Posted by Sleepless Snowman on July 31, 1999 at 16:51:57:
In Reply to: possibly sexist comments ... posted by hussein on July 30, 1999 at 22:16:05:
In regards to the possible sexist comments that I had accidentally made in my last post (which has now been removed) , I did not meant for the post to offend the male AND female population of the class. It was intended for good humor as it was something that I had found on another Computer Science class website. Should anyone felt that the post was sexist, belittleing, or simply without taste, send your flame-mail to me, not Hussein.
Truly, matters like this should not be tossed aside. I myself take offense to sexist comments. However, untill the matters are discussed, how can we know, what is sexist, and what is simply good humor? Is Chris Rock a sexist, or even a racist, when he make joke refering to different members of the population with possible racist remarks?
The world is getting smaller as we bring people closer and closer with technologies that allow us to work closer with people of different talents. Techonology has allowed us to hide behind the walls of annonymity in such ways that we no longer, have to communicate face to face. Emails, faxes, cellphones, video-conferencing, and chat. However, even with all this technology, it is still possible, that communcations could be misinterpreted. What one may say, could in fact, offend other mebers of the population. However, we should bring these matters, and make them aware to the public. We shouldn't solve the problem by simply ignoring them. The real issue here is not wether or not a racist comment was made, but just how effective have we made our statement?
In the preface of our book:
The purpose of this discussion board is to exchange ideas, and certainly, allow the flow of information, to be exchanged freely. If it was wrong of me to make available of the content in question to the rest of the class, perhaps it is wiser for the rest of the class to decide for themselves wether or not they take offense. By simply removing the post, what has really happened is that it would appeared that history didn't take place.
People say, "history repeats itself." History only repeat itself, because people don't learn from the mistakes of their own, and of others.
Perhaps what I say (even as I type this) may offend different individuals of the class. Different religious backgrounds, cultures, heritages, and personal beliefs. But, how can we as a society of multi-cultural backgrounds, learn from one another, if the opportunity is not there. There will be those who believe that protectionism is key, while others may believe all-or-nothing free-trade. At least allow us the opportunity to discuss the simple matters of life. We as computer programmers, scientists, engineers, in the end are still people.
As a child, we learn through our mistakes. What set us apart from our computers is that it has the great ability to go back and erase data and events. Like as if nothing has ever happen. And yet, that in itself is the greatest flaw of a computer, because that is what makes us people, and them, a really expensive calculator.
I apologize to the class whom I have offened.
Sincerely,
Sleepless Snowman