To the anonymous poster: Admittedly, I do not keep up with the message board more than once every week or two, but two of my associates brought your post to my attention. You bring up several valid points, however I have to take issue with some of your statements. If, as you stated, you posted the open letter "out of love," I hope that you will take this criticism constructively. I am just going in order of appearence in your posts with these, not in any particular order of importance. Firstly, in your criticism of NAQT's use of the term "Oriental," you rightly called it outmoded, however you continued to say that it was "Facist, ethnocentric hate-speech," and "anti-American." I agree entirely that it is a poorly chosen word, but the use of throwing about inflammatory terms, such as "fascism" and "anti-American," serves only to polarize your audience, and to dilute their meaning. I disagree with your interpretation of the word's use, as well. This is merely a difference of opinion, but I believe that it was just a poorly chosen word by an uninformed, but well intentioned, person, rather than a malicious plot to "rob" anyone of their identity. Secondly, you criticize the coloration of the website. This may have been factious on your part (I hope), but that most likely has more to do with a lack of creativity than anything else. Thirdly, the use of "Japanese" and "Egyptian" in NAQT's description of authors and dieties, respectively. This appears, to me, to be a harmless descriptive term. Unless you can determine a better way to identify authors or dieties of a certain country or region that does not speciffically mention the name of that country or region, I see that as the only way to do it. They did not use any racial slurs in identifying them, and I interpret their use of descriptive terms as a way of identifying what that group has in common, rather than saying "You Gotta Know These Dieties," then explaining that they all are from Egypt. Fourthly, TRASH is criticized for not having themed packs on certain topics. Part of the reason that there is no John Leguizamo themed pack (that you or I are aware of) is that it is very difficult to write a good themed pack on any topic, and even moreso when you limit the theme to a topic as speciffic as one person. If there is not one out there, I encourage you to write one. You also criticize TRASH for its subject areas, however there are plenty of questions about hip-hop, rap, r&b, all major professional sports, including soccer, rugby, and other sports not necessarily popular in the US. Also, for the record, I cannot recall any preponderance of Dr. Who questions, but I will take your word for it. Fifthly, I agree with your statement about ACF being the area that has the greatest opportunity to expand the quizbowl cannon. I did not know that Senator Thurmond had any involvement with ACF, but I will take your word for that. Pen ultimately, in your conclusion you mention the "power structures that affect our daily lives." In this statement, I hope that you are alluding to bias in local, state and federal government (particularly their overwillingness to confiscate the hard earned money from its constituants), rather than any quizbowl group. Quizbowl is an enjoyable activity (or at least it should be), and it can consume a great deal of time, energy, and expense. I cannot speak for anyone else, but if I ever found myself under the impression that any of the quizbowl organizations had an affect on my daily life, I think it would be time for me to quit. This is, after all, a game, and should be put into proper perspective as a very, very small component of the bigger picture of the life of any of its participants, and the world as a whole. Finally (this is probably the most important point I have to make), as much as I respect you for your honesty and candor, and for raising the level of discourse on the message board, if only for the time being, I whish you had signed your post. It is very difficult to take anyone seriously who does not find it necessary to sign their name to their work. -J. D. Hutchinson, University of Florida
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:46 AM EST EST