people are on juries or are judges or police officers.

Violence is an action, domestic violence is a daily hell many are trapped in. When people aren't killed because people don't take domestic violence seriously, maybe jokes about it won't get people fired.