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Senator Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat, aptly demonstrated that no political party holds the patent on insensitivity with a joke on AIDS that fell … uh, short, to say the very, very least.
Here’s the transcript of Bayh making an ass of himself at the 2010 Indiana Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner, courtesy of Bilerico:
So I’m walking through the airport and people were kinda being nice and making eye contact and a couple come up and say hello. This one person runs up all excited and I’m prepared to say “Hello,” and he says, “Senator Bayh! Senator Bayh!”
I said “Well, yes?” and he looked at me and said, “Do you have AIDS?”
[audible gasps]
I said, “Huh?”
He said, “Yeah. Do you have AIDS?”
I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say.
He said, “I’ve got a letter I want to give you, do you have someone I can hand this to? Do you have an aide with you?”
I guess I’m of two minds here. First, I’m pretty disgusted that a politician would come out and say such an offensive thing in public. I mean, is the guy stupid? Clearly a crack like this would bring on some heat, not to mention have the opposing political party cackling with glee as they archive this as “fodder for future campaign ads.”
However, I am also a person easily annoyed by the over-PC mindset omnipresent in the U.S. today when you have to watch everything you say and do. The days when I could tell a class full of freshman that I liked to spend my weekends with Harry Wong (he’s an education guru and author, so I meant reading his works on weekends) are over. I have to think ahead when I’m teaching to make sure I don’t inadvertently say something offensive. There is always someone that will be upset or offended by something people say, which is really kind of sad.
I don’t see how Evan Bayh could have missed the really hurtful nature of his joke. I mean, either he’s a complete moron or he’s unspeakably insensitive. Neither conclusion is good for a politician with aspirations.
Well, either way, one thing he is claiming to be is sorry. Bayh states:
“Look, I’ve voted for AIDS funding and all sorts of things. And I’ve been for all sorts of things in terms of equality and lifestyle and that sort of thing. I’m sorry they took offense to that. It was certainly not intended … I was taken by surprise. I did not interpret it as a negative statement.”
So is this a harmless joke, or is Evan Bayh the latest politician to coin a phrase (“Read my lips: no new taxes,” “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky,” and so on) that will come back to bite?
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Southpark had an episode in season 6 called “Jared has Aides” that was a running joke very similar to the incident reported in this article. Maybe that’s why this didn’t strike me as being particularly offensive or funny. It was a misunderstanding based on homonyms. It happens all the time. No need to make the guy wear a political hair shirt.
Yeah, as far as insensitivity goes, I would think this is fairly low. He’s not making jabs at people with AIDS, or making any statement on the disease itself. Maybe he should’ve kept this anecdote to just friends, but could you honestly say that if this happened to you that you wouldn’t repeat the story OR that you would know that the person speaking to you meant assistant?
I don’t get all the outrage- I thought the joke was kind of funny.
I agree, I think this was blown out of proportion. I don’t think humor about an illness is inherently tasteless; I’ve heard some pretty funny cancer jokes. And I think putting humor into a situation with grim statistics can be kind of therapeutic. At least it puts a different tone on media stories about an illness, rather than always treating people with the illness like they’re fragile little snowflakes who are sitting around waiting to die. I also don’t get any whiff of an underlying bias against anyone from Bayh, like I do when other politicians and celebrities get caught saying stupid things. Not that I think he’s a great person or anything.
I agree, I really don’t understand how this is even insensitive. He mentioned AIDS, and is therefore insensitive? Am I missing the point?
Due to reading, rather than listening, and reading AIDS and taking it at face value, I didn’t get it on my first go. I thought it was some comment on the guy not wanting to hand him something directly if he had AIDS.
Once it clicked, I thought it was hilarious.
It’s not telling a joke about AIDS. It’s sharing one of those moments we all have, where ambiguity makes for amusement.
I would certainly tell that story.
I tell the story of when, in a first aid class, I was explaining triage, and the use of green-yellow-red-black to describe progressively more injured people. Green being ‘will be fine’ Yellow being ‘needs help but can wait’, Red, being ‘needs help now or will die’, and black meaning ‘beyond any first aid; going to die no matter what you do, or already dead’.
I then told my class that “red is our highest priority. We don’t help black people.”
…and then I realized what I just said, and had to clarify.
Wow, I think that beats my Harry Wong moment ;-)
Hehehe if I had a story like that I’d share it too.
The joke wasn’t a great joke but I got a small smile out of it, and I in no way was offended, he wasn’t bashing people with AIDS he was smiling at his own misunderstanding.
[...] Evan Bayh in Need of Aid After Making Distasteful AIDS Joke … [...]
It’s a story about a misunderstanding over the similarty of AIDS/aides. It’s not like he belittled it. People need to chill the heck out!
[...] Evan Bayh In Need Of Aid After Making AIDS Joke – Zelda Lily [...]
Maybe I’m missing the delivery here, but it doesn’t even sound like it was a joke, it just sounds like some dry politician telling a boring story about nothing….
But thanks for carrying on the stigma about AIDS, jerk-off. He sounds like a jackass to me either way.
Can you explain how he was carrying on the stigma about AIDS?
If a stranger ran up to me and (I thought) asked me if I had a disease (AIDS, schizophrenia, even diabetes) I would be completely shocked because that’s a very personal question. Not because I thought poorly of people that had the disease. This is a “mountain out of a molehill” thing.