Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!blake!ogccse!littlei!uunet!wucs1!wuphys!wucfua!jlc
From: jlc@wucfua.wustl.edu (Roving UIUC CS Grad Student)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Do ethnic jokes CAUSE bigotry?
Message-ID: <392@wucfua.wustl.edu>
Date: 6 Dec 88 01:40:22 GMT
References: <4204@cs.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: jlc@wucfua.UUCP (Roving UIUC CS Grad Student)
Organization: Great Cthulu's Starry Wisdom Band
Lines: 45

In article <4204@cs.utexas.edu> berleant@cs.utexas.edu (Dan Berleant) writes:
>Do ethnic jokes cause bigotry? 
>
>Sadly, the answer appears be a definite yes.
>
>There have been examples right here in the current discussion of ethnic
>jokes. A number of anti-semitic slurs were sent in reaction to rather
>moderate posts.

I haven't noticed any anti-semitic slurs ON THE NET (although there certainly
appear to have been some via E-Mail, unfortunately).

However, I'd agree that the "racist" joke has provoked some bigoted responses,
largely on the part of those protesting it. More than once I've seen
the "white male == bigot" assertion made (and, thankfully, challenged).
To that extent I'd agree that ethnic jokes have caused some display of
bigotry. "Caused" is much too strong a word --- I strongly suspect that the
bigoted attitudes, both of the anonymous E-Mailers and the anti-White male
bigots on the net, were there before The Joke was posted and all this
discussion erupted.

>Promoting ethnic jokes in rec.humor.funny (by the moderator, an official
>agent of usenet) has no benefit whatever, and promotes bigotry as well.

An "official agent of usenet"? USENET *HAS* no "official agents" --- it's
an anarchy. The closest you could come to an "official agent" are the
highly unofficial net.gods --- those that have been around a long time
and have authority due to expertise. There is, simply, nothing and no one
that can be pointed at and called USENET.

And "no benefit whatever"? I think there may have been a definite benefit:
those who actually believe in the ethnic stereotypes have been informed by
the majority of those on the net that WE DO NOT. And those that believe that
ethnic jokes actually do perpetuate ethnic stereotypes have, hopefully, seen
that their view is also not shared by most of those on the net.

>Dan

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