From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Subject: Re: Question for Charles Perez and Ted Frank
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 14:57:31 GMT

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, and I maintain that that is more important than
knowledge of racist trivia to the issue at hand.  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.)  "Alphonse and Gaston" is another such routine,
and note, please, that again we have two marginalized (French) outsiders.

When it became clear that Ted was wrong in charging Sherheryar with
anti-Semitism, he owed Sherheryar an apology.  Because he is
mean-spirited (indeed, a future lawyer: I rest my fucking case), 
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.
>
>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.
It is also racist because much vaudeville at the turn of the century 
poked fun at immigrants.  You don't need to memorize its content 
to know this; would you force African-American Studies students to 
watch Amos 'n Andy?

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?


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.

>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.
There is the rhetorical mistake of "preaching to the choir"; there is
also the parallel mistake of trying to convert Attilla the Hun.  I'll
just close this discussion with a few wrap-up remarks.

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.  This racism took the form of statements, of "free speech", that
white people toss off without thinking, statements about "bad"
neighborhoods that are generally false and profoundly offensive to
people who have to, or choose to, live in "bad" neighborhoods.  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.  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.  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.

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.  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).
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.

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


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.  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.)

(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.)