Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Expansion of rec.humor.funny to other networks
Summary: Reply
Message-ID: <3459@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 17 Mar 89 11:40:15 GMT
References: <439@corpane.UUCP> <3100@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <9773@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <784@twwells.uucp>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 105

In article <784@twwells.uucp>, bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) writes:
> 
> Bullsh*t, Jeff. Racism is a property of an individual.  Individuals
> are racists. Jokes are not. If *I* tell a joke, ostensibly "racist",
> it is because I find some factor in it amusing. It is not because I'm
> a racist.

Nonsense.  The statement, "All blacks are lazy" is racist.  Period.
Full stop.  If you agree with that stereotype, you're a racist, too.
And if you find racist humor funny, what does that say about you?




> 
> Let me put it this way. I am Jewish enough that Hitler would have sent
> me to a concentration camp.  (My mother was born Jewish; 

You *can't* be "born Jewish", any more than you can be "born Presbyterian".
You can be born to persons who believe in Judaism; that doesn't make
you Jewish.

> I was raised
> Catholic.) My wife *is* Jewish. I don't consider myself Jewish; I'm
> an Objectivist and find all religion equally repugnant. (Yes, my wife
> is also now an atheist.) 

If you're wife is now an atheist, she is *not* Jewish.  You can't be
a Jewish atheist anymore than you can be a Baptist atheist.

So, let me tell you an old joke. It is to be
> told with the appropriate Jewish accent, of course.
> 
> 	This boy is given two shirts by his mother and goes to his
> 	room to try them on. He returns to the living room and says
> 	"Mom, how does it look?" The mother says "What's wrong, don't
> 	you like the other shirt?"
> 
> Why do I enjoy this? First, using the stereotype dramatically points
> out the thing I find incongruous.  Without the Jewish accent to make
> it clear which stereotype is being invoked it looses quite a bit of
> its impact.

Why, Bill?  You don't think Christian children -- or Islamic
children -- find themselves in this no-win situation?  Sad!

> Second, it pokes fun at a kind of stereotyped behavior
> that deserves a little censure.

The operative word here is stereotyped.  Enough!  When are we going
to mature, to put away religious/racial/national stereotypes and
judge persons as individuals???  

> Third, I laugh at it for the same
> reason that we, later, laugh at all disasters that we manage to
> survive and grow from (my childhood, in this case).

And for this you need the joke to be told in a "Jewish accent".
Sigh.
> 
> One finds this humorous only when one understands in some way the
> catch-22 in this situation. The absurdity of the position of the boy,
> that whatever he did was wrong, is essential to the humor.

And you think this doesn't happen to children whose parents are
Methodist?

> The
> stereotype provides a shorthand for an entire collection of
> characteristics; these enable us to quickly enough grasp what is going
> on that we are struck by immediately by its humor.  Without the
> stereotype, the joke, and its wider implications, would have to be
> explained. It wouldn't be funny any more. Merely sad.

And that sort of shorthand leads to discrimination.  To segregation.
If carried far enough, to even worse things.

If you need the stereotype for that joke to be funny, you're in
trouble.


> 
> I find bigotry in all its forms *repulsive*, not to mention
> irrational. And I hardly need race-based jokes to defend myself
> against those who are anti-Jewish. Will you call me racist? Will you
> call me defensive?  You'd better not. Or will you accept that your
> own racism (against people who enjoy jokes that you find offensive) is
> irrational and repudiate it?

I'm proud of my distaste for stereotypes and bigoted humor.  I see
nother irrational about distaste for collectivistic generalizations
and other manifestations of unreason.  As one of my three favorite
writers once said, Bill ... "Check your premises!"


Para un Tejas Libre,

Jeff Daiell



-- 
Jeff Daiell  
Integration Section
Baseline Department
Ferranti Int'l Controls Corp.