Sinister: Post-crap post

[Nick Grundy]

On Mon, 12 Oct 1998, Wise, Terri wrote:

> Thanks for speaking intelligently.  As for those who claim it was all a joke
> - let's face it, it's hard to tell on a post if someone's joking or not.

True, but it doesn't really matter what the intent behind the post was.
Even if the poster had meant it seriously, the sort of person who believes
that everyone in a particular place is fat because their friend told them
so is inherently someone at whom one should surely laugh. As it is, it
*was* a joke, and I thought rather an amusing one, but that's not the
point.

> And I'm not sure I really believe that anyway... Has anyone noticed that
> most of the people who say it was a joke are not Americans?  Perhaps when
> you're the butt of the joke it isn't all that funny?

I have dual nationality, and I thought it was funny. Not, however, because
it was racist (it wasn't), but because it was so overtly anti-racist.

> This list is supposed to be about Belle & Sebastian, more or less,
> right?  

Isn't that sort of humour quite similar to what a lot of B&S songs do?

> Thanks also to Michele for reminding us that pre-judging individuals based
> on their weight (or any other physical attribute) should NOT be an
> "acceptable prejudice."  Given the statistics, I'd like to remind you all
> that there are likely at least fifty (quite possibly more) people on this
> list who have, at one time or another, had an eating disorder.  The sort of
> comments a lot of people have been making are rather careless.

I'm totally in agreement with your sentiments here, but again, I
don't think the original post *was* doing what you suggest it was.

Anyway, I think all those criticising the message have missed one crucial
angle of attack - he should have used smileys to mark up the humour. This
failure is a hanging offence on most lists...

;-)

Nick.

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