Re: Joke, joke, Warning a joke

From: Molly Freeman (mollyfreeman@telis.org)
Date: Sat Jan 26 2002 - 13:01:10 PST


Mary Bryson and Elizabeth Wardle have been very generous in the time and
energy they devoted to their thoughtful remarks on the subject of Eric's
"joke." Not being so generous, I prefer cryptic:

See Alan Dundes on humor as ways we cope with what we are the most anxious
http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/information/biography/abcde/dundes_alan.html

and

Jennifer James on why white males are in mourning for the loss of status
(authority, if not power) they were socialized to expect, but which is
not so forthcoming these days!
http://www.drjjames.com/

Molly

Mary Bryson wrote:

>On 1/26/02 7:18 AM, "Mike Cole" <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote:
>But jokes are ambiguous by nature
>
> I do
>
>>not know how to, and to not want to exercise prior constraint on
>>what can and cannot be written on xmca. If we come to that point,
>>Xmca is dead.
>>
>
>I couldn't sleep for hours last night thinking about this "situation". I
>could see it theoretically, as a perfect example of how a COP polices
>itself. XMCA is, after all, if you just care to count the messages, a
>male-dominated discursive space.... A straight white male dominated space.
>And we know that matters. And we know that discursively, what is bound to
>happen is that "the members" will not permit their identity-affirming
>practices to be suppressed. Et voila. You either put up, shut up, or get
>out.
>There is nothing ambiguous about what was posted. And like Freud wrote,
>jokes have nothing to do with nature, and everything to do with culture.
>Like I said, replace "the woman" with "the jew" or "the fag" and read a post
>sent by someone not a member of that group, and check how "ambiguous you
>think it all is.
>And just like Kuhn describes, the last members of the tribe aggressively
>patrol the borders and insist on their right to maintain outmoded practices
>- practices that define their identity.
>Meanwhile, the rest of us move on.
>
>I really resent that the price to be a part of XMCA is to put up with sexist
>messages that have absolutely no relation to the community's ostensive
>academic focus. Look at the numbers, guys. Who really is here, anyway? And
>why is it that a majority of the participants - the active participants, are
>white men? Do you think that is some kind of accident?
>
>The effects of discrimination only seem ambiguous to the dominant members of
>any group - how very convenient. And how very self-serving not to notice
>that everyone else quietly slinks away.
>
>Why not just erect a sign, like on a tree-house.
>
>
>



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