Xref: utzoo soc.culture.jewish:8462 news.misc:2184 news.sysadmin:1743 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!chablis!shane From: shane@chablis.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker) Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,news.misc,news.sysadmin Subject: Re: Anti-Semitism (Jew-hatred) on the network. What should be done? Message-ID: <812@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> Date: 30 Nov 88 16:55:47 GMT References: <1748YZKCU@CUNYVM> <3616@phri.UUCP> <1752YZKCU@CUNYVM> Sender: usenet@mailrus.cc.umich.edu Reply-To: shane@chablis.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker) Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor Lines: 82 In article <1752YZKCU@CUNYVM> YZKCU@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Yaakov Kayman) writes: [ Deleted for brevity. I want respond to the response to the response which was a reaction to some mail which was produced through the flame wars brought about as a response to some responses caused by a posting in rec.humor.funny. ] >I'd like to make it *quite* clear that the Jew-hatred on the net that I >refer to is *NOT* the original Jewish-Scottish joke (see r.h.f. if you >must if you don't remember that one, or e-mail Brad Templeton), but >rather the vile anti-Semitic profanity directed at Nancy Gould as a >result of this "tempest in a teapot". The original joke was offensive, >but not terribly so. The specific instance you are talking about is the result of the joke in r.h.f. I have seen claims (nearing the hundreds now), that that joke is an attack on the entire Jewish religion. (Many of these people claim that Jews are a race, which is false. There is a Jewish culture, but it is not a race trait. It is based upon a set of religious beliefs.) >I normally try very hard to avoid profanity, sometimes with more success >than at other times, but "F___ OFF YOU JEWISH B____" is anything but a >joke, and deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms by responsible >adults, who have a moral obligation to discourage deliberately offensive >behavior. > I agree with you that this is offensive. However, I feel that most of the heat is being directed incorrectly. Let me try to explain. The phrase "Fuck Off" is basically a null phrase. If you are on Usenet and haven't been told to "fuck off" yet, you are doing something wrong. :-) Seriously, this is not the major concern here. The phrase Jewish Bitch is what is taking all the heat. I maintain that it is the work Bitch which should be causing most of the heat. The adjective "Jewish" is being used as a pejoritive because most of the flaming has be of the type "I'm Jewish and I'm offended." If the person involved had been Scottish, would the phrase "Fuck Off you Scottish Bitch", have been as offensive? I think not. Yet the content is the same. >Humor that is deliberately offensive tends to bring out the worst in >people. >Do we not now see that? No, I don't agree with that at all. Your premise is that the humor in question (the joke in r.h.f) caused the hate mail. The hate mail was caused by something said by Nancy, possibly. If the joke had passed without the major yelling and flaming which has occured, would the mail have been sent? The answer is pretty clearly NO. The conclusion is therefore false. I will now start a slight flame directed against this situation, not at anybody in particular. I am sick and tired of having a list of "minority" groups which demand the "right" to be treated specialially and have to be handled with kid gloves. Speaking personally, there are several major groups on out campus here which receive prefered treatment because they are "minorities". Groups such as blacks and Jews are two that come to mind. Here if you refer to anybody (or group) descended from "Afro-American" ancestry you refer to them a Black with a capital B. Yet whites don't get the capital. Here, Jews are allowed to skip classes on Jewish religious holidays. This is fine, but non-Jewish groups do not get the same privledges. They have to attend classes, etc, even if it is a religious day for them. I am tired of having to mollycoddle minorities! I want to be able to treat people as people and humans. Not as a member of some group! >-------- >Yaakov Kayman (212) 903-3666 City University of New York Shane Looker | Looker@um.cc.umich.edu America works less, when you say "Union Yes!"