Observations on offensive humor

Following a chain of links I ran across a post from four years ago by hardvice that puts into words something I've tried and failed to verbalize a couple of times in the past. The relevant portion is this:

Seriously, I've said this before and I'll say it again: when someone tells a joke that's potentially offensive and you laugh, you're either laughing at the humour (the timing, the unexpected punchline, the fact that it's taboo) or the content (rape, murder, racism, sexism, etc.)

For me, I assume people are laughing at the humour and not laughing at the content. Why? Because there's nothing genuinely funny about any of the content. Racism itself isn't funny, but racist jokes can be—and people's indignant reactions to them even more so.

However, when someone draws a line—that is to say, when someone has a "sacred cow", like "racist jokes are funny but jokes about rape aren't", then I have to assume that they're not laughing at the humour. Otherwise, they'd realise that both are funny. That leaves me with the intolerable belief that they're laughing at the content of the racist jokes.

Now, I don't go quite as far as that. People can certainly be offended merely by the violation of taboo, but I do agree that if someone finds one such violation "funny" and a different one "offensive" the it would seem that it is the content of the first one that they are laughing at rather than the humor. I personally dislike most "shock" comedians because all that they have going for them is the violation of taboo rather than any attempt at wit, but that doesn't mean I find them offensive, merely unfunny. The proper response is "Eh, that wasn't funny," rather than "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!!" As George Carlin once said, words themselves are blameless, it's the racist asshole using them that you have to look out for.