Objecting to offending speech requires a shared meaning system speakers lack

Evidence

Why were the people who objected to the offensive jokes silent — or even eventually drawn into them? Silence was the only possible frontstage response to offensive conversation. … Mounting a public objection to racist talk was impossible. Objecting to it would have required reference to a more solid system of meaning than participants were willing to impose on the situation. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 735

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Habermasian public sphere literature the reader is engaging: critique requires a background consensus that informal group life refuses to supply.
• QUESTION: What would count as the ‘more solid system of meaning’ that could ground an objection? The group seems to have none available.