Sender: Arun Mehta <•••@••.•••> CR> So much for Kurt's cyber-rights - partially down the drain thanks CR> to Andy. Reading the responses to Andy's clean-up of Kurt's language, I would like to suggest that more than "Kurt's cyber-rights", what went down the drain was some politeness? OK, maybe what Andy did wasn't such a great idea. Why not gently point it out, instead of dumping on him in this way? There are people on this list in all kinds of countries, where who knows what kind of filtering goes on at the ISP to detect people who are "misusing" the system. Editing the text in this way might fool such would-be censors. Andy's clean-up was well intentioned. You have to give the moderator some benefit of the doubt? @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ My act of intended courtesy to peoples around the world has aroused more anger than it's prevented. Let me explain the background to my decision, and then I hope the list can stop talking about it. I did not keep anybody from saying what they meant to say; I just substituted a couple hyphens as a signal that I understood the pain (and more serious hurt) that words can convey. You can reasonably call this censorship, and the people who complained have a reasonable point of view. Now here's another widespread point of view. In another phase of my free-time activities (away from the terminal, I'm happy to say), I'm on a diversity task group and deal with issues of tolerance and sensitivity training in my home town. I've learned a lot while doing this. I think it helps me to moderate a list that has a broad, international audience (and which we want to make even broader and more international). One of the members of my diversity group let the "N" word drop in a situation like that set up by Kurt Guntheroth in his message to our list. My colleague said that people like him who worked for more integration and diversity were sometimes called "n-----lovers." Even though he obviously abhored the term, his use of it made a black member of the group speak up. She calmly explained that the word had such a long history, and she had heard it used with so much hate, that any mention was painful to her. (Even if lots of African Americans use the term too!) She is not alone. I also participate on some mailing lists about multi-culturalism and diversity. People on those list also complain about teachers assigning stories where the "N" word appears (including the famous case of Huckleberry Finn). Perhaps people are too sensitive. You can say that, but I want to be sensitive where large groups of people are sensitive! Did you know that "flip" is a derogatory term for Filipino? An educator in the field of multi-culturalism (yes, that field has existed for some time) was told this by a Filipino student. The student was actually upset that the educator talked about her "flip chart" in class. Ridiculously over-sensitive? I don't know, but I know that the educator now uses the term "easel." I don't like the idea of perfectly useful words being taken out of the language because someone uses them for hateful reasons somewhere, but I just want to show that many knowledgeable people are careful about using terms that have taken on overtones of hate. And you have to remember that words are preludes to actions. In places where people who get called nasty names, they also get beaten up. This adds to the pain of hearing the word--it seems to evoke almost a physical response. Sorry to take up so much space, but you have to see that a lot of thought has gone into choosing words. Andy ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages for non-commercial use, pursuant to any redistribution restrictions included in individual messages. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
