From: soufi@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Khaled S. Soufi)
Subject: Re: JUST A JOKE!
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 02:27:05 GMT

gmarkari@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Georges Z Markarian) writes:


>I carefully thought about this for a long, long time before I decided to post 
>this article because I'll probably get hammered for even telling this joke. 
>Just remember one thing before you start attacking me I did not invent this one

Oh no!  Passing it along is as bad as creating it.  Don't play it
dumb, the fact you agreed to pass it along is pure racism.  It is
really funny how cheap you can sell your conscience for: "I did not
invent this one"!!!!  How miserable!

>but rather just repeating what I heard from some American colleagues.

Just because some American colleagues of yours told you this "joke",
that should not prevent you from using your brain and judge how racist
this "joke" really is!  

I don't know if you noticed, you now are trying to blame it on some
"American colleagues"!  Bolony!  Unless you live in some pure KKK
neighborhood, I really find your sick statement to be totally untrue.
In fact, I challenge you to produce the names of these American
colleagues of yours.

>     A scientist walked into a brain bank one day in an effort to buy a brain
>     to do some research regarding neuronal connections.
>     One of the sales representatives showed him the only two brains that were
>     available and told him:" The brain on the right is priced at one million
>     dollars whereas the one on the left is only 500,000 dollars"
>     The scientist carefully looked at the two brains and failed to see any
>     major anatomical difference. So he asked the sales rep.:" I really don't
>     see any difference between the two, but could you tell me why one is so
>     much more expensive than the other?" and the sales rep. answered:" the
>     expensive brain is brand new; it belonged to an arab who never used it
>     while the cheap brain belonged to an israeli who used it extensively
>     and we couldn't possibly sell you a used brain for the same price as a
>     new one"

I think I've heard this joke before with Israeli and Arab replaced
with White and Black respectively.  It is nothing but a racist slur
wrapped up with some really sick humor.  What is more shocking though
is that you Georges were not responsible enough to make an intelligent
judgement and prevent such a travesty!  And as to you choosing to hang
out with some racist people, It is only appropriate for me to quote
the French proverb: "Dis moi qui tu hantes, je te dis qui tu es"!!!

>My comment:
>If the whole world feels this way about Arabs then I think that it's about time

Well, the whole world does not just revolve around you Mr. Markarian.
If you think the bunch of racist Americans you hang out with are
representative of the whole world, then you really are a narrow minded
fellow (actually, the above nonsense is a strong indication that you
are so far!)

>that Arabs do something constructive to erase this image that they've created 
>for themselves.

Any knowledgeable person of the Arabic culture would tell you that our
culture is much richer than to worry about the insignificant nonsense
that goes around among some ignorant people. There is always some
cheap anti-Arab propagenda that goes on in the West.  This anti-Arab
attitude has not been created by the Arabs as you poorly put it.  In
fact, anti-Arab propagenda has been in around ever since Israel came
to existence, for the obvious reasons!  Nonetheless, this has been
changing steadily (not as quickly as one would like it to be),
especially, after more and more people are learning about the immoral
goal that such propagenda serves.

Finally, you are wrong to think that the WHOLE WORLD share the racist
attitude conveyed above.  In fact, it has been my experience that most
of the people I have met outside of the Arab world (Lebanon, in my
case) tend to be knowledgeable and open minded!  As a point of fact, I
have met more anti-Arab racists in Lebanon than anywhere else in the
world!  I think some of the racist slurs made or passed along (as
Georges is pretending to do here) by some of the Lebanese on s.c.l is
a strong indication of what I am talking about.  I don't ignore the
fact that there are racist and ignorant non-Lebanese people out there,
however, I have yet to *meet* someone like that!  Maybe you and Mourad
could refer to some of these people.

>Best regards.
>Georges Markarian

-- 
+-----------Khaled Soufi-------------+--------------------------+
|   Department of Computer Science   | email: soufi@cs.uiuc.edu |
| U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | phone: (217)244-2274 (W) |
+------------------------------------+--------------------------+