<p>I’m not going to argue that this wasn’t offensive, but there’s no hint of antisemitism at Reed that comes out of this. What was offensive was, essentially, the ham-handed implication that people at Lewis and Clark were antisemitic (when there was some basis for sensitivity on that account, since there had been an antisemitic incident at Lewis and Clark some years before), and generally treating the Holocaust as something about which it is possible to make a joke, which arguably trivializes it. The piece was a response to just that argument – the Reed administration had criticized an earlier Holocaust joke, saying that making light of the Holocaust makes future genocide more likely, and so the editors decided to satirize that position by “reporting” that their earlier piece had validated mass murder at L&C. </p>
<p>The debate about whether it is ever appropriate to make Holocaust jokes is not a debate in which one side is antisemitic. For the most part, it tends to be a debate among Jews, who are usually both the ones making the jokes and the ones professing most stridently to be offended by them.</p>
<p>It’s clear that the Reed students here meant to be participating in that debate. It’s also clear that – as often happens with college humor magazines – they crossed the offensiveness line. But most clearly in their characterization of L&C students, not in expressing antisemitic attitudes.</p>
But what you are free to do, and what you should be free to do, and what I pray you are never not free to do, is say offensive things. Even if those things are wrong, or evil, or terribly offensive (and in this case unfunny,) the right to say them should never be infringed upon.
[/quote]
This.</p>
<p>It will be a sad day if a year goes by and I am not deeply offended by something that someone else says.</p>
<p>This whole incident seems ridiculous. I looked at the Reed newspaper and it is as inane and tasteless as any other college paper. I thought this paper was tamer than many I have seen.</p>
<p>Please note that this is not the regular Reed student newspaper, but a “humor” publication. Many campuses now have these humor magazines, and the humor in them tends to be sophomoric, or worse. I don’t think you can draw too many conclusions about Reed from this–except maybe that people at Reed are willing to apologize profusely.</p>
<p>This seems to have started as a one page sheet in 2007 ( my daughter was 06, so that must be why I had never heard of it)
I expect that when the perpertrators graduate/expelled/die from an overdose/drop out, it will end- or before that when they realize they aren’t funny and they have no friends.
;)</p>
<p>“That a school of Reed’s caliber would even admit students who find this sort of thing funny makes me question their admissions process.”</p>
<p>In case this statement is not satirical does anyone even halfway seriously think there is a way to predict such a thing? Perhaps the adcom should note the features of the applications of the students involved, and reject those in the future that match. Or include the offending piece in the coming application cycle, and ask prospies to read it and check one of: Funny - Satirical - Stupid - Offensive - Neutral. Or ask in the interview if the prospie heard about this, and reject those that smile. ;)</p>
<p>Reed requires several essays , recommendations, graded research papers and transcripts- I dont remember if they require interviews, but they already have an extensive admission process- I would rather they admit people whose sense of humor is tasteless, than lean on the side of admitting those who don’t have any sense of humor at all.</p>
<p>I think you parents would be really shocked by what goes on in the dark recesses of the internet nowadays. As an illustrative example, see the /b/ board on the site 4chan. Members, frequently identified by the term /b/tards (their term, not mine) will ■■■■■ and tell people to kill themselves, make jokes and memes about certain instances of suicide, and all and all have a brand of humor that would absolutely shock and disgust pretty much any one that was outside of the in-group. The only thing that shocks me here is that it took this long for such beyond tasteless humor to drift into real life.</p>
<p>I agree it is offensive humor and truly (probably literally)“sophomoric” journalism. It is poor judgment to choose this kind of topic for an attempt at parody because it ends up demonstrating the authors/editors poor judgment to a large audience and reflecting poorly on a larger group and to a much larger audience than probably ever intended. I also think this is something that happens quite frequently in high school and college journalism–often with a painful and steep learning curve from which the authors/editors benefit. </p>
<p>It would be very sad, however, i think to remove Reed from a student’s range of options, based on this alone. The Reed admin and admissions office do not control this publication (and in a free country probably shouldn’t) and I would bet that the authors have had some very direct and personal confrontation about their poor judgment in the aftermath. That is where the instruction happens. You could certainly get onto campus and do some work to explore whether there was any evidence to support the suggestion here that the college culture was anti-Semitic. But usually this kind of parody in this kind of setting is written by naive, idealist liberal youth who are astonished anyone would not “know” they didn’t “mean it” that way(after all they were "just"making fun of Lewis and Clark and college rivalry is “all American”… So things like this are disturbing when read, but I bet are more about immaturity than immorality. Don’t we wish they would all grow up faster.</p>
<p>Whether you think people are “overreacting” or not, isn’t identifying what is really occurring: allowing people to joke over “tasteless” things encourages insensitivity to grow. This leads to numbness which allows all sorts of atrocities to happen. “evil grows in silence”. so if you remain silent on all issues that are “tasteless”, unjust, unfair or just ugly, you allow it to gain a measure of acceptance. racism, slander, “joking” about something that is considered abhorrent to society should be stopped. it should be instantly stopped. accepting everything, you stand for nothing.</p>
<p>Wow, weiner, that is some first post! A passionate statement in favor of political correctness, but also the kind of call to action one associates with fascism, not democracy. </p>
<p>I would argue that suppressing offensive humor also encourages insensitivity to grow, and leads to numbness that allows atrocities to happen. (Case in point: Yugoslavia, where decades of official suppression of ethnic tensions didn’t prevent horrible atrocities. Or western China a few weeks ago.) And it is ironic that you seem to associate offensive humor with silence, and suppression of offensive humor with something other than silence. I am more in favor of noise all around on these topics.</p>
<p>Well I kinda agree with weiner in that I don’t buy things I don’t agree with or at least as much as I have energy to research into environmental practices of companies etc.</p>
<p>But I also should mention that my daughter who graduated from Reed the year before this “humor” sheet began, and who has lived more or less in Southeast Portland since graduation- ( in assoc with other alums) has never heard of the Pamphlette.
This must be the most publicity it has gotten ever.</p>
<p>There’s a big difference between making a choice not to support things you don’t agree with and saying “x should be stopped; it should be instantly stopped”, which implies at least that there is or ought to be some agency that has both the authority and the effective power to stop it.</p>
<p>Again, we’re not talking about genocide, which SHOULD be instantly stopped (although in any particular case it can get very complicated to figure out who should spend the money and risk the lives it takes to instantly stop it, and no known nation has a great track record of stepping up to the plate for that). We’re talking about making jokes about genocide, a premise of which is that genocide is a horrible, bad thing (but apparently not so horrible and bad that one can’t make light of it).</p>
<p>wait, I’m Jewish and I thought the article was funny. Are you telling me I should be offended? I thought it was making fun of L & C for being unable to attract as high a percentage of Jewish applicants as Reed. A little offensive to non-Jews maybe, even.</p>
<p>There’s a bigger issue here. I’m pretty sure that I’m objectively correct in my reading of this (mostly - I’ll admit that I don’t really know anything about L&C, and so am guessing a bit). I find it amazing that all sorts of people with clearly defective satire-reception-units (you should ask for your money back) are 1000% convinced that this article was offensive to Jews. Can we all agree that the business of being ‘offended’ and ‘outraged’ is clearly still in it’s growth cycle in the US in 2009?</p>
<p>South Park is pretty darn offensive – but equally so. No one gets a pass. I see The Onion to be very much the same most of the time. Last year Middlebury College did an April Fool’s edition of the paper. It was really very very funny. Not sure it trampled on religion specifically, but I think this was not trying to be anything BUT comedic. I find the the real joke to be the commentary of people like Rush Limbaugh, who really are serious in their slander. To me this falls under: keep your eye on the ball (or you’re likely to take a shot to the head).</p>
<p>Apps to Reed could skyrocket due to Reed’s hands-off attitude. A few prospies my find out sooner because of this that Reed is not a good match for them.</p>
does anyone even halfway seriously think there is a way to predict such a thing? Perhaps the adcom should note the features of the applications of the students involved, and reject those in the future that match.