Should the word "Jew" be censored?

[jseankil]

I was playing on a poker site and the we were discussing relgion at the table and notice you could type Christian and Muslim but the word Jew was censored. So I sent the following emails:


Why in the chat box players can type christian, muslim, but the word
jew is censored?


Thank you for contacting XXXXX Poker Customer Service. The word "jew"
is commonly used in a derrogatory sense and as such it was decided that
it should be included in the chat filter, whereas christian and muslim
are not used in this sense and thus were not included.

You shouldn't allow a group of bigots to hijack a word and then
submit to them by censoring it, a word that is in fact a group of people and a
religion.

Thank you for your concerns in this matter. At this point we are going
to continue to have the word "Jew" censored.

~~~~~~
What do you guys think?

[w4rma]

1. It is absolutely wrong of them to censor the title of a religion. (nt)

[Codeine]

2. "Jew" tends to be used nastily on the internet.

I'll bet "Jewish" isn't censored, as it doesn't usually get used the same way that "Jew" does.

[Nikki Stone 1]

27. Abd a lot of other places.

And I'll bet you are correct.

[upi402]

3. PC cops need to learn from past overdoses

[Sinti]

Only if they censor Catholic, Buddhist, and Hindu also

There will be no references to religion here!! :eyes:

[seemunkee]

4. Sounds completly UNreasonable

I would ask them every day if they have changed their minds, contact every sponsor that they had and bring it up every time I was on the board until I was banned and then bad mouth them on every other poker board. But that's just me.

[bananas]

5. They are making a pragmatic decision

They're trying to get rid of the riff-raff and appeal to a higher class of poker player.
Once they are convinced the riff-raff are gone, they can be persuaded to lift the filter.

[REP]

10. They Can't Filter For Use as A Noun Vs Use as Verb

"Jew" as a verb IS derogatory and SHOULD be banned. No filter is sophisticated enough to distinquish between "I am a Jew" and "I'm going to try to jew him down on the bid."

[orleans]

34. i agree--that it should be censored

i have no idea what type of filters are out there to filter words or phrases

i'm sure the word jewish wouldn't be censored

[Jamastiene]

6. Depends on the usage.

John Lovitz said it way better than I can. He said, "I'm not a Jew. I'm Jewish." Trust me. If you can find the Letterman clip where he says that, it makes perfect sense. It makes no sense coming from me, because I'm not Jewish and I have no clue about these things. Where I am from, people blame Jewish people if they get short-changed 2 cents at the grocery store. I have no idea why. I'm just explaining about how little I know.

Too many people use the word, "jew" as a verb as well. I do know that is derogatory.

I would say context is more important. Censoring it altogether makes no sense to me.

[REP]

14. Lovitz Is Funny, But Not An Authority

"I am a Jew" is fine. "My family is Jewish" is also fine. "I got jewed down on the price" is not.

[Jamastiene]

22. Sounds fair enough to me.

I have heard lots of people say that about price too. When I was a kid, my aunt would sometimes drop me off at this pawn shop with a friend of hers while she picked up some extra cash doing odd jobs. He worked there and he was Jewish. I remember asking him about his tattoo and he said it was a bygone era that he didn't wish to talk about those types of things with a a lady. I was 10 years old, so I took the compliment and dropped the subject.

Anyhow, lots of people would come in and say that right to him. He never said anything. One day my aunt heard someone say that to him and asked him did it not bother him that they did that. He said it did slightly, but not so bad in comparison. It wasn't until years later that I learned what his tattoo meant and what little I know about using the word that way. At the time, my aunt talked to me about it and said it was bigotry and to never repeat it. I always remembered that for some reason.

[lumpy]

7. Is the title Hebrew acceptable ?

Jew is the name of a tribe or kingdon of Judah. Of course not all Jews are members of the Judaic (sp)religion.. I have never considered the name Jew derogatory. This is strange.

[REP]

9. No

"Hebrew" and "Hebe" are derogatory. Jew is fine as noun, but not as a verb.

[jseankil]

11. both hebrew and herb can be used, they are not censored. /nm

nm

[Behind the Aegis]

15. "herb" is not a common slur used against Jews..did you mean..

..."heeb?"

[REP]

20. I Hated It When I Was Called "Kike" and "Oregano" in School ...

Especially since I'm half Lithuanian and half Welsh - they should have called me Yid-ish or Leek!

[Jamastiene]

23. I've never heard that one before.

I have heard a lot of derogatory comments, but oregano is something you put in spaghetti sauce. How did they come up with that one? I don't get it. Of course, I don't get the other one either. :shrug:

[REP]

29. It's a Joke - See The Header With "Herb" In It

[jseankil]

28. When I was around 10 yrs old an old lady said I looked like a Kike

(I was going around house to house doing collections for my paper route) for the longest time I thought Kike was a kind of fish and wondered why she thought I looked like a fish lol.

[Clark2008]

26. Really? My Jewish husband thinks using the word "Hebe"

is a joke - kind of funny.

:shrug:

I have a very liberal Jewish husband. I must. My first husband is Palestinian; therefore my son, and my husband's step-son, is half Arabic. And there's no Gaza strip around this household.

And, no... my name is not Sarah or Hager. ;)

[REP]

30. It's Like Blacks Using N*gg*r

It's offensive, but ironic when used by a member of that group. My father, a bacon-eating Ka'han, used Hebe and Yid etc, but didn't think it was funy when a bigot did.

[orleans]

39. my daughter had a few friends over one evening and one of them

(who is jewish) was talking and used the word kike--he was laughing and i don't remember if he was telling a joke or story or what--but i told him to knock it off, i didn't want to hear him talking that way. he tells me "it's okay. i'm jewish. i can say that." and i told him "not in my house. no one talks like a bigot in my house." "but i'm jewish." "i don't care. i don't like that kind of talk."

they've been friends for a number of years. we know he's jewish. he knows we're not. and the other kids (and i'm talking late teens by the way) he was talking to are not jewish. i can just imagine these other kids using that word with the mental justification that so-and-so uses it and it doesn't bother *him*.

i understand the "friendly usage" concept if you're part of a particular group (i use the word bitch in both a derogatory way and as a good thing) but not in mixed company.

[REP]

8. You Can't "Christian" or "Muslim" a Deal

But you can "jew" one. There's a book called "You Can Negotiate Anything" that's also known as "You Too Can Jew." It isn't nicknamed "You Too Can Hindu." "Jew down" and "jew" is derogatory slang that could be anticipated on a site that deals with betting. You can't make people not be bigots, but you can prevent them from using bigoted language.


edit - stray indefinite article

[Sinti]

19. Geez, I didn't realize you could use the word in this context

I must have led a sheltered life or something. :shrug:

[REP]

21. It's In The Dictionary

Pretty widely known.

[Sinti]

24. I believe you, just never heard of "jewing a deal"

or anything of the kind. I figure I'm kind of lucky in that. It really has no place in the lexicon, IMO.

[aquart]

35. Yeah, it's a treat the first time you hear it.

I suggest telling people to substitute Scot, or French.....two peoples well-known for squeezing a nickel until the indian is riding the buffalo, as they used to say when we had such nickels. But nobody ever used it as an excuse for murdering them.

[Behind the Aegis]

12. As others have said, "Jew" can be used in a negative connotation.

When I moved to Oklahoma, I was told which car dealership was best because I could easily "Jew" them down. Then of course, there was a post here at DU talking about the "Jew Congress" (meaning the US Congress), and another post here talking about Bush, the "Jew president." See when "Jew" is used that way, it means "under the control of Jews," and it is VERY derogatory and classic anti-Semitism.

[REP]

16. I Forgot to Add - No Filter Can Filter For Horse's Asses

"Jew Congress" is semantically and logically flawed, but no filter could sort that one out, either.

[Behind the Aegis]

17. LOL!

So true about the limits of filters. However, although "Jew Congress" is grammatically incorrect, it is a common slur to use the word "Jew" as an adjective, as opposed to a noun...it denotes "control by."

[REP]

18. No ... "Jewish Congress" Is Grammatically Correct!

If the Congress is comprised of Jews; if controlled by Jews, it would by Jewish-run Congress or Jew's Congress (like Jew's harp).

{insert tongue-in-check emoticon here}

[MtMan]

13. you are right - they are wrong

you are right - they are wrong.

if someone uses it derogatorily, they should just ban the offending user, not turn the word jew into something offensive that has to be banned.

you could of course sue them for this. but - assuming it is already an illegal operation based somewhere like the virgin islands, good luck...

[man4allcats]

25. I don't know. It just sounds like a rather typical bunch of

"Whiteys" (actual or virtual) taking a rather bizarre tack. If "Christian" and "Muslim" are acceptable, then certainly "Jew" should also be allowed. The problem with political correctness is that it tries to legislate (or pontificate upon) morality, and that never works. Anything can be misused. No doubt many people would object to being called "Whitey," but it is not skin color that makes whitey a whitey. A presumptuous attitude does that (hence the possibility of a virtual, though not actual, whitey). As a white person myself, I must ask who are we to decree what is and is not acceptable in terms of race and religion, and why, for that matter, anyone cares what we think? People should just let people be people. If that were the nature of the beast, much of human suffering would be replaced by compassion from fellow human beings regardless of race or religion. It seems to me that the time to stop this bigoted foolishness is long past due. Let's call a Jew a Jew and a Christian a Christian and a Muslim a Muslim and a black person a black person and a white person a white person, and let's forget all the crap. Civilizations will fare better when people of diverse cultures respect each other for the individuals they are.

[REP]

32. Look It Up in The Dictionary

"Jew" can be used either as derogatory slang for miserly bargaining ("he jewed me down on the price") or a code-word ("Jew congress" and Jew president," as Behind the Aegis pointed out) for belief in a Jewish or Zionist conspiracy. Filters aren't sophisticated enough to know the difference from "My uncle's a Jew" and "I'll try to jew them down on the deal" and "Jew president," with the first being non-offensive and the latter two being offensive.

[CrushTheDLC]

36. You want a code word? Try this one....

I was channel surfing on TV last weekend. Had the Jesus channel on for a couple minutes. The televangelist who was on the air at the time appeared to be middle eastern. I was guessing Lebanese in origin. The guy was preaching the typical "repent now cuz the Rapture's coming " stuff and then he said "You want to try bargaining with Jesus down the road? I wouldn't try bargaining with Jesus, you know he's from a neighboring country" :wtf:

Now what do you think the good Mediterranean reverend meant by that?

[man4allcats]

38. I don't have to look it up in the dictionary. I know the vernacular.

I was speaking on the moral plane; not the digital one.

[charlie]

31. I understand what they're doing

The topic has to be religion or politics before you'll see the words Christian or Muslim come up in chat. They've probably had enough instances of some moron mouthing off -- "I got Jewed out of my winnings" -- that ignited an explosion of complaints: "Ban that fucker or I'm gone." I doubt they've ever had this message land in their complaint box: "I can't say Jew? I'm outta here."

Censoring "Jew" is probably the simplest solution that keeps the peace and preserves membership.

[progdonkey]

33. Tell me if this explanation makes sense...

The word "Jew" belongs in both the "acceptable" and "profane/racist" categories and therefore is synonymous with many words in both categories. If the word "jew" is rejected, regardless of meaning and intent, it's quite simple to choose a synonym from either group to replace it. The other words in the "profane/racist" category, however, aren't as ambivalent (eg. heeb, kike, etc.), so a person who wishes to use "jew" as an insult is out of options, as the other words in the category are cut-and-dried bigoted terms that belong in any filter list. Those who mean to use "jew" in purely descriptive terms wouldn't find themselves in such a bind after having their use of "jew" rejected, as they can easily replace the word/rewrite the sentence with "Jewish" or something similar.

If someone is chatting and wants to use "jew" in a derogatory way, he's rather stuck using that particular word (or an equivalent word like "heeb" which is always a slur). ie. If I'm an asshole chatting and I want to say that I got "jewed" on that last hand, I'm kind of stuck if the filter catches it. I can't change it to "cheated" and keep the racist meaning, so I either don't say it at all, or just use "cheated," and my bigotry has been completely sanitized.

Likewise, if someone is just talking about someone who's Jewish and writes, "My best friend is a Jew," it's quite simple to re-write it when the filter rejects "Jew." If I wrote that and it got rejected, I could easily change it to "My best friend is Jewish" without the slightest change in meaning.

The company probably just looked at who would be most affected by adding the word "jew" to the filter list, and seeing that it would more negatively affect the chatting of those who would use it as a slur, they decided to go ahead and add it to the list.

A filter list is not a dictionary, nor is it a statement that a particular word is always obscene; it's really just a matter of statistics: who'd feel the effect of not being able to use the word "jew" more? I believe it would be the bigots, as they, again, have a very limited list of words that would express their racist intent--and certainly no others that have the same ambivalent quality as "jew"--while the regular users have an entire dictionary of perfectly acceptable terms and words at their disposal.

[aquart]

37. Hath not a (blank) eyes? senses? affections? passions?

[Bluebear]

40. On a poker site? Absolutely I can see them censoring it. Like "gyp"...

..."jew" would tend to ben used negatively in this particular setting.

[patricia92243]

41. I used to work at the Jewish Community Center. I wonder how I could conve

convey that fact on that website?