Xref: utzoo soc.culture.jewish:8192 news.misc:1980 soc.culture.african:485 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!yale!engelson From: engelson@cs.yale.edu (Sean Philip Engelson) Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,news.misc,soc.culture.african Subject: Re: RACIST JOKES Keywords: JEDR, racist, jokes Message-ID: <43725@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Date: 21 Nov 88 21:47:42 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> <8052@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <7576@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <8086@bloom-beacon.MIT.E Sender: root@yale.UUCP Reply-To: engelson@cs.yale.edu (Sean Philip Engelson) Followup-To: soc.culture.jewish Organization: Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-2158 Lines: 37 The problem is not with the jokes posted, nor is it with the policy of posting these jokes. The problem is the attitude expressed by several people of "If you don't like it, don't read it!". This policy fails to address the main issue at hand which is that many discriminatory remarks can help build and reinforce real discriminatory tendencies. Thus telling people not to read so that they won't be offended does not address the problem, as the problem is with the people who read and begin to believe, or are buttressed in their belief that, the characteristics and stereotypes in the joke or story are true, and then go and act on these beliefs. And should you believe that net.people are good, honest, non-discriminatory folk, I should point you at comp.ai, where someone who posted an ordinary post was flamed from a number of people about his posting, in racial terms. I am not calling for censorship of rec.humor.funny. I am, however, calling for an honest recognition of the effects that postings may have, and an honest attempt to act accordingly. -Sean- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean Philip Engelson, Gradual Student Yale Department of Computer Science 51 Prospect St. New Haven, CT 06520 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The frame problem and the problem of formalizing our intuiutions about inductive relevance are, in every important respect, the same thing. It is just as well, perhaps, that people working on the frame problem in AI are unaware that this is so. One imagines the expression of horror that flickers across their CRT-illuminated faces as the awful facts sink in. What could they do but "down-tool" and become philosophers? One feels for them. Just think of the cut in pay! -- Jerry Fodor (Modules, Frames, Fridgeons, Sleeping Dogs, and the Music of the Spheres)