Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!sii!mem
From: mem@sii.UUCP (Mark Mallett)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: Polish jokes
Message-ID: <319@sii.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Oct-83 23:16:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: sii.319
Posted: Thu Oct 13 23:16:39 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Oct-83 22:39:08 EDT
Lines: 43

b
Re: philabs!dal's appreciation of Polish Humor

Ethnic and stereotypical (?) humor is wonderful, isn't it.
There seem to be several ways of looking at it:

- as a 'release' from straightjacketing of propriety
- something done in private at no harm to anyone
- poking fun in a friendly way (not the same as the previous)
- prejudicial slander.

One thing seems certain: it is never, never allowable for a public
official to appreciate much less tell an ethnic joke.  This seems to
indicate that the overt overall opinion is that these jokes are bad;
yet for some reason they are all right for personal use.

To quote some excellent remarks from a June, 1982 usenet article
submitted by one tekmdp!donh:

"This issue is clearer to me using ... primitive examples, to wit:
 You do not call jews kikes or women broads because implicit derogatory
 meanings attach to these words.  It is a special kind of insult-- 
 it proclaims your detachment from and indifference to the harm done
 to the insultee.

 ...

 I would ask that, as a personal choice, you
 consider restraining yourself from telling ethnic jokes unless you
 can vitiate their underlying brutality
 ...I do not think it is good for whoever does it,
 and I view it as pissing in the public well.
"

Appreciation for ethnic humor is so ingrained in me that I find it
hard to empathize with this view, even while agreeing with it in
my mind.  I think of my parents, who had very definite acquired
prejudices, but who would not allow themselves to pass on those that
they recognized.  It seems to me that I, at least, ought to make
that same sort of effort for the future.

Mark Mallett
decvax!sii!mem