Bad Jokes & Ebonics

[grip at netcom.com]

On Tue, 18 Feb 1997 Kyburz at asu.edu wrote:

> Is there any need to spread this crap any further.  

No need, I suppose. It's not terribly relevant to Pynchon. But then 
a lot of things here are not.

> Doesn't anyone understand that ebonices "jokes" are hate speech?

I suppose that might be the understanding of some folks. And in some 
cases it surely is. But we joke about all sorts of things without any 
hatred. Why assume it's hatred here? Just because I joke about attorneys 
doesn't mean...bad example...let me starts again... I loved my late 
mother-in-law dearly. But I also laughed at many mother-in-law jokes. In 
fact I once - only once! - introduced my mother to someone as my wife's 
mother-in-law.

> I mean, yeah, if you feel a great unbridled net-mediated freedom to be 
> a public racist, then that's one thing.  

Simple logic flaw. All racists make ebonics jokes is not equivalent to 
all ebonics jokes are authored and distributed by racists.

> But I think that some folks just don't know that this kind of stuff 
> offends--really. 

No doubt it does offend some. So?

Really, Bonnie. If you commented that the prayer wasn't very funny, I'd 
agree with you. But to claim racial hatred as a motivation for writing 
it or simply passing it on is a bit too much without knowing the people 
involved.

grip