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From: ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (Mike Ciaraldi)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Offensiveness
Message-ID: <3739@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-Nov-83 21:06:35 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.3739
Posted: Sun Nov  6 21:06:35 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Nov-83 09:00:35 EST
Sender: ciaraldi@rocheste.UUCP
Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
Lines: 59

From: Mike Ciaraldi  <ciaraldi>
Why do people tell jokes that are offensive to others,
knowingly or unknowingly?

Some people just like annoying and/or insulting other
people. Of course, most satirists and many other writers
claim that their purpose is to annoy and bother people,
because this makes them think. What's the difference?

Several people on the net, in addressing the issue of
offensiveness, have made a point something like this:
"Well, WE can tell it's offensive, but you either don't
think so or don't care. That's because YOU are not one of those
people who cares about other people and is sensitive
to their feelings."
This sometimes gets extended to: 
"It's not worth telling you this, because you won't
appreciate it anyway."

(this never came over the net to me, personally, but I think
you will recognize the general tone fom numerous messages
in the last few weeks).

This seems to me to be reminiscent of the "gook mentality",
which says:"Those guys aren't really people, they're
just gooks (or other derogatory term). So, it's all right
to kill them, take their land, or whatever". That's the
same rationale used to oppress Blacks, Asians, Jews, intellectuals,
women, and many other groups.

The ironic thing is that the same people who profess to
be against oppression of minorities and belittling them
by telling ethnic jokes have fallen into the same trap as those
they oppose, i.e. they shove their opponents into a
pigeonhole marked "bigot", or "racist", or "stupid",
or "insensitive". That relieves them of any
responsibility to try to understand 
wwhy those people act as they do, or to question their
own reactions. 

It really doesn't matter whether you use the lable
"gook" or "insensitive" on your pigeonhole,
once you start stereotyping people you've started
denying their humanity.



Afterword: I used the term "gook" with a certain
reluctance, since it is offensive to many, including me.
I used it because it showed up in the thinking of
many Americans in Vietnam, and thus provided a recent
example of this kind of thinking.

Comments are invited.
I trust they will be more thougthful than,
"well, you're just insensitive, so who cares what you think."

Mike Ciaraldi
ciaraldi@rochester