What are your thoughts on "political correctness"?

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eric76
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04 Mar 2013, 11:03 am

hyperlexian wrote:
League_Girl wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
I believe 'black boards' morphed into 'chalkboards' because school chalk boards have been colored green for the last sixty plus years. Not because of race.


Why not call them green boards?

because some were still black, and some were green, and some were even blue.

EDIT - actually, it's just a north american vs british thing - they called them blackboards in the UK and chalkboards in the US (and to some degree in Canada), just as a matter of tradition. funny that people see "political correctness" where there isn't any!


I've heard them called blackboards far more often than chalkboards here in Texas.



eric76
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04 Mar 2013, 11:08 am

OliveOilMom wrote:
I don't understand why it's offensive to wish someone a Merry Christmas if they aren't Christian or don't celebrate Christmas. Dec 25th is Christmas day whether or not someone celebrates it. They can still have a nice day on the 25th even if they downright hate Christmas.


As you may know, Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate any holidays at all. For them, Christmas is just the same as any other day.

We used to have a FedEx deliveryman who was a Jehovah's Witness. He didn't seem to take offense when we would wish him a Merry Christmas.



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04 Mar 2013, 1:42 pm

muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
In the United Kingdom, some newspapers reported that a school had altered the nursery rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep” to read “Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep”.[42] But it is also reported that a better description is that the Parents and Children Together (PACT) nursery had the children “turn the song into an action rhyme. . . . They sing happy, sad, bouncing, hopping, pink, blue, black and white sheep etc.” [43] That nursery rhyme story was circulated and later extended to suggest that like language bans applied to the terms “black coffee” and “blackboard”.[44] The Private Eye magazine reported that like stories, all baseless, ran in the British press since The Sun first published them in 1986.[45] See also Baa Baa White Sheep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness
perhaps some teachers feared the new stories were true and were afraid they would get into trouble so they pre-emptively stopped using the word. but the word was never actually barred because of its supposed implied racism. there is a big difference there.


Well if it's all a myth then that's pretty refreshing. In fact I'd rather it was. To think that these "authority figures" programmed us to believe their mistakes in fear that we'd be "bad" or "wrong" people....is appalling. People create problems where there weren't any before. Who the hell ever said "pass me the black pen" and meant it in a degrading way? I've noticed it's PC holier-than-thou white people who invent these "issues", and then minorities hop on board and use them to their advantage. Not a good game to play.


OMG, so can we have racism against the term whiteboard too then? Because it seems all the schools are using them these days and I might decide that I'm highly offended at the term.


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hyperlexian
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04 Mar 2013, 1:48 pm

whirlingmind wrote:
muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
In the United Kingdom, some newspapers reported that a school had altered the nursery rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep” to read “Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep”.[42] But it is also reported that a better description is that the Parents and Children Together (PACT) nursery had the children “turn the song into an action rhyme. . . . They sing happy, sad, bouncing, hopping, pink, blue, black and white sheep etc.” [43] That nursery rhyme story was circulated and later extended to suggest that like language bans applied to the terms “black coffee” and “blackboard”.[44] The Private Eye magazine reported that like stories, all baseless, ran in the British press since The Sun first published them in 1986.[45] See also Baa Baa White Sheep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness
perhaps some teachers feared the new stories were true and were afraid they would get into trouble so they pre-emptively stopped using the word. but the word was never actually barred because of its supposed implied racism. there is a big difference there.


Well if it's all a myth then that's pretty refreshing. In fact I'd rather it was. To think that these "authority figures" programmed us to believe their mistakes in fear that we'd be "bad" or "wrong" people....is appalling. People create problems where there weren't any before. Who the hell ever said "pass me the black pen" and meant it in a degrading way? I've noticed it's PC holier-than-thou white people who invent these "issues", and then minorities hop on board and use them to their advantage. Not a good game to play.


OMG, so can we have racism against the term whiteboard too then? Because it seems all the schools are using them these days and I might decide that I'm highly offended at the term.

but black people were never offended at the term "blackboard" - that is the point. it was a made-up controversy.


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muldoon
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04 Mar 2013, 1:52 pm

whirlingmind wrote:
OMG, so can we have racism against the term whiteboard too then? Because it seems all the schools are using them these days and I might decide that I'm highly offended at the term.


Haha! Let's start a new anti-fascism campaign against those who simply say what colour they see!



mikassyna
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04 Mar 2013, 1:54 pm

I always got annoyed with the word "blackboard" especially because most of them were GREEN! I preferred the word "Chalkboard"



muldoon
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04 Mar 2013, 1:54 pm

hyperlexian wrote:
but black people were never offended at the term "blackboard" - that is the point. it was a made-up controversy.


Not originally, but I know some who have jumped on the bandwagon purely to be awkward. People like to stir trouble.



hyperlexian
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04 Mar 2013, 1:56 pm

muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
but black people were never offended at the term "blackboard" - that is the point. it was a made-up controversy.


Not originally, but I know some who have jumped on the bandwagon purely to be awkward. People like to stir trouble.

can you point me to a source? everything i have seen states otherwise.


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muldoon
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04 Mar 2013, 2:07 pm

hyperlexian wrote:
muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
but black people were never offended at the term "blackboard" - that is the point. it was a made-up controversy.


Not originally, but I know some who have jumped on the bandwagon purely to be awkward. People like to stir trouble.

can you point me to a source? everything i have seen states otherwise.


I'm speaking on a personal level. Obviously I'm not generalising, but I'm only saying that some do.



hyperlexian
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04 Mar 2013, 2:12 pm

muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
but black people were never offended at the term "blackboard" - that is the point. it was a made-up controversy.


Not originally, but I know some who have jumped on the bandwagon purely to be awkward. People like to stir trouble.

can you point me to a source? everything i have seen states otherwise.


I'm speaking on a personal level. Obviously I'm not generalising, but I'm only saying that some do.

considering that a google search turns up nothing, i am highly skeptical that any black person has ever been offended by the word "blackboard" unless they say it for themselves.


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muldoon
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04 Mar 2013, 2:14 pm

hyperlexian wrote:
muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
but black people were never offended at the term "blackboard" - that is the point. it was a made-up controversy.


Not originally, but I know some who have jumped on the bandwagon purely to be awkward. People like to stir trouble.

can you point me to a source? everything i have seen states otherwise.


I'm speaking on a personal level. Obviously I'm not generalising, but I'm only saying that some do.

considering that a google search turns up nothing, i am highly skeptical that any black person has ever been offended by the word "blackboard" unless they say it for themselves.


Well they have. Google can't tell you what people have said to me.



naturalplastic
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05 Mar 2013, 6:29 am

muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
muldoon wrote:
hyperlexian wrote:
but black people were never offended at the term "blackboard" - that is the point. it was a made-up controversy.


Not originally, but I know some who have jumped on the bandwagon purely to be awkward. People like to stir trouble.

can you point me to a source? everything i have seen states otherwise.


I'm speaking on a personal level. Obviously I'm not generalising, but I'm only saying that some do.

considering that a google search turns up nothing, i am highly skeptical that any black person has ever been offended by the word "blackboard" unless they say it for themselves.


Well they have. Google can't tell you what people have said to me.


Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

If you expect us to believe something as preposterous as this 'fact' that you're claiming: that you have met numerous Black people who have told you in all seriousness that they were 'offended' by the term 'blackboard' then you better back it up with something.

Its doubly illogical. No one would equate the color of a chalkboard with race. And even if they did (since blackboards are associated with education- and with science equations-and with high falutin' scientists) the association would be positive. Nobody complains about the eight ball in billiards (which is an evil ball in the context of the game) being ( and being called) 'the black ball'.

So if they dont complain about black being applied to an inanimate object with negative associations then why would they do so with an object with positive associations?



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05 Mar 2013, 7:11 am

there is no such thing as a gollywog any more. we used to have a nice tasting biscuit called "gollywogs" but they are long gone,

my mother had "feature" tiles on her kitchen walls that portrayed negro women wearing red polka dotted white scarves on their head who were arduously stirring some sort of porridge in a bowl, and many people who came over (in the 1990's) complained about the racist undertones of those tiles. the women portrayed on those tiles had skin that was as black as pitch, but they had nice smiles on their faces, and they seemed like nice people to me (according to my impression of them when i was a child).

when the house was put up for sale, those tiles were removed and replaced with generic tiles to raise the value of the house.

in australia, there is a class of aborigines called "the stolen generation".
as far as i know , these aborigines are not full blooded aborigines, but they are hybrids that resulted from white men having sex with lubras ( aboriginal women) that resulted in half cast children.

apparently, those children were considered inferior by full blooded aborigines who chose to kill them if there was not enough food available for everyone, and white people rescued them from the negative discrimination that they attracted from full blooded aboriginals, and they were attempted to be assimilated into the white world through religious indoctrination so that they could live a healthy life in the white society without the dangers of being starved and neglected by full blooded aboriginals who resented their existence.

but in this day and age, people are incensed that such a callous activity ("stealing" or "rescuing" according to ones perspective )could have occurred, and the "stolen" generation are seen as casualties of white society, and even our prime minister has apologized to them.

i guess that white men should have not had sex with aboriginal ladies in the first place ( another hornets nest), but the fact that they rescued their offspring from a brutal demise is what salvages them from being able to be described as feral brutes,

i am a primitive thinker so i do not really understand.



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05 Mar 2013, 8:04 am

About the whole blackboard thing: I obviously can't speak for every black person when I say this, but I've never been offended by the term "blackboard" before; the thought would just never occur to me. And I honestly don't know any black person that would be offended. I'm sure there are some black people out there that would find a problem with this word (the world is a big place after all), but that has little to do with race. You can find oversensitive people in every race if you look hard enough. So to try and use an example like that as evidence that all blacks are oversensitive nowadays doesn't work, if that's what people are trying to do.

But yeah, even as a black person, I've noticed a growing problem with PC in America, and it's somewhat disturbing. When you're constantly forced to watch every little thing you say in fear of hurting someone's feelings, that just makes certain relations even worse. How can you possibly cultivate a meaningful relationship with someone of a different race / gender when you're too afraid of saying the wrong thing in front of them?

Furthermore, too much PC inevitably causes backlash. For example, automatically writing off any person that speaks up against legitimate forms of discrimination as mere babies looking for sympathy and a handout. Some people seriously believe that racism / sexism is almost nonexistent in this country, and that's just not true. You don't need to wear a white hood and run around burning crosses in people's yards to qualify as a racist, and you don't need to be a wife beater to qualify as a misogynist.

All I know is, this sort of thing just ends up hurting both sides in the end. We all need to bury the hatchet and move on, and this will only come to pass after having open discussions like these more often. We'll never reach our full potential as a nation, or individuals, if we stay divided.


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05 Mar 2013, 7:35 pm

Sovereign wrote:
Furthermore, too much PC inevitably causes backlash. For example, automatically writing off any person that speaks up against legitimate forms of discrimination as mere babies looking for sympathy and a handout. Some people seriously believe that racism / sexism is almost nonexistent in this country, and that's just not true. You don't need to wear a white hood and run around burning crosses in people's yards to qualify as a racist, and you don't need to be a wife beater to qualify as a misogynist.

All I know is, this sort of thing just ends up hurting both sides in the end. We all need to bury the hatchet and move on, and this will only come to pass after having open discussions like these more often. We'll never reach our full potential as a nation, or individuals, if we stay divided.


This.



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05 Mar 2013, 7:39 pm

I think it's hilarious when people on the spectrum make racist, sexist, and homophobic comments and then complain about getting fired. I know someone who went on SSDI after getting fired for making a joke about lesbian frogs in the hearing of his lesbian supervisor. I'm sure someone had told him previously not to make racist, sexist, or homophobic comments. So why do it? It's like social ineptitude is a conscious thing for some people, also judging by the tone of this thread.

It's like some people don't even try ...

And sorry if "hilarious" sounds mean. I'm on the spectrum, too, so I'm not known for my empathy.