From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:G:cliff Newsgroups: net.jokes.d Title: Re: Response to Linda Seltzer Article-I.D.: populi.333 Posted: Sat Sep 11 16:57:30 1982 Received: Sun Sep 12 05:49:08 1982 We can summarize the 50 lines of "Response to Linda Seltzer" with the following fatuous claim that: "There will always be racist jokes and jokers; there is nothing anyone can do about it; so we should all just shut up and count our blessings." (The first two clauses of the above are almost literal quotations!) In fact, there is quite a bit that we can do about racism and sexism, one of the things we can do is fight the spread of harmful stereotypes. The following excerpt is from an article I submitted last December, it is interesting to note that it is just as applicable to sexism as racism--15 years ago people thought that anyone who compared the two was a member of a lunatic fringe. ================================ Excerpt from previous article: ================================ (1) Derogatory ethnic and religious STEREOTYPES are often HARMFUL, not to mention OFFENSIVE, to members of ethnic and religious groups, and to many others. (I hope that at least this much is obvious). (2) Given (1), it follows that anything which serves to reinforce or otherwise perpetuate these stereotypes can be extremely offensive, and possibly harmful, to the above mentioned people. That is ONE reason many people object to jokes which ``attack'' derogatory stereotypes, even when they are told by people who are clearly not racist. Looked at in this light there is an obvious difference between an ethnic telling ethnic jokes to family and friends, and this same person spreading them all over the country on a computer network--it is not ``alright'' simply because of the ethnicity of the teller! ================ End of excerpt ================ -Cliff Frost (ucbvax!g:cliff)