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Re: Reaction to T-shirts

At the risk of appearing completely straitlaced and out-of-touch.....
I am not unworried.

I am NOT very worried about this particular T-shirt or this particular person.
I AM worried that Steve, Randy, Ted and Ned all appear to think that there isn't more than one side to this issue.

If the guy had had a completely different cultural background (Japanese?), we might have considered taking care not to appear unnecessarily offensive, and create unintended barriers to communication.

But this guy's an American, so that does not apply ..... or does it?

All we know for certain is that this guy claimed to be offended; it's not totally unreasonable to presume that he *was* offended.

Now, he and his compatriots might have deserved it, or he might not, but still, starting out with the assumption that there's absolutely no need to think twice about what kind of T-shirt slogans we use and what effect they have on communication between us and the more straitlaced parts of American society seems dangerous to me.

I delete company logos from presentations, because including them damages my ability to communicate in the IETF.

I expect you as IESG members to consider the reception of your message in the use of T-shirts too; if I'd gotten a response saying "this particular issue deserved some attention, the T-shirt was effective in bringing that message across, and I thought wearing it on the IESG stage was an appropriate form of sending that message", I would say "Your call".

I do not want to dictate a position. I am asking you to think. And talk back.

Harald

--On onsdag, juli 09, 2003 19:57:28 -0400 "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com> wrote:

In message <01KY0A8336UQ00D1EZ@mauve.mrochek.com>, ned.freed@mrochek.com
writes :

sounds like i should dig through my closet to find that tee shirt.

Makes me wish I had one myself. If you find you have an extra, well, you
know where to send it.

Ditto.


		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
		http://www.wilyhacker.com (2nd edition of "Firewalls" book)