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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!mcnc!decvax!wivax!dyer
From: dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: "Gay Blade" joke
Message-ID: <19484@wivax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 6-May-84 13:20:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: wivax.19484
Posted: Sun May  6 13:20:26 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 7-May-84 00:57:59 EDT
References: <1798@sdccsu3.UUCP>, <597@ucbvax.UUCP>
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 26

This type of discussion occurs cyclically, and we can expect more of the
same in the future.  I won't add much more to it now, except to say this:
ucbvax!faustus is right, of course, that ethnic jokes didn't cause the
extermination of Jews in WWII, nor the enslavement of blacks in the
New World.  But this is really irrelevant to my point, for I'm really
discussing a sense of etiquette for what jokes to tell, and how to tell them.  

An ethnic joke CAN be very funny, but if the humor is derived at the
expense of the joke's subject, or if the teller of the joke derives
a sense of superiority from it, then there is a dark edge to
the humor, and the joke becomes something more than just a joke--it
becomes a type of political expression.  Now, intuiting just where a
joke crosses the line between humor and offensiveness is a value judgement.
Different people will have different opinions, so naturally any discussion
of this will be controversial.  Clearly, the opinions of those who are the
butt of the joke have some persuasive force, probably more than many who
are arguing out of some abstract frame of reference.

No one is arguing for a ban on {white,women's,black,gay,Polish,Jewish,ethnic}
jokes, but it is good to raise the sensibilities of people in general, so that
people examine what they are saying, and may be aware that their innocent
joke might be disputed.
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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