I write in regards to the reaction to Matt Vroom’s comic, I Hate Pam, printed in Friday’s Daily Illini. I find it disturbing that the newspaper would have to apologize for and censor the content of its entertainment section citing their responsibility to “report truthfully.” Since when do comics have journalistic responsibility?

Your claim of pulling the strip because of issues of journalistic integrity is ludicrous. The comics are meant to be entertaining and funny, and I have found them to consistently be just that. They are irreverent, uncompromising and controversial. And that’s what makes them one of the best parts of the DI, because the stories in the paper are largely just carbon copies of the same stuff in other papers and online sources, while the opinions section, while entertaining, is really nothing more than a few people arguing back and forth on the same issues every day.

The comic has been pulled for making an offensive joke about Jewish stereotypes, but clearly that’s all it was, a joke. As far as I’ve seen, Mr. Vroom makes fun of everyone and everything in his comic, including the writer himself and his friends. I don’t see how having a joke playing off of stereotypes is grounds for this sort of attack.

I think we all know that stereotypes are not a realistic representation of a person but rather a caricature. I believe there are people out there who should learn to laugh at themselves, rather than hunt down and ban anyone who might offend their sensibilities. This sort of pointless censorship merely makes good humor more difficult to come by, by knocking out sources of hilarity with the iron fist of political correctness.

In all this, I don’t understand how other comedy media, such as South Park, can get away with constantly picking on Jews, Muslims, Christians, liberals, conservatives, foreigners, U.S. citizens, etc. – basically everyone they can think of, while a similar form of humor in I Hate Pam gets the comic banned for “a period of at least four weeks.” All I can say is that it’s a sad view of the society we live in, and I, for one, am not looking forward to reading The Daily Illini in the upcoming four or more weeks.

Krzysztof Ciupka

junior in engineering