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From: richmond@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan E. D. Richmond)
Newsgroups: news.misc,soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: RACIST JOKES
Message-ID: <8052@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 19 Nov 88 08:16:56 GMT
References: <8030@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1058@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> <1060@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> <1057@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> <1223@fig.bbn.com> <666@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: richmond@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan E. D. Richmond)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <666@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov> shore@ncifcrf.gov (Melinda Shore) writes:
>In article <1223@fig.bbn.com> rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:
>>And if the person doesn't stop, then the majority should force them?
>>Sorry, you're wrong.  Read the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
>
>The First Amendment gives Brad Templeton the right to include racist,
>sexist, denigrating jokes in rec.humor.funny.  What I find appalling,
>profoundly appalling, is that we as a community tolerate it.  There
>is nothing funny about racial, religious, or sexual stereotyping.
>When somebody tells a racist joke at work, what do you do?  Do you
>let the teller know that the joke is offensive and not amusing, or do
>you laugh?  Each of us has a responsibility to make our community a
>better place.  I don't see that tolerating hatred contributes toward
>that.
>-- 
>Melinda Shore                                    shore@ncifcrf.gov
>NCI Supercomputer Facility              ..!uunet!ncifcrf.gov!shore


WELL SAID -- and this is the point at which I will reply.  Since this
does appear to have spread to more than one newsgroup I will cross-post.
I will try to be succinct and avoid repetition.

Let me start by saying I wholeheartedly agree with Melinda Shore
and Nancy Gould.  Both speak to our need to eliminate hatred from
our midst, and that is crucial.

It is amazing how often people cry "censorship" whenever they are
asked to show restraint.  It is as if none of us are required to take
into account the feelings of anyone else, but can simply hurt people
at will.

Rich Salz and a number of others raise the question of the First
Amendment.  Though I am not a US citizen (and I don't believe Brad 
Templeton is either), I clearly stand by the right to freedom of
speech.  But people who cite the First Amendment so quickly and
do matter-of-factly erroneously believe that the world is a simple
place and that there is never more than one "right" to be considered
at a time.

Real life unfortunately isn't like that, and much of the task of the
judiciary is to mediate between conflicting rights.  I may own a piece
of land and wish to construct a pollution-causing industrial plant
there.  I consider it my right to do so because I have legally purchased
the property.

Local residents, on the other hand, may consider that they have the
right to a clean environment, and a whole bunch of litigation may follow.
When rights conflict, one of the parties -- or sometimes both -- must
bend.

On the question of racist jokes, maybe posters of these items 
consider they have First Amendment protection.  But do the people who
are victims of these jokes have no rights, too?  I find it very 
interesting that Rich Salz believes I am "intimidating" Brad Templeton
by saying up front that I am considering further action on this matter.

But Rich says nothing about the intimadation caused to people made 
the subjects of these "jokes."  They have rights, too, and I believe
that their rights must be weighted against the rights of those who
wish to propagate racist humor -- and therefore hatred.  Brad Templeton,
in his role as moderator should, I believe, avoid racially offensive 
materials.  Some people have asked how to judge if such material
is offensive.  Can I suggest that if Brad Templeton forwards a joke 
with the keyword "racist" it is clearly offensive, and he knows that.

So I am saying that Brad Templeton should have the *judgement* to
avoid racist humor.  If he lacks it, then he must recognize
my right to freely express my disapporval.

Some people question whether racist humor really is damaging.  Answers
have already been given to this, but I'll reiterate that racist jokes
were very popular in Nazi Germany and were used to stereotype Jews,
and by making them seem less human, made their persecution more 
acceptable by society.

I lived in the South for a year recently, and one unfortunately still
sees a high incidence of Black jokes down there which serve a similar
purpose. Make a Black seem like a monkey, for example, and it then
becomes logical to ship him back to Africa, because that is where
monkeys come from.  All such humor serves to degrade its subjects and
propagate persecution against them.  I am well aware of this, since
my current research is in the area of Metaphor (seeing how we see
things and using this to account for social understandings), and I
have been doing work in Watts, the black urban ghetto of Los Angeles.
I have many eye-witness accounts of the hurt caused by racial
stereotyping and by the jokes which promote it.  Jokes get made, for
example, about the intelligence of Blacks -- imagine what this does
to someone who has just made it into UCLA, and is trying to make it
in a new and foreign society:  Someone who might log on to the USENET
and see an unattractive reflection of themselves in the computer terminal,
for example.

Should they not be upset, and do they not deserve restraint on the 
part of a moderator?  Can't we let the bigots stick to rec.humor, 
and count on a moderator to exclude racial malice from rec.humor.funny?

It really comes down to a matter of decency and judgement.  So,
instead of crying "censorship!" how about putting yourself in the
position of someone victimized by a racist joke, someone who knows
history, and knows all too well how racial stereotyping embodied in
such humor leads to predudice, lynchings, and even attempts at
racial extermination.

Jonathan Richmond