Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!xanth!lll-winken!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!Zap
From: Zap@cup.portal.com (Tim Philip Cadell)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Expansion of rec.humor.funny to other networks
Message-ID: <16116@cup.portal.com>
Date: 22 Mar 89 19:14:57 GMT
References: <439@corpane.UUCP> <3100@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <9773@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <784@twwells.uucp> <3459@ficc.uu.net>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 104

}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?
}

I disagree.  I'm not a big fan of racist jokes but if a joke is making fun
of a "stereotype", it's not making fun of the race/group mentioned, it's
making fun of the stereotype.  Billy Crystal's old Jewish man character doesn't
offend me, even though he's a stereotype.  As long as some people propogate
stereotypes by lumping people together for purposes of prejudgement (in other
words, because they're too lazy to consider each person for their own merits
and demerits (?)), there will continue to be jokes about those stereotypes.
Humor has been described as a mechanism for pointing out things not to do.
Hopefully, in this case, it makes the point that unthinking prejudices are
stupid.

}> 
}> 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.

Can you be born Polish?  Could Polish jokes offend you then?  Being Jewish
is partly religious, but largely based on ancestry.

}> 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.

<Buzzzzz> wrong answer!  Baptist does not include ancestry.

}>So, let me tell you an old joke. It is to be
}> told with the appropriate Jewish accent, of course.
<joke removed for terseness>
<Too late!>
}>                                    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!

Is there a stereotype there to be joked about?

}> 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???  

I think you're attacking the wrong person.

}> 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!"
}
}Jeff Daiell
}-- 
}Jeff Daiell  
}Integration Section
}Baseline Department
}Ferranti Int'l Controls Corp.

Zap Savage
Savage Research
"Making Tomorrow's Mistakes Today"

And since this subject is relatively serious (sad, isn't it), my *real* name
is Tim Cadell, not that that helps anyone any. :)