From: utzoo!decvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!Anonymous
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Title: Re: not a joke; a flame - (nf)
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.164
Posted: Mon Jun  7 15:26:06 1982
Received: Tue Jun  8 02:57:44 1982
Reply-To: s

#R:tekmdp:-124700:uiucdcs:9900001:000:2605
uiucdcs!Anonymous    Jun  7 14:36:00 1982

***** uiucdcs:net.jokes / tekmdp!donh /  2:35 pm  Jun  3, 1982
I think the proscription, recently proposed, against ethnic jokes that will
not pass thru the sieve:  "Try another minority group and see if it is still
funny." misses the mark.  If it is still funny, that just means you have 
found a shared ethnic insult.  I suggest instead, applying the joke to the
following examination matrix, and canceling it if you hit an x.


\
 \
  \   minority
   \  group
    \
     \
      \
       \         Italians  Hebrews  Poles  Mexicans   WASPs  Irish  Scots
        \
traits   \------------------------------------------------------------------
         |
         |
         |
         |
stingy   |                    x                                       x
         |
         |
         |
         |
unclean  |                            x        x
         |
         |
         |
         |
stupid   |                            x        x                 x
         |
         |
         |
         |
fecund   |         x                           x                 x
         |
         |
         |
         |
cold     |                    x                          x
         |
         |
         |
         |
feisty   |         x                                              x    x
         |



My apologies to any ethnic groups left unoffended.  

This issue is clearer to me using more primitive examples, to wit:
You do not call jews kikes or women broads because implicit derogatory
meanings attach to those words.  It is a special kind of insult--
it proclaims your detachment from and indifference to the harm done
to the insultee.

If you are not in sympathy with the above claim, I recommend to you
some the the more available books on the Holocaust and call your
particular attention to the emotional isolation the guards achieved
from the inmates by maintaining fiercely some of the convictions
embodied in my visual aid above.  This was a neccessary step in
civilization-deconditioning making it possible for the guards to
do what they did in the camps.

So, what is my point?  I would ask that, as a personal choice, you
consider restraining yourself from telling ethnic jokes unless you 
can vitiate their underlying brutality (as for instance, by being of 
the minority in question--which, by the way, is difficult to ascertain 
over a network).  I do not think it is good for whoever does it,
and I view it as pissing in the public well.



                                    end of polemic (a non-volatile flame)
                                    tekmdp!donh

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