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From: olsen@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Jim Olsen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,news.misc
Subject: Re: Do ethnic jokes CAUSE bigotry?
Message-ID: <1176@xn.LL.MIT.EDU>
Date: 5 Dec 88 02:40:58 GMT
References: <1748YZKCU@CUNYVM> <275@acheron.UUCP> <130@verdix.verdix.com> <284@acheron.UUCP> <4204@cs.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: olsen@xn.ll.mit.edu (Jim Olsen)
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA
Lines: 24

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.  A number of anti-semitic slurs were sent in reaction to rather
>moderate posts.

Dan is jumping to conclusions.  Many people, including me, are angry with
JEDR and others for their attempts at censorship.  Their complaints to the
newspapers may destroy much of Usenet as we know it.  Some people, in their
anger and frustration, sent messages containing ethnic slurs to some of those
concerned.  (I do not condone this action.)

We do not know if the senders of these messages were truly racist, or
merely used racial slurs calculated to upset the recipients.  And even if
the senders were racist, we have no evidence that jokes had an effect on
their racism.

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

Since Usenet has no official corporate existence, it can have no official
agents.  I think the jokes discourage bigotry, by laughing at it.

Before one starts to censor jokes, it would be nice to have evidence that
the jokes cause the bad effects you claim.