Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!ptownson
From: ptownson@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Patrick Townson)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The Continuing Crisis (was Sue the Bastard)
Message-ID: <26585@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 12 Dec 88 00:44:04 GMT
References: <20539@mirror.UUCP> <1991@stiatl.UUCP> <4969@bsu-cs.UUCP> <680@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov> <567@whizz.uucp>
Reply-To: ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu (Patrick Townson)
Followup-To: news.misc
Organization: very poor
Lines: 62

In article <567@whizz.uucp> bbh@whizz.uucp (Bud Hovell) writes:
>Is Don Rickles a "racist"? Well, is he?
>
>Whether one likes his humor or not, Mr. Rickles has never - so far as I know -
>drawn serious fire from the Jewish or Black or Puerto Rican or Polish or other
>communities like unto what we are witnessing here. I can't recall a single
>instance in which he has been accused of "racism". (It may have happened, but
>I just don't recall it - does anyone else?). 
>
>How cum? Does he have some kinda special permit issued by the "right people"?
>How does one go about applying? Is there a fee? If so, I'll pitch in to help,
>since I do think we should all be most concerned if one of our usenet
>moderators were actually guilty of practicing humor without a license. Shame!
> 

No, Don Rickles is not a racist. And to answer your second question about 
'permits issued by the right people', unfortunatly this is correct. What 
happens is when people run out of any other excuse for stopping your speech or
your legitimate activities -- if they had any valid reasons to begin with --
well, then they just scream 'racist!'  or 'anti-semite!!!'

You see, the thinking is that these two conditions -- racism and anti-semitism
-- are so awful, so ugly, that *everything* has to take a back seat to getting
rid of them. Indeed, these are pretty dreadful ways to organize your thoughts
about people, but they are not the worst problems we face in the world.

I've always felt the true racists and jew-haters are the people who scream the
most about it. To quote a line from Shakespeare, 'methinks the man doth protest
too loudly...'

Long ago I quit guilt-tripping to the tune of 'racism' and 'anti-semitism'. 
Like the words 'liberal' and 'conservative' relative to modern American
politics, they are now virtually meaningless. When people toss these words
around at people like Brad T. and others, what they are really saying is they
can't think of any legitimate reason for their attitude and they are hoping you
will buy this one. What they are hoping is that you will recoil in horror and
stop the world while they get off.

And who are the 'right people who issue the permits'? If people in the news
media like you, then you've got it made. If they do not like you, then try as
hard as you wish to explain things in the proper context -- such as the
operations of this net relative to the *tiny* piece which makes up rec.funny,
but they will not be placated. When you have racism on the brain -- when the
differences between black and white, Christian and Jew, male and female are
so familiar to you that almost all your time is occupied thinking about it,
then nothing is going to convince you otherwise. 

Unfortunatly, some newspapers, some television/radio people are like that. The
notion of racism so consumes them and fills them with anxiety that they find 
a story about it everywhere. They say, 'this will be our news' and then set
about finding it, as obviously happened when Brad Templeton was so badly
victimized recently. Add in the general ignorance of the public about computer
communications -- and I will suggest the general hostility of the print media
toward a growing pheonenom which is effectivly leaving fewer people to read 
the papers or listen to the talking heads on their television at night -- and
'racism' is just the tool to use.

So when someone shouts 'racism' or 'anti-semite' at you, just laugh at them
and go on your way. *You* know these allegations are not true, and so do 
they most of the time.

Patrick Townson