jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (11/19/88)
Perhaps the best solution is for individuals to realize the
irrationality and unfairness of racial, religious, and ethnic
slights and refrain from them voluntarily, regardless of
whether the creator or purveyor of such slight finds it
"funny".
Jeff Daiell
(opinions my own)
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Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum billd@celerity.UUCP (Bill Davidson) (11/22/88)
I can't believe I'm finally going to enter this stupid flame war but I just
can't stand it anymore. These jokes are meant to be HUMOR!! I know many
people who can't deal with ANY joke that involves any group of which they are
a member. These people are also mostly made up of people whom I consider to
be insecure for other reasons besides this attribute. Most of the Jewish
jokes that I've heard in my life have come from JEWISH people, espsecially the
jewish mother jokes (which I happen to enjoy a lot; my family is not jewish
but I still have a jewish mother :-). My best friend is catholic and he
thoroughly enjoys priest/nun/pope jokes. We exchange them all the time. The
problem is that too many people take jokes seriously as an attack to them.
(BTW, as you may have guessed, I consider judaism a religion, and to some
extent, a culture but not a race). It would cut the material down to almost
nothing if we tried to make the jokes so that they never offended anyone (and
quite impossible, there is no moderator who could do it). I do agree that
many of the racist jokes, are only meant as derogatory towards a
race/sex/religion/whatever group and that is only thing that brings the
author/teller of the joke any enjoyment so that most of us who are against
racism don't see any humor in it at all because it just ain't funny (please
excuse the run-on). The people who submit those jokes should be
chastised/flamed. I don't think that Brad has posted any such jokes although
some were a little borderline and should have been rot13'd but weren't (he
already apologized for that). As Brad also pointed out, you can't really get
to his employer because he is his employer. Most of the jokes that people
complain about the most are not very funny in my opinion. Why not ignore
them? I don't see Brad as a racist. I do see the people who are calling for
his removal as a bunch of self-rightous insecure idealists who think that
the world should be perfect and will expend rediculous amounts of energy
trying to make it so, even at the expense of others and with little respect
for others opinions or feelings. My advice is:
Don't worry, be happy. Laugh at life or if you can't
then unsubscribe from rec.humor* because you have
no sense of humor.
--Bill Davidson
(asbestos suit donned)
My employer chooses to ignore my these: my opinions.
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....!{ucsd|sdcsvax}!celerity!billd