To the Editor:

My name’s David Litt, and I’m the editor-in-chief of The Yale Record. I’m writing this letter to invite people who were concerned by our Blue Book parody to discuss it with us. Send an e-mail to record@yale.edu (or to me personally at david.litt@yale.edu) and someone on The Record will find the time to talk with you. We’re into writing humor, not making people upset, and we think if we talk about these issues calmly and respectfully, we’ll find we have a lot in common.

So far, however, calm and respect have been in short supply. A chain e-mail that was sent around campus, the same one that invited students to a “discussion,” said that our Blue Book parody was “47 pages of racism, homophobia, and sexism.” As if those accusations weren’t harsh enough, it claimed that it “slanders Christians, Jews, and Muslims,” was “pure bigotry,” and “unadulterated racism.” That’s diatribe, not dialogue.

At The Record, our goal is to entertain people by writing the best humor magazine possible, and we don’t think that being racist would ever help us achieve that goal. With that in mind, the “us versus them” attitude some of our critics have taken is inaccurate, and, even worse, it’s counter-productive. We know these issues are sensitive, but we think that makes honest discussion all the more important — send us an e-mail, and we’ll be happy to talk with you.

David Litt ’08

Sept. 24, 2006

The writer is the editor-in-chief of the Yale Record.