Don’t let jokes about someone’s family, body or background slide. That line protects everybody, including you.

A joke about somebody’s family, body or background is testing where the line sits, and silence answers that it sits further out than it should. Once it has moved it keeps moving, and the person it lands on learns that nobody present will say anything. Holding that line is not about being humorless, it is about keeping the group somewhere everybody can be.

Say something at the time, even if it is only that you are not into that. You do not need a speech or a confrontation. Once one person marks the line, it gets much easier for the next person to hold it.