Political correctness out of control

[DrZoidberg]

So this is a question to liberals. Do you think political correctness is out of control?

My answer to that question is this:

I do not like to be called "African American." I find it annoying that people start to call me "black" and then correct themselves to "African American" as if that's the correct term for it.

It's not. I'm not from Africa. I've never been to Africa. I do not speak any African language, I do not honor an identifiably African heritage, and most African cultures are completely foreign to me. I'm no more "African American" than Stephen Colbert is a Frenchman.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it. If you aren't sure what to call me, then call me what I look like and say it POLITELY. If you're wrong, I'll correct you politely.

I think that catches it. It's not what word you use. It's how you use it.

 

[Bomb#20]

They are cultural marxists and PC is their little red book.

funny thing is, don't think ol Karl was especially PC himself, I hear that he liked the ladies of the night and a fair bit of grog too!

Not to mention his marked fondness for making ethnic slurs. But after all,

"All I know is that I am not a Marxist." -- Karl Marx

 

[ronburgundy]

Then, the administrators should also be fired for incompetence by their employers.

The employer is also a racist. He's the mayor. And the people of the town are majority racists so they keep voting for him.

Once you have elected officials endorsing the use of public funds to discriminate or attack citizens due to their race, then you have a violation of law, but its not a law against people saying "nigger" but rather laws related to sworn duties of one's public office. IOW, the teacher who said "nigger" is not a criminal for doing so, but public office holders who fail to fire him, might be criminals for failing to do so.
But given your past comments, I'm guessing you don't grasp this distinction either.

 

[ronburgundy]

There is a difference, an important difference, between an implication and a suggestion. The term in no way implies that you are an American of recent African descent. I would be willing to say that the term does suggest (but not imply) that you are of African descent

If this is true, then it is a meaningless term that serves no purpose whatsoever. Either way, I do not condone its usage.

So, your example would support a "yes" reply to the OP, that PC has gotten out of control at least is some areas. The term African-American has become widespread via a concerted PC push by pseudo-intellectual "leaders" and "defenders" of American blacks. In the 1980's folks like Jesse Jackson publicly asserted this was the proper and respectful term, and whites who didn't switch to it were painted as racists (much like those who don't support affirmative action quotas or the tactics of the BLM movement are painted now, regardless of their reasons). Not surprisingly, the vast majority of American Blacks did not like the term and preferred to "black", but PC warriors rarely care what the people they are defending actually think or want.

It appears that internal debates among those who want to tell us how to speak are making "African-american" somewhat less expected and "black" more acceptable again, since there is disagreement over whether it should refer only to American ancestors of African slaves or current immigrants from Africa, or both, or neither.



I

 

[DrZoidberg]

funny thing is, don't think ol Karl was especially PC himself, I hear that he liked the ladies of the night and a fair bit of grog too!

Not to mention his marked fondness for making ethnic slurs. But after all,

"All I know is that I am not a Marxist." -- Karl Marx

I think he can be excused for that. Toward the end of his life he lived in a time when race studies was all the rage. Incidentally at a time before we'd collected enough data to be able to dismiss it as pseudo-scientific bunk. This was the brief window when it looked like there actually may be some substance to race theory. To get some perspective, this was also the time when the major debate of the age was whether or not diseases could be contagious. Stupidly simple to test... yet... the majority of the leading professors of the field just refused to believe it.

 

[Bomb#20]

Has political correctness actually silenced speech?

Yes.

Because the majority of perpetrators were Asian or of Pakistani heritage, several council staff described themselves as being nervous about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others, the report noted, "remembered clear direction from their managers" not to make such identification.[31] One Home Office researcher, attempting to raise concerns with senior police officers in 2002 about the level of abuse, was told not to do so again, and was subsequently suspended and sidelined.[32] The researcher told BBC Panorama that:

... she had been accused of being insensitive when she told one official that most of the perpetrators were from Rotherham's Pakistani community. A female colleague talked to her about the incident. "She said you must never refer to that again – you must never refer to Asian men. "And her other response was to book me on a two-day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues."[17]​

But it didn't only silence speech; it also paralyzed action.

Members of the British-Pakistani community condemned both the sexual abuse and that it had been covered up for fear of "giving oxygen" to racism.[8] The leader of Rotherham Borough Council, Roger Stone, resigned, as did the council's Chief Executive, Martin Kimber, and the director of children's services, Joyce Thacker. Shaun Wright, the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for South Yorkshire who had been a Labour councillor in charge of child safety at the council, stood down on 16 September, after initially refusing demands that he should do so.[9] The Home Secretary, Theresa May, blamed the failure of the authorities in Rotherham on "institutionalised political correctness",[10] and Denis MacShane, the former MP for Rotherham during the period covered by the report, admitted that he had been "guilty of doing too little" to investigate the extent of the sex crimes being committed in his constituency.[11]​

(Source: Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal)

 

[Bomb#20]

I think he can be excused for that. Toward the end of his life he lived in a time when race studies was all the rage. ...

Certainly. Marx was simply a man of his times; his antisemitism and anti-Irish comments and so forth were no different from any typical 19th-century European's views. If you want to see really virulent racism, Engels is your man.

 

[ZiprHead]

What does "get rid of" mean in this context?

If it means send him to Canada, then you can forget about that. We're full.

No fair! You sent us Celine Dion.

 

[fromderinside]

Ah the place for anarchist hating, fascist hating, and Marxist hating do-gooders to show their chops, er, diseased gums.

 

[Bronzeage]

If political correctness is out of control, who had control, and how did they lose it?

Wouldn't be their responsibility to get it back?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Has political correctness actually silenced speech?

Yes.

Because the majority of perpetrators were Asian or of Pakistani heritage, several council staff described themselves as being nervous about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others, the report noted, "remembered clear direction from their managers" not to make such identification.[31] One Home Office researcher, attempting to raise concerns with senior police officers in 2002 about the level of abuse, was told not to do so again, and was subsequently suspended and sidelined.[32] The researcher told BBC Panorama that:

... she had been accused of being insensitive when she told one official that most of the perpetrators were from Rotherham's Pakistani community. A female colleague talked to her about the incident. "She said you must never refer to that again – you must never refer to Asian men. "And her other response was to book me on a two-day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues."[17]​

But it didn't only silence speech; it also paralyzed action.

Members of the British-Pakistani community condemned both the sexual abuse and that it had been covered up for fear of "giving oxygen" to racism.[8] The leader of Rotherham Borough Council, Roger Stone, resigned, as did the council's Chief Executive, Martin Kimber, and the director of children's services, Joyce Thacker. Shaun Wright, the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for South Yorkshire who had been a Labour councillor in charge of child safety at the council, stood down on 16 September, after initially refusing demands that he should do so.[9] The Home Secretary, Theresa May, blamed the failure of the authorities in Rotherham on "institutionalised political correctness",[10] and Denis MacShane, the former MP for Rotherham during the period covered by the report, admitted that he had been "guilty of doing too little" to investigate the extent of the sex crimes being committed in his constituency.[11]​

(Source: Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal)

fear of being thought racist is political correctness?

 

[Bomb#20]

fear of being thought racist is political correctness?

Not "is". "Is caused by".

 

[DrZoidberg]

If political correctness is out of control, who had control, and how did they lose it?

Wouldn't be their responsibility to get it back?

It's social control. It's the shame of having said something stupid. Because there's feedback to whoever says it. But if somebody can just shut down anybody they find offensive and that's the end of it then society stagnates. We need to talk about stuff.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

fear of being thought racist is political correctness?

Not "is". "Is caused by".

is that the only cause?

 

[fast]

Not "is". "Is caused by".

is that the only cause?

No.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

is that the only cause?

No.

Do you know of anything that has a single cause?

 

[fast]

No.

Do you know of anything that has a single cause?

I thought I was giving an obvious answer to someone who didn't find it obvious.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Do you know of anything that has a single cause?

I thought I was giving an obvious answer to someone who didn't find it obvious.

You gave an answer that was obvious to some of us. But I don't know that AthenaAwakened did not find it obvious. Maybe you're right and she didn't. But maybe she did find it obvious in this particular case (i.e., in the case of political correctness and fear of being thought racist), but not as a general fact about events in (at least) our lives, so she thought that your answer supported a point she may have been trying to make. I don't know. My question (which has an obvious answer to, or at least it's obvious to me) was meant to indicate that the fact that it's not the only cause does not undermine Bomb#20's point in the slightest.

 

[fast]

I thought I was giving an obvious answer to someone who didn't find it obvious.

You gave an answer that was obvious to some of us. But I don't know that AthenaAwakened did not find it obvious. Maybe you're right and she didn't. But maybe she did find it obvious in this particular case (i.e., in the case of political correctness and fear of being thought racist), but not as a general fact about events in (at least) our lives, so she thought that your answer supported a point she may have been trying to make. I don't know. My question (which has an obvious answer to, or at least it's obvious to me) was meant to indicate that the fact that it's not the only cause does not undermine Bomb#20's point in the slightest.

Maybe we can wait until she explains why she asked what she did. Perhaps there was some deception to her question. I took her at as being genuine.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Original discourse

fear of being thought racist is political correctness?

Not "is". "Is caused by".

is that the only cause?

No.

So if there are multiple causes available, possibly all acting at once, is political correctness the primary cause, a secondary cause, a Tertiary cause?

Exact;y how does political correctness cause this fear, and how does it work with other causes?

Being called on one's bullshit, ... not political correctness
Having people disagree with another person, ... not political correctness
Having people bully someone, ... not political correctness
Expecting people to not be assholes, ... not political correctness

Political correctness started out as an inside joke and devolved into a bullshit term like reverse discrimination to be used by angry white males as a way to wear the mantle of victimhood and not face the fact that many of them had indeed been conned into supporting a system designed exalt their membership in a race while exploiting their labor, dimming their intellect, and stealing theirs and their children's futures.