From: perez@mgr.hjf.org (Charles Perez)
Newsgroups: misc.legal,alt.censorship
Subject: Re: Question for Charles Perez and Ted Frank
Date: 1 Sep 92 20:33:30 GMT
Organization: HJF AIDS Research Project, Washington DC

In article <1992Aug31.145731.5839@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>In article <1992Aug29.185035.9624@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug29.180929.27116@Princeton.EDU>
>>egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>>Anyway, guys, why is it okay for jackanapes like Henry Schaffer and
>>>Chris "Knucklehead" Morton to parade their inability to write C code but
>>>not okay for yours truly to  lack quite the depth of knowledge of racist
>>>trivia on tap in Ted Frank?
>>
>>They never claimed their code would compile and run; therefore, they
>>were writing pseudo-code, not C code.  Their code was quite
>>comprehensible (I'm sure even you understood the intended insult),
>>therefore it was correct in that it accomplished its desired goal of
>>communication.  On the other hand, as part of an argument, you made a
>>claim that certain statements were true.  Those statements proved to
>>be false.  Therefore, your argument fails.
>
>I'm for one surprised that anyone with a pretense, such as Henry and
>Knucklehead have, to knowing C would have enough pride to proofread even
>his pseudo-code,

So, that anyone *would* proofread his pseudocode is surprising to you?
Or are you surprised that Ed Nilges doen't have enough pride in what 
he posts to proofread how his sentences parse?

>and I maintain that that is more important than
>knowledge of racist trivia to the issue at hand.

It wasn't trivia when *you* wanted to argue from it. Furthermore, if you
are ignorant of it, how do you know it's racist?

>I am somewhat familiar
>with the actual vaudeville routine.  It is part of a class (set) of
>routines with which I am familiar; routines in which the friendship
>and mutual politeness of two men is mocked in a racist spirit (also one
>of latent homophobia.)

I am intimately familiar with the post to which I am responding. It is
part of a class (set) of posts with which I am familiar; posts in which
the honest arguments of various netters are smeared by non-sequiturs,
dishonest context-switching and blatant assertions without proof in a 
spirit of a desperate need to create an illusion of Ed Nilges'
"superiority" (also of childish viciousness).

>"Alphonse and Gaston" is another such routine,
>and note, please, that again we have two marginalized (French) outsiders.

Are you *sure* they're French? You have shown yourself to be woefully
mistaken about the racial backgrounds of popular comedians before, Ed.

>
>When it became clear that Ted was wrong in charging Sherheryar with
>anti-Semitism, he owed Sherheryar an apology.

That Ted is wrong remains to be seen. We certainly don't know it by *you*.

>Because he is
>mean-spirited (indeed, a future lawyer: I rest my fucking case), 

Aw, Ed, don't tell me you take lawyer jokes *literally*. Just because
you hate some lawyers doesn't mean you have to hate them *all*.

>Ted saw fit to display his racism and indeed his lack of committment 
>to free speech; for his desire is to silence speech, not to enable it.

Calling a pinhead a pinhead is not silencing him, and the rest of us
know this, no matter how many times you tell us to the contrary.

>>
>>Furthermore, in what way is knowledge of turn-of-the-century comedians
>>racist?  The fact that those comedians were of specific races?  The
>>knowledge of those races?  Is a similar knowledge of, say, turn-of-
>>the-century politicians equally racist?
>
>Thanks for this word game: it is a display of your historical illiteracy.

Analogies are word games? Anything someone else says is a word game?
Oh, it is when *you* want it to be (chuckle). Nobody else is buying
it, Ed. You're fooling no one but yourself.

>It is also racist because much vaudeville at the turn of the century 
>poked fun at immigrants.

To the exclusion of all else? Give us more background than that, Ed.
Your blatant assertions are getting tiresome. Oh, I forgot. You are
a vaudeville *expert*. ;-)

>You don't need to memorize its content 
>to know this; would you force African-American Studies students to 
>watch Amos 'n Andy?

So any black person who finds Amos 'n Andy funny is a traitor to his
race? So nice of you to speak for the *entire* black "race". I'll just
let each black person speak for herself, thank you.

>
>What's your historical literacy re American racism and some IMPORTANT
>facts?  Here's a pop quiz:
>
>
>     1.  Who were the Know-Nothings?
>
>     2.  What profoundly conservative 18th century literary man
>         nonetheless decried, in 1776, "cries for Liberty coming
>         from the Drivers of Negroes"?
>
>     3.  What was the name of the man caned half to death on the
>         floor of the Senate prior to the Civil War for speaking
>         out against the South and her devotion to slavery?
>
>     4.  In what year was the March on Washington led by Martin
>         Luther King?
>
>     5.  What slimebucket 20th century literary man displayed HIS
>         hip, slick racism by displaying his detailed knowledge
>         of the "Jose Jimenez" routines on Ed Sullivan
>         circa 1964, much in the same way that the Tedster is
>         proud of his knowledge?

Ed, this is not a test question, this is a diatribe. Could you label
your text honestly? Please?

Hey, didn't the movie adaptation of "The Right Stuff" have a physically
imposing Latin orderly say to the astronaut who was imitating Jose,
"We think your imitation of Jose Jiminez is A-ok, but what you do with
it is b-a-d." I believe that was the last word on Jose Jiminez.

Or are you saying that Jose was a racist?

>
>
>Each one of these facts is more important that the Tedster's trivia, and
>by your logic if you don't get one hundred percent on my pop quiz
>(answers at the end of this post) you are disqualified from posting on
>this thread.

None of *us* ever spoke of these things before *you* brought them up.
In contrast, you declared a specific vaudeville racist, then were
tripped up on the race of the comedians themselves. You should know
when to hold your tongue.

>
>>evidence or reasoning to support it.
>
>I'm certain that not enough evidence exists to convince bozos like you,
>Ted Frank, Charles Perez, Jackanapes Schaffer or Knucklehead Morton.

How about just one piece of evidence, Ed? Honest evidence, that is.

And, when you edit text, leave behind sentences, not sentence fragments.

>There is the rhetorical mistake of "preaching to the choir"; there is
>also the parallel mistake of trying to convert Attilla the Hun.

I'm not trying to convert *you*, Atilla. I just want you to know that
*I* know that your arguments are shit.

>I'll
>just close this discussion with a few wrap-up remarks.

No, you'll just stop talking. For now.

>
>First of all, when I went away to Outward Bound at the beginning of
>August, I intended to let the "Hate speech okay, Supreme Court says"
>thread die.  But an African-American man on our patrol, who proposes to
>climb Mt Everest in March and was using our expedition to train for
>this, told us, in tears, of the effect that our subtle racism was having
>on him.

Oh, so *you're* a subtle racist. But we knew that already. ;-)

>This racism took the form of statements, of "free speech", that
>white people toss off without thinking,

It sounds as if this man should acquire a backbone tougher than the
one he's got. Is he that dependent on the good opinion of those whose
opinions, presumably, are contemptible? This depends that your
portrayal of his being a wuss is inaccurate. He may not be. I don't
know. If I trust your words, however, he is.

>statements about "bad"
>neighborhoods that are generally false and profoundly offensive to
>people who have to, or choose to, live in "bad" neighborhoods.

Oh. So any mention of "bad" neighborhoods is racist, eh? A preponderance
of bad neighborhoods are predominantly black. So? That says something
about neighborhoods, NOT about black people. Black people are not
neighborhoods, they are *people*.

As for whether *I* would want to visit or live in a "black"
neighborhood, if ordinary hardworking folks (like me, except for my
relative deficiency of melanin) own the street, I have no problem.
It's when the thugs and other assorted riffraff own the streets that
I go on the alert, and that's true no matter what color the predators'
skin is.

Oops. Black people *can't* be thugs and predators. They can only be
victims of the system. Only *white* people are to be held in contempt. ;-)
;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

>I
>therefore decided to revive the discussion in order to inject Keith's
>views.
>
>Of course, I was met by the usual shitstorm, to which I have become
>accustomed from many years of experience with boysnet.

When you post shit, *expect* a shitstorm.

>Typical of the
>shitstorm was the display of the low priority freedom of speech really
>has in the minds of its friends, for those who defend the behavior of
>Viktora as "speech" are quick to try to silence real, written speech
>when it departs from the basket of mindless (and subtly racist)
>"libertarianism" that predominates on the net.

Ed, stop trying to equate flames and violence. No one can make you
yield to verbal abuse without your consent.

>Also typical was the
>attempt to make all forms of speech equivalent, such that one is not an
>"intellectual" (whatever that is, it being Goofus Perez' word) if one
>does not memorize the complete corpus of comedy routines that are better
>left unread.

There you go again, trying to blur the context of the issue. It's not
all that hard to see through this trick of yours. Contemptible and
honorable speech are not *identical*, they just enjoy the same
protection under the law (or should, depending on the applicable
laws). If you think the state, instead of the individual, should decide
what speech is contemptible, say so openly.

Ed, an honest intellectual works at it. An honest intellectual, before
condemning a vaudeville routine as racist, knows its details enough to
be able to see it's essence. He doesn't fake knowledge he doesn't have.

Eddie Murphy has spoken the word "nigger" in his comedy routines more
than once, but that does *not* make him an "Uncle Tom" racist. To know
this, you must *listen* to his routines and truly understand them.

>
>This shows clearly that these fearless defenders of freedom of speech
>know very little about speech and dialogue, indeed that they confuse it
>with a physical confrontation.

No, Ed, *you* do. No, you don't confuse them, you want *us* to confuse
them.

>That is, these bozos operate on a sort
>of "point system", derived probably from sports, such that ANY
>rhetorical point (such as "aha, you don't own the tape of Ghallegher and
>Shabeen!  gotcha!") is summed equivalent to any other point (such as
>Sherheryar's point re Western bias towards Israel, which is seriously
>taken up by Chomsky, Edward Said, and the Israeli left, among others).

No, any time you have a hearty meal of crow coming to you, we enjoy
serving it up. You keep spitting it up however, and that just means
more crow in front of your face.

>Such weighting as exists only derives from the point-maker having some
>sort of power over the weighter, such that statements made by those with
>authority are the only ones weighted.

Oh, Ed, if only *you* were the one in authority, *always*. ;-)

>Of course, dialog does not operate according to these "laws".  Now, if
>you clowns want a physical confrontation, you are welcome to come to my
>office at Princeton.

You brought up physical confrontations. The rest of us just enjoy
slamming you. It is fun, after all.

>But it is clear to me that you want NEITHER a
>physical nor an intellectual confrontation, only to vent deep
>frustration and a sense of impotence.

You certainly sound frustrated. Hmmm... who then is the impotent one?

>As such, I recommend a men's
>group or an Outward Bound expedition as a way of garnering some
>self-respect and some compassion for people like Sherheryar.

Is that why you went on Outward Bound? So you could feel superior to
those of us who don't need to go? Yes, you could use some self-respect.
It will give you the capacity to feel real compassion, not the feeding-
off-sores type.

>All of
>these variously-named threads are closed as far as I am concerned.  I
>will, however, reply to electronic mail.

Okay, I'll give it a try. I'll tell the rest of the net what
happens.

>
>
>Answers: (1) a pre-Civil War party of "native" Americans who organized
>themselves to fight against immigrants, many of them Catholic Irish and
>Germans, in the name of "liberty": spiritual great-grandfathers to many
>of those on the  net.

Such as Ed Nilges.

>These were the first men to whom people named
>Ghallegher were funny ('specially after the great potato famine in 1847,
>since skinny people are funny.  Hardeharhar.)

So when I mention that the real-estate recession in Houston got so
bad that they were telling Houston real-estate jokes in Ethiopia, I'm
showing my virulent anti-Texas bias. ;-)

>
>(2)  Samuel Johnson
>
>(3)  Charles Sumner
>
>(4)  1963
>
>(5)  Tom Wolfe (in The Right Stuff.  Tommy baby demonstrates that if
>     you're really cool you can even inject racism into best selling
>     books and movies by the simple device of having Ted Frank's
>     memory for trivia.)

The context in which this "racist trivia" appears refutes your little
snip.

Ed, you do yourself a disservice when you use dishonest tricks and
techniques to make yourself feel superior to others. You need to work
hard and honestly to build a base of self-confidence and self-
respect for yourself.


-- 
==========================================================================
That which is necessary is never evil. If an evil seems necessary, look
to your context; that's where its root lies.  - Charles Perez
==========================================================================
Newsgroups: misc.legal,alt.censorship