[comp.dcom.telecom] Homophobic Posting in Digest!

andys@ulysses.att.com (06/02/91)

In article <telecom11.391.3@eecs.nwu.edu> is written:

> AT&T does not come off looking well in this matter for its
> limp-wristed way of handling it or notifying AT&T's customers, either.

"Limp-wristed" is a rather offensive and homophobic term to use.  I
DARE you to walk into the gym at the Greenwich Village YMCA and a)
call somebody there a limpwristed faggot or b) try to convince one of
the gentlemen working out that being homosexual or effeminate means
that you have no guts, strength or backbone, as your ignorant comment
implies.  Somebody with a homosexual orientation and the ability and
desire to bench press twice your body weight would be happy to adjust
your attitude for you.

Please take your stereotypes to another list.

> [Moderator's Note: Mr. Robert Allen no longer has any say-so over
> what NYNEX wishes to do. And although you may call them limp-wristed
> for their handling of this, you must realize that whenver AT&T does
> attempt to push the LEC's one way or another, there is always someone
> waiting in the wings to run crying to the Judge about AT&T being too
> involved with the LECs. So this time, AT&T is handling the whole
> thing at arm's length.    PAT]

Pat, while I appreciate your defense of our Corporate reputation, I am
a little disappointed that you granted his heterosexist assumptions in
your reply.  If you think I'm nit-picking, ask yourself if you would
have answered: "you may think that policy niggardly, but ..."  or "you
may think you were being Jewed down, but ..."


Andy Sherman   AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ  andys@ulysses.att.com


[Moderator's Note: Oh dear me, here come the flamers again ...
detirmined to infest TELECOM Digest as bad they have the rest of the
net. The fact that in your response you used 'limpwristed' as an
adjective, or modifier for 'faggot' shows me you are aware the term
can be used to describe any number of people and/or their actions *in
addition to male homosexuals*.  Or were you just being redundant, much
like saying 'gay homosexual' or 'Department of Redundancy Department'?
Your syntax confuses me. Describing a 'faggot' as limpwristed is your
problem, not mine or that of the original author.

You don't display very good vocabulary skills where 'niggardly' is
concerned either. I think you have that word (adj./adv. meaning stingy
or miserly; with its root in 'niggard' (n., probably Scandanavian in
origin meaning a miser, or stingy person)) confused with 'nigger', a
slang term whose root is in 'Niger', or a person from Niger(ia) which
in current parlance or idiom is an ugly way of describing a black
person. I agree 'faggot' is an ugly way to describe a gay person, but
you in your wisdom appended it to 'limpwristed', not me. Please
continue this over in alt.politics.homosexual or someplace where they
relish flames and personal attacks, and expect to find homophobia,
internalized or otherwise, lurking in every message.  PAT]