"J.D. Walker" wrote in message
...
Israel Silverman wrote:
On the internet, no one knows if you're a dog.

But some people care if you are Jewish. And anti-semitism is alive and
well, in places you'd hardly expect to find it.

I play chess on various online services. There is ICS, the internet chess
club. There is also a free internet chess server, called FICS. FICS has
always been a nice place to visit, play a few games. The administration
prides itself on keeping a friendly atmosphere, free of the real world
strife that all of us face. IT even advertises itself as a family
friendly place. And so, the last place you'd expect to find anti-semitism
tolerated is FICS. You'd be wrong.

A day ago, I played a game with a fellow who, I astonishingly realized
after the game began, had a user name of "killzjoo." Obviously, this is a
not so sneaky way of saying "Kill the Jew." I figured that this must have
just passed by some tired administrator, and so I messaged the online
admin, and asked him to do something about it. He refused, and said I
should email an admin who deals with abuse. I did, and began a
surrealistic email conversation, in which he insisted that there was
nothing FICS was going to do about it, because it could mean anything,
and the user had not placed any antisemitic comments in his user profile.
When I asked what other reasonable meaning that user name could have, he
suggested that I ask the user myself.

I asked him to confirm that this was the official position of FICS, and I
emailed others within FICS, and have not received any response. All I can
assume is that anti-semitism there is ok, as long as it is not so baltant
that it becomes obvions to a child under 3.

Israel,

I understand how this was upsetting, but I have seen slang usage of "joo"
= "you" frequently among some folks...

You are correct! I had not thought of that. However, the handle would then
mean "Kill the you?" I don't think so. I still think that "Killzjoo" is what
it sure sounds like - Kill the Jew.