From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:CAD:teklabs!tekmdp!donh Newsgroups: net.jokes Title: not a joke; a flame Article-I.D.: tekmdp.1247 Posted: Thu Jun 3 14:35:45 1982 Received: Sat Jun 5 01:13:48 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