The concept of political correctness.

[Lincoln]

Originally posted by Dry



Seen from this side of the Atlantic, PC has brought USA to dictatorship of offended people. To be offended seems to be a positive value. Are you offended by something? Good! You will be able to excert your power on others, you will have a feel of what is power. You may even earn money with it. A good trial, and bingo... Yeah, it's good to be offended...
Aren't you offended by anything? Aren't you member of any mionority? Search, search really hard, couldn't you be member of ANY minority? Not even the great majority of the non-smoker minority? Poor bastard, you will have to apologize your whole life through for things you don't event suspect. You will have to apologize for being a male, for being white, for being rich, for being poor, for not being offended, for being happy... may be one day for being alive.
Give money to the black beggar, otherwise you're a racist. Don't care about the white one, except if he's gay.

Exactly. Good post. It seems as if you have to look at this thing from a distance to really see the insanity of it. Most people have had similar experiences as you have had but they pretend that they are being "sensitive" and not living a lie. The PC movement is intended to perpetuate lies by making people feel guilty for telling the truth. I should frame your post. Even with your poor English you have shamed the hypocrites here who think they are enlightened intellectuals. Some call them "educated fools". Oh wait, I might be offending a fool here...

[Drake Tungsten]

To join the chorus...

Great post, Dry. Summed up a lot of my thoughts on PC and brought up some new ones.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Dry
Seen from this side of the Atlantic, PC has brought USA to dictatorship of offended people. To be offended seems to be a positive value. Are you offended by something? Good! You will be able to excert your power on others, you will have a feel of what is power. You may even earn money with it. A good trial, and bingo... Yeah, it's good to be offended...

Yes, I'm offended by your comments and as an offended person I order you to shut the F--k up. And of course, because I, the offended person, have ordered you to shut up, you will automatically obey because I have exerted immense power that not only can control your mind, but also force you to mail me all of your money.

Ah, it's great to have power.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Another example of PC, I just saw today:

Web Site Fuels Debate on Campus Anti-Semitism
By TAMAR LEWIN


Web site started last week by a pro-Israel research and policy group, citing eight professors and 14 universities for their views on Palestinian rights or political Islam, has opened a new chapter in a growing debate over campus anti-Semitism.

In a show of solidarity with those named on the Web site, nearly 100 outraged professors nationwide — Jews and non-Jews, English professors and Middle East specialists — have responded to the site by asking to be added to the list.

The Web site, Campus Watch (www.campus-watch.org), with "dossiers" on individuals and institutions and requests for further submissions, is a project of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, whose director, Daniel Pipes, has long argued that Americans have not paid sufficient attention to the dangers of political Islam.

The professors who were named include two from Columbia, Hamid Dabashi and Joseph Massad, and one each from Berkeley, Georgetown, Northeastern, the University of Michigan, the State University of New York at Binghamton and the University of Chicago. Those named have differing interests, and differing academic status: John Esposito of Georgetown, for example, is interested primarily in political Islam, and considered a leading scholar in the field, whereas some others are young professors known mostly for criticizing Israel.

The appearance of the Web site, just a day after Harvard's president, Lawrence H. Summers, made a widely publicized speech on campus anti-Semitism, is another indication of the tensions on campuses over the developments in the Middle East.

Some of those who asked to be added to the site said they were showing solidarity in opposing what they see as an assault on academic freedom. Others were more interested in showing that mainstream Middle Eastern scholars shared the views criticized on the Web site.

Mr. Pipes said the Web site was no threat to free speech. "We're engaged in a battle over ideas," he said. "To bring in this notion of academic freedom is nonsense. No one is interfering with their right to say anything they want."

The response from Judith Butler, a comparative literature professor at Berkeley, circulated on the Internet, providing boilerplate for many other professors: "I have recently learned that your organization is compiling dossiers on professors at U.S. academic institutions who oppose the Israeli occupation and its brutality, actively support Palestinian rights of self-determination as well as a more informed and intelligent view of Islam than is currently represented in the U.S. media. I would be enormously honored to be counted among those who actively hold these positions and would like to be included in the list of those who are struggling for justice."

Those named on the site said they were heartened by the support.

"It's a new genre springing up, and I'm especially glad that it includes Jewish scholars," said Professor Dabashi, who heads Columbia's department of Middle Eastern and Asian language and cultures. "This is about McCarthyism, freedom of expression. It's very important that it not be made into a Jewish-Muslim kind of thing. I am most concerned for my Jewish students, that they might feel that they shouldn't take my class, that the atmosphere would be intimidating, or that they couldn't express their opinions."

He and others named on the site have been deluged with negative e-mails.

Many academics see Campus Watch as an effort to chill free speech about the Middle East, and are particularly perturbed by the "Keep Us Informed" section, inviting the submission of "reports on Middle East-related scholarship, lectures, classes, demonstrations and other activities" — in other words, they say, inviting students to turn in their professors.

"It's that whole mode of terror by association, with the cold war language of dossiers, and we're watching you," said Ammiel Alcalay, a Hebrew professor at Queens College. "It's not so intimidating for people like me, with tenure, but it makes graduate students and untenured professors very nervous, and makes it even harder to talk about Israel."

Mr. Pipes said he had hoped the Web site would inspire new dialogue on Middle Eastern policy.

"We weren't trying to rile people," he said. "For me, `dossier' was just a French word for file. Maybe that word could be changed, if it is obscuring our argument, which is that Middle Eastern studies at most universities present only one interpretation, a left-leaning one that offers only groupthink on the subject of terrorism and intolerance."

He said the site was getting 3,500 hits a day, and had received hundreds of negative responses, including about 88 from academics asking to be added to the list — a reaction he took as further evidence that the field of Middle Eastern studies is monopolized by one viewpoint.

Many academics say that Campus Watch has added to a sense that those in the field of Middle East studies are under siege.

"Last year, Martin Kramer wrote a book arguing against federal funding for Middle Eastern studies in universities, and that scared people," said Lisa Anderson, dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and soon to be head of the Middle East Studies Association. "Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer are part of the same group. Meanwhile, there's concern that the rhetoric around the Arab-Israel conflict is becoming increasingly associated with anti-Semitic sentiments, and that's scaring people too."

The universities on the Campus Watch site include Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, New York University and Berkeley, and others less prominent, where Middle Eastern tensions have erupted, including Concordia College in Montreal, where a recent fracas forced the cancellation of a speech by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

Paging Senator McCarthey.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Dry


I complain about political correctness, because I feel it like hypocrisy. I would say political corectness is the political correct word for hypocrisy.

PC don't ask you to not to be racist, homophobe or chauvinist, it just ask you not to show it.
Nobody cares if you are racist, you must just behave as if you weren't. To my definition, this is called hypocrisy.

More: PC force you to look at people, at their difference. In order not to offend whatever minority, you have to care the hole day, staring at people, thinking "Mmm, what does this guy/woman look like? Is he/she black, small, jew, gay,... What are the words I should not use?...". It leads you to look at people before talking to them. It leads to complete artificial discussions. Just like it was said about women in another tread: if their dress sucks, you are allowed to tell them. If a black/gay/latino/jew is an a******, then to call him an a****** is the opposite of racism: you treat him like any other human being.

Let me tell you a short story:
Episode1: where Dry discovers racism
I worked 4 years in France. One of our co-worker was a frenchman from carabeian island. He was thus 'brown'.
Each time I told him about the difference between Belgians and Frenchmen, I said "You, the frenchmen..." He always said "Oh, thank you..." It took me 5 or 6 time before finding out WTH he was thankfull for: to call him a frenchman.?!?!?
Episode2: where Dry discovers that some people are black
A few years later, another co-worker and I were talking about the time we were in France and I tried to recall him the guy that were in the same office as XXX, who was resposible for yyy,... After some explanation of what the guy was doing, the co-worker finally said "Oh, you mean the black guy!?" ... For a few seconds, I stayed mouth open... yes, indeed, I forgot that 'detail', yes he was the black guy... Not that I really forgot, but only that it was detail to me, like hair or eye color.
Episode3: where Dry discover PC.
I am in the plane. The plane is almost empty, but the ticketting has given me seat C (AC-DEF possible). On seat A is a black guy. The plane being empty, after door closing, I would normally change place just to have more room (I'm not a small format)... But the guy was black... would he take the fact that I chose another seat offending? Will he think that if I change seat, it is because I don't want to be beside a black? Would the guy be offended by my behaviour?
After a while, angry against myself for being a victim of do I know what racist/anti-racist dilemna, I changed place, as if the guy was white... and the fff...inger for PC.Maybe the guy thought I was racist.
I ff...finger don't care.

Seen from this side of the Atlantic, PC has brought USA to dictatorship of offended people. To be offended seems to be a positive value. Are you offended by something? Good! You will be able to excert your power on others, you will have a feel of what is power. You may even earn money with it. A good trial, and bingo... Yeah, it's good to be offended...
Aren't you offended by anything? Aren't you member of any mionority? Search, search really hard, couldn't you be member of ANY minority? Not even the great majority of the non-smoker minority? Poor bastard, you will have to apologize your whole life through for things you don't event suspect. You will have to apologize for being a male, for being white, for being rich, for being poor, for not being offended, for being happy... may be one day for being alive.
Give money to the black beggar, otherwise you're a racist. Don't care about the white one, except if he's gay.

Let me give you an example that I am experiencing right now on campus, in my residence hall.

On one dorm door's wipe-off board, some friend(?) of one of the guys living in the dorm repeatedly writes the word "fag" on the wipe-off board. I am assuming it is a form of joking/bantering, using the word "fag" in a deragatory manner.

Everytime I see that word, I erase it. If it continues, I might become so uncomfortable, that I will ask the dorm resident if he knows who is writing that word, and if he could have that person stop writing that word.

Now I walk through this hall, past this dorm, and wonder who is writing this message? Is there someone in our hall who would like to beat me up after finding out I am gay? Why are they degrading me and other homosexuals as being less than humans with their wrong use of the word "fag" if my assumption is correct?



And about your bit regarding that if you're racist, and you do not behave as a racist, then that is a form of hypocrisy.
There are many people like me who cares whether or not a person is racist or sexist.

Moderate political correctness IS a form of an attempt to change deragatory social behavior/interaction, in my opinion.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Yes, I'm offended by your comments and as an offended person I order you to shut the F--k up.

If he had said the word niggardly, you could have him "reeducated."

[loinburger]

Can somebody summarize Imran's long-post for me?

[chequita guevara]

You know, you try to be reasonable and show the disconnect, and still the conservatives have to lie and misrepresent. This is the essential difference between the left and the right. The right are ***holes.

[Caligastia]

Damn those evil conservatives!

[Lincoln]

Yea! They should be outlawed for the good of mankind (er, I mean womankind and mankind).

[loinburger]

Personkind.

[chequita guevara]

Humankind.

[Imran Siddiqui]

At least we aren't lefties .

[chequita guevara]

yet.

[Caligastia]

Dont get your hopes up.

[Drake Tungsten]

[Imran Siddiqui]

Che started it .

[chequita guevara]

*sputter* You lying little weasel!

[Drake Tungsten]

I, of course, have never posted spam of any kind...

[Imran Siddiqui]

What can I say, che? I'm a whistle blower .

[Drake Tungsten]

You guys gave me an idea for a thread. It'll be my third one ever, so get ready!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yay!

[GePap]

While I agree that the movement not to insult or make other uncomfortabe has gone so far as to many times make one uncomfortable just not to offend, as Dry said, conservatives are still hypocrites when it comes to 'PC':

Political Correctness became an enemy of conservatives when they lost control of what was PC and it moved to the liberals: PC has alwas existed, but now it wasn't aimed at liberal targets, but conservatives. Now, either side having control is a bad thing- but for conservatives to act as if they would never, or never themselves, did the same crap, is hypocrasy of the largest type.

[Imran Siddiqui]

but for conservatives to act as if they would never, or never themselves, did the same crap, is hypocrasy of the largest type.

A. When did conservatives say 'they would never'
B. Hate to break it you, but conservatives aren't the only ones against PC.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

A. When did conservatives say 'they would never'

Well, when you denounce something, it is assumed that since you find it despicable, you yourself would never do it. If you think you would do it, i find it hard to believe you would denounce it so, unless conservatives believe themselves to be the kind of people capable of doing things they find despicable.

B. Hate to break it you, but conservatives aren't the only ones against PC.

Yes, but they are the most vocal, persistent, and the ones that view it as the biggest danger. They are not the only opponents, but they are the primary ones. An the reasons they give for their opposition are usualy hypocritical.

[Imran Siddiqui]

[q]Well, when you denounce something, it is assumed that since you find it despicable, you yourself would never do it. If you think you would do it, i find it hard to believe you would denounce it so[q]

Conservatives today are vastly different from conservatives of the past (at least if you take conservatives today to mean Republicans, in general).

unless conservatives believe themselves to be the kind of people capable of doing things they find despicable.

Well duh.

[Japher]

The term Politically Correct is rather incorrect itself, first of all. I mean, when has a politician ever been correct, what an oxymoron... (That's a joke to all those out there who love a politician...god forbid).


I just want to chime in about a story I heard on the radio several years ago concerning a woman (or would that be wo-person?) who thought it would be neat to have her initials on her car's license plate. Not long after she got it she was sued, because her initials were, and probably still are, J.A.P. Someone, most likely a Japanese American, saw this license plate and got offended, sued and one a butt-load of cash and she was forced to return her license plate (no refund either).

I have several problems with this story, and the all have something to do with the extent of which people take PC issues in this country (USA):

First, she did not mean to be offensive and had the issue been brought to her attention rather than a law suit being brought to her door, maybe the whole ordeal could of been settled peacefully.

Second, had she been Japanese would this of happened?

Third, there are over 1800 license plates in California alone that bear the initials JAP, why sue only her?

Fourth, when has it become a crime to spell out your initials?

Fifth, why don't the Chinese sue Nabisko for Cheese-Nips, or why don't the whites sue for Crackers?

Yes, I understand that in this case a class action law suit was made to define the length people will go to in order to incourage, no, suppress the use of PC terms on society. Yet, only on those who they feel they can get away with it. The more PC we are to become the more law suits we will have, the more feelings there are that will be hurt, and the more confused second graders we will have about what to call there friends.

I hold to PC tendencies, I call people what they want to be called, and I hold others to do the same for me. When I see a writen word (and not freakin' initials, that I know are initials and not a word) I will atempt to understand that word from the point of the one who wrote it before becoming offended. My name is John, I haven't sued anyone for calling the toilet a john yet. Hmmph, I guess I might...

Yet the minute we start redefining words is the same minute I will begin to use those words that PC activist hate so much in order to insult and berate them. I will give you womanhole instead of manhole, and wonmanwich instead of manwich, but what the heck is going on? Even the word woman has "man" in it, and even female has "male" in it. If you don't like it speak some other language that makes better distinctions. The whole of society, everywhere, is about conforming to the status quo. Live and let live, love and let love, just be, and if you want to be offended by something pick something that is worth a damn, not what is called what. (I am personally insulted by the Korean automaker KIA, to me I see an acronym for Killed In Action, of which my uncle was in Korea, but I don't think the car company intended it this way.)

MY take on PC:
My friends are black, my boss and coworkers are African American, and the jack-a@$ who stole my wallet at gun point is stupid n!g@#r...

In all actuality, I have never known a black person who wants to be called African American, most want to be called black. They feel that the addition of "African" demotes their status as "American", and by using this phrase identifies them as a second rate citizen. I am not a(n) European American, or a Chinese/Japanese America, or a Native America, I am an American. My ethnicity, heritage, and decent has no place in my nationality.

As for hyprocasy amongst the political field in their views, use, and understanding of political correctness I have no idea what you all are talking about (or at least those who stated it's existance), pleace enlighten me.

[Drake Tungsten]

Fifth, why don't the Chinese sue Nabisko for Cheese-Nips

Because "nip" is a term that refers to Japanese people. The Chinese don't like the Japanese, so I guess that they don't really give a **** if Nabisco uses a thinly veiled racial slur to sell its products...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Japher
I just want to chime in about a story I heard on the radio several years ago concerning a woman (or would that be wo-person?) who thought it would be neat to have her initials on her car's license plate. Not long after she got it she was sued, because her initials were, and probably still are, J.A.P.

Sounds like an urban myth, fist off. Just becuase you heard it on the radio doesn't make it true, especially if, as I suspect, it was talk radio. Second a JAP is a Jewish American Princess. Thrid, Why would the Chines care about Cheese-Nips. Nip stands for Niponese which is a mistranslation of what the Japanese call themselves.

Just the idea that someone could win a lawsuit and collect damages over a license plate makes me believe this story is total BS. Stop listening to Rush.

[MrFun]

Um -- kindly read my last post, guys.