News Has society become too politically correct?

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The discussion centers around the perception that society has become excessively politically correct, with terms like "mentally impaired" replacing "retarded" and "African American" replacing "black." Participants debate whether this focus on political correctness and affirmative action has led to reverse discrimination and whether it truly promotes equality or simply shifts biases. Some argue that while the intent behind these movements is positive, they may inadvertently reinforce racial divisions and create a sense of entitlement among certain groups. Others contend that acknowledging and addressing racial inequalities is essential, and that affirmative action is necessary to counteract systemic racism. The conversation highlights the complexities of balancing inclusivity with the potential for perceived reverse discrimination.
  • #51
Originally posted by Zero
Russ, you are persuasive, and wrong, as usual!
Zero and Chemical, you both aluded to it, but neither of you answered the question. I'll restate:

In situations where it is possible to be truly colorblind, should we be?

This is a simple yes or no question requiring only a simple yes or no answer.

Sorry if I missed anything relevant, but its a fast moving thread.

And as a side note, nice to see all the mods in here beating the piss out of each other.
 
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  • #52
Originally posted by Zantra
And yet here you stand accusing me of being a racist. Now who's prejudiced?

Nooooooo. I never call you racist. All I said was that you said you have lots of minority friends. Lots of people say that. Now it just so happens that just about every closet racist in the history of time says "Oh, I have lots of black friends" as some bizarre kind of evidence that they aren't racist, but I never accused of racism.

Now, are you accusing poor people of being violent criminals who will attack your precious car if you should denigrate yourself to drive through a poor neighborhood? Or are you just accusing poor people hating you because you're rich? Because I would like to know how that would prevent you from getting into college.
 
  • #53
Originally posted by Hurkyl


I think the driving factor here wasn't his skin color...

every criterion?

The driving factor was genetics. His father got him in. And his father (you know, the nazi collaborator) before him. And the Bushes wouldn't be are where they are today if they were black. Black people don't have the luxury of having ancestors in powerful positions in american society. That's a big part of what white entitlement is about.
 
  • #54
Originally posted by Chemicalsuperfreak
Nooooooo. I never call you racist. All I said was that you said you have lots of minority friends. Lots of people say that. Now it just so happens that just about every closet racist in the history of time says "Oh, I have lots of black friends" as some bizarre kind of evidence that they aren't racist, but I never accused of racism.

Oh so you're calling me a CLOSET RACIST. Gee, so glad we clarified that. If you think I'm making it up, say so and I'll forward you a list of as many people you need to talk to to verify I'm not lying. While you're generalization that all white people are closet racists and fabricate "fake minority friends" I can assure you that's not true in my case, and I could prove it if called out. It's funny how people resort to baseless accusations and name calling in some last ditch effort to win an argument.

Now, are you accusing poor people of being violent criminals who will attack your precious car if you should denigrate yourself to drive through a poor neighborhood? Or are you just accusing poor people hating you because you're rich? Because I would like to know how that would prevent you from getting into college.

Wonderful. Now you're simply putting words in my mouth which I never uttered. No, none of what you said is accurate. But let me clarify it for you in case you're having trouble grasping the concept. I said:

But let's take it to an extreme. If I go into a poor area driving a BMW, I guarantee you I will experience bias.

This was in response to your comment that minorities are still experiencing racism. I was making the point that even white people encounter bias,(not necessarily exclusive of, but including race, and including socioeconomic status). I went to a high school where I WAS the minority, and let me tell you, I'm VERY familiar with racism.So far your argument isn't very strong. You're basically insinuating that being a minority automatically denotes bias. You're also insinuating that being white automatically precludes racism. I'm saying that racism comes in many forms, and isn't confined to minorities only.
 
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  • #55
Black people don't have the luxury of having ancestors in powerful positions in american society. That's a big part of what white entitlement is about.

The vast majority of white people don't have that luxury either...
 
  • #56
And I don't have any superpowerful people in history from my family. I've been shunned by most of society, but mostly because I shun them.

I figured it out a long time ago that nobody requested to live the life they do. Sure, once your born, you can work towards certain goals, or even be fed with a golden spoon, and have everything handed to you. But who had the choice in being born? Do you remember picking which skin color you would have? I don't.

So it is a simple solution, but it has become such a complicated issue over the years that we need all this complexity in order to think we are being fare to the smaller populations.

Honestly, I don't think AA is fair to anyone. It can make things harder for me, but only if I want to use it for an excuse. Basically, anyone can make it, its just a matter of there own determination. Being thrusted into disadvantaged situations can go a long ways to undermining your determination. However, it can also make you stronger.
 
  • #57
Originally posted by Chemicalsuperfreak
The driving factor was genetics. His father got him in. And his father (you know, the nazi collaborator) before him. And the Bushes wouldn't be are where they are today if they were black. Black people don't have the luxury of having ancestors in powerful positions in american society. That's a big part of what white entitlement is about.

Man you're just full of contradictions. I guess I missed my turn in line when they were handing out powerful white ancestors- I had to make it without the benefit of one You may be trying to argue for pro-minority, but you have so many preconceptions and biases that you're not helping your cause, you're hurting it, and making yourself look bad in the process.
 
  • #58
Originally posted by Zantra
Man you're just full of contradictions. I guess I missed my turn in line when they were handing out powerful white ancestors- I had to make it without the benefit of one You may be trying to argue for pro-minority, but you have so many preconceptions and biases that you're not helping your cause, you're hurting it, and making yourself look bad in the process.

What contradictions? Bush was just an example. You don't think that people get jobs for their kids? If it's disproportionately white people in upper management, and they get jobs for their kids, than that's white entitlement?

All I'm saying is that racism clearly exists and prevents minorities from having the same opportunities that white people have sans AA. On average.

I don't know you. I don't know if your Rickey Schroder or Oliver Twist. So I'm not saying if you've had it easy or not. But the fact is that minorities don't have it as easy as white people.
 
  • #59
Originally posted by Zantra
Oh so you're calling me a CLOSET RACIST.


Wonderful. Now you're simply putting words in my mouth which I never uttered.



This was in response to your comment that minorities are still experiencing racism. I was making the point that even white people encounter bias,(not necessarily exclusive of, but including race, and including socioeconomic status). I went to a high school where I WAS the minority, and let me tell you, I'm VERY familiar with racism.So far your argument isn't very strong. You're basically insinuating that being a minority automatically denotes bias. You're also insinuating that being white automatically precludes racism. I'm saying that racism comes in many forms, and isn't confined to minorities only.

You can dish it out but can't take it.

Anyway, as for your unfortunate experiences with racsim. Was it institutionalized? Was it systematic? Was it widespread? Did it come from positions of authority? Did it keep you down? Did it result in a bad grade? Did it keep you from getting into college? Did it keep you from getting a good job? Do you think you would have had better opportunities if you were black?
 
  • #60
Originally posted by Chemicalsuperfreak
You can dish it out but can't take it.

Anyway, as for your unfortunate experiences with racsim. Was it institutionalized? Was it systematic? Was it widespread? Did it come from positions of authority? Did it keep you down? Did it result in a bad grade? Did it keep you from getting into college? Did it keep you from getting a good job? Do you think you would have had better opportunities if you were black?

And praytell what exactly is it that I'm dishing out? Please enlighten me.


Your characterization of racism is way overblown. You come across as a paranoid who sees conspiracy everywhere you look. I think you would do better in the M&P forums than here. Everybody encounters bias at some point in their lives. That's an unfortunate fact of society that we can only hope will improve with time. While I'm sure there are instances of what you're describing, they are few and far in between.
Maybe you've had bad experiences which have tainted your view, but the people I know well who are minorities generally don't share that viewpoint. Have that had bad experiences? Yes., But they don't let it make them bitter or judge all people based on those experiences, and that is exactly what you are doing.
 
  • #61
Since no one has read the link I gave, I'll post it again with quotes this time (it is the best rejoiner to the "reverse racism" nonsense I have read).

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/race/fish.htm

Now, on the basis of race, blacks are claiming special status and reserving for themselves privileges they deny to others. Isn't one as bad as the other? The answer is no. One can see why by imagining that it is not 1993 but 1955, and that we are in a town in the South with two more or less distinct communities, one white and one black. No doubt each community would have a ready store of dismissive epithets, ridiculing stories, self-serving folk myths, and expressions of plain hatred, all directed at the other community, and all based in racial hostility. Yet to regard their respective racisms--if that is the word--as equivalent would be bizarre, for the hostility of one group stems not from any wrong done to it but from its wish to protect its ability to deprive citizens of their voting rights, to limit access to educational institutions, to prevent entry into the economy except at the lowest and most menial levels, and to force members of the stigmatized group to ride in the back of the bus. The hostility of the other group is the result of these actions, and whereas hostility and racial anger are unhappy facts wherever they are found, a distinction must surely be made between the ideological hostility of the oppressors and the experience-based hostility of those who have been oppressed.

At this point someone will always say, "But two wrongs don't make a right; if it was wrong to treat blacks unfairly, it is wrong to give blacks preference and thereby treat whites unfairly." This objection is just another version of the forgetting and rewriting of history. The work is done by the adverb "unfairly," which suggests two more or less equal parties, one of whom has been unjustly penalized by an incompetent umpire. But blacks have not simply been treated unfairly; they have been subjected first to decades of slavery, and then to decades of second-class citizenship, widespread legalized discrimination, economic persecution, educational deprivation, and cultural stigmatization. They have been bought, sold, killed, beaten, raped, excluded, exploited, shamed, and scorned for a very long time. The word "unfair" is hardly an adequate description of their experience, and the belated gift of "fairness" in the form of a resolution no longer to discriminate against them legally is hardly an adequate remedy for the deep disadvantages that the prior discrimination has produced. When the deck is stacked against you in more ways than you can even count, it is small consolation to hear that you are now free to enter the game and take your chances.

One way of tilting the field is the Scholastic Aptitude Test. This test figures prominently in Dinesh D'Souza's book Illiberal Education (1991), in which one finds many examples of white or Asian students denied admission to colleges and universities even though their SAT scores were higher than the scores of some others--often African-Americans--who were admitted to the same institution. This, D'Souza says, is evidence that as a result of affirmative-action policies colleges and universities tend "to depreciate the importance of merit criteria in admissions." D'Souza's assumption--and it is one that many would share--is that the test does in fact measure merit, with merit understood as a quality objectively determined in the same way that body temperature can be objectively determined.

...In short, what is being measured by the SAT is not absolutes like native ability and merit but accidents like birth, social position, access to libraries, and the opportunity to take vacations or to take SAT prep courses.

Furthermore, as David Owen notes in None of the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude (1985), the "correlation between SAT scores and college grades . . . is lower than the correlation between weight and height; in other words you would have a better chance of predicting a person's height by looking at his weight than you would of predicting his freshman grades by looking only at his SAT scores." Everywhere you look in the SAT story, the claims of fairness, objectivity, and neutrality fall away, to be replaced by suspicions of specialized measures and unfair advantages

NEVERTHELESS, there is at least one more card to play against affirmative action, and it is a strong one. Granted that the playing field is not level and that access to it is reserved for an already advantaged elite, the disadvantages suffered by others are less racial--at least in 1993--than socioeconomic. Therefore shouldn't, as D'Souza urges, "universities . . . retain their policies of preferential treatment, but alter their criteria of application from race to socioeconomic disadvantage," and thus avoid the unfairness of current policies that reward middle-class or affluent blacks at the expense of poor whites? One answer to this question is given by D'Souza himself when he acknowledges that the overlap between minority groups and the poor is very large--a point underscored by the former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, who said, in response to a question about funds targeted for black students, "Ninety-eight percent of race-specific scholarships do not involve constitutional problems." He meant, I take it, that 98 percent of race-specific scholarships were also scholarships to the economically disadvantaged.

I can hear the objection in advance: "What's the difference? Unfair is unfair: you didn't get the job; you didn't even get on the short list." The difference is not in the outcome but in the ways of thinking that led up to the outcome. It is the difference between an unfairness that befalls one as the unintended effect of a policy rationally conceived and an unfairness that is pursued as an end in itself. It is the difference between the awful unfairness of Nazi extermination camps and the unfairness to Palestinian Arabs that arose from, but was not the chief purpose of, the founding of a Jewish state.

THE point is not a difficult one, but it is difficult to see when the unfairness scenarios are presented as simple contrasts between two decontextualized persons who emerge from nowhere to contend for a job or a place in a freshman class. Here is student A; he has a board score of 1,300. And here is student B; her board score is only 1,200, yet she is admitted and A is rejected. Is that fair? Given the minimal information provided, the answer is of course no. But if we expand our horizons and consider fairness in relation to the cultural and institutional histories that have brought the two students to this point, histories that weigh on them even if they are not the histories' authors, then both the question and the answer suddenly grow more complicated.

The sleight-of-hand logic that first abstracts events from history and then assesses them from behind a veil of willed ignorance gains some of its plausibility from another key word in the anti-affirmative-action lexicon. That word is "individual," as in "The American way is to focus on the rights of individuals rather than groups." Now, "individual" and "individualism" have been honorable words in the American political vocabulary, and they have often been well employed in the fight against various tyrannies. But like any other word or concept, individualism can be perverted to serve ends the opposite of those it originally served, and this is what has happened when in the name of individual rights, millions of individuals are enjoined from redressing historically documented wrongs. How is this managed? Largely in the same way that the invocation of fairness is used to legitimize an institutionalized inequality. First one says, in the most solemn of tones, that the protection of individual rights is the chief obligation of society. Then one defines individuals as souls sent into the world with equal entitlements as guaranteed either by their Creator or by the Constitution. Then one pretends that nothing has happened to them since they stepped onto the world's stage. And then one says of these carefully denatured souls that they will all be treated in the same way, irrespective of any of the differences that history has produced. Bizarre as it may seem, individualism in this argument turns out to mean that everyone is or should be the same. This dismissal of individual difference in the name of the individual would be funny were its consequences not so serious: it is the mechanism by which imbalances and inequities suffered by millions of people through no fault of their own can be sanitized and even celebrated as the natural workings of unfettered democracy.

"Individualism," "fairness," "merit"--these three words are continually misappropriated by bigots who have learned that they need not put on a white hood or bar access to the ballot box in order to secure their ends. Rather, they need only clothe themselves in a vocabulary plucked from its historical context and made into the justification for attitudes and policies they would not acknowledge if frankly named.
 
  • #62
I read it, BH.

Oh, and to Russ...if we could be colorblind, I'd say go for it...it would be nice if those situations actually existed except in very limited cases.
 
  • #63
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  • #64
Originally posted by Zantra
Oh so you're calling me a CLOSET RACIST. Gee, so glad we clarified that. If you think I'm making it up, say so and I'll forward you a list of as many people you need to talk to to verify I'm not lying. While you're generalization that all white people are closet racists and fabricate "fake minority friends" I can assure you that's not true in my case, and I could prove it if called out. It's funny how people resort to baseless accusations and name calling in some last ditch effort to win an argument.
Never mind them, even I am a racist these days. The political correctness seems to be putting people into boxes where they don't belong..
 
  • #65
Originally posted by Zero
I read it, BH.

Oh, and to Russ...if we could be colorblind, I'd say go for it...it would be nice if those situations actually existed except in very limited cases.
Thank you.

And as I and someone else (Hurkyl?) pointed out, it is a simple thing to make the college admissions process for most colleges completely color blind.

Something else that is completely colorblind is the US Constitution. And that's why AA is struck down every time a case reaches the Supreme Court.
 
  • #66
They upheld AA in Grutter vs. Bollinger just 4 months ago.

In 1987, the Supreme court specifically upheld use of quotas in United States vs. Paradise, a ruling which has not been invalidated.

Different AA remedies have been struck down for various problems, but AA has never been struck down in principle.

Njorl
 
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  • #67
Originally posted by Zantra
You come across as a paranoid who sees conspiracy everywhere you look. I think you would do better in the M&P forums than here. Everybody encounters bias at some point in their lives. That's an unfortunate fact of society that we can only hope will improve with time. While I'm sure there are instances of what you're describing, they are few and far in between.
Maybe you've had bad experiences which have tainted your view, but the people I know well who are minorities generally don't share that viewpoint. Have that had bad experiences? Yes., But they don't let it make them bitter or judge all people based on those experiences, and that is exactly what you are doing.

So why aren't there a proportionate number of minorities in colleges and corporate boardrooms? There are two explanations that I can think of. One is that it is a racist society, that's what I believe. Or two, blacks have the same opportunity, but can't compete do to some inferiority. So which is it? What's your explanation?
 
  • #68
I don't think it is a racist society perse that is causing this phenomenon. I think it is nurture, if you have successfull rolemodels you'll most likely reach for success yourself. Since minorities have been repressed they have to regain this confidence again. Knowing the right people gets you much further too, that network is apparently not working yet if these biases still exist.

I don't believe it is someone telling: you are a minority so you don't belong here, which would be racist.
 
  • #69
Originally posted by russ_watters
Thank you.

And as I and someone else (Hurkyl?) pointed out, it is a simple thing to make the college admissions process for most colleges completely color blind.

Something else that is completely colorblind is the US Constitution. And that's why AA is struck down every time a case reaches the Supreme Court.
Except this summer, when it wasn't struck down...
 
  • #70
So why aren't there a proportionate number of minorities in colleges and corporate boardrooms? There are two explanations that I can think of. One is that it is a racist society, that's what I believe. Or two, blacks have the same opportunity, but can't compete do to some inferiority. So which is it? What's your explanation?

I understand your point here, but this isn't 100% of the case. Many companys , including the one I work for have many minorities in high positions. The situation is improving, but it takes time.

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/stuckmojo/declarationofaheadhunter.html#6

You bask in the glow of the media spot light, you passionately decree
that racism and prejudice are alive today as they were four hundred
years ago, but does this do anything to reverse it's effect?
No one with the intellegence will deny that a great atrocity was commited
against the black race at the hands of white settlers of this country,
but a wound cannot heal if it is continuously re-opened
That is to say, that it will heal but it will take much longer and the
scar it leaves will be grotesque and raise high on the skin
A true leader leads by example and the example you have shown is not one
of stregnth of character, self-reliance, commentment to excellence or
personal accountability
It's these traits that are necessary to advace oneself as an individual
It is only as strong curagous and moral individuals that any race can
live the quality of life that it chooses
 
  • #71
Originally posted by megashawn
I understand your point here, but this isn't 100% of the case. Many companys , including the one I work for have many minorities in high positions. The situation is improving, but it takes time.

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/stuckmojo/declarationofaheadhunter.html#6

Of course plenty of companies are doing well and/or improving. But I'm sure a large part of the improvement has to do with AA.
 
  • #72
Originally posted by Chemicalsuperfreak
So why aren't there a proportionate number of minorities in colleges and corporate boardrooms? There are two explanations that I can think of. One is that it is a racist society, that's what I believe. Or two, blacks have the same opportunity, but can't compete do to some inferiority. So which is it? What's your explanation?

On the one hand, the argument for AA centers around the notion that individuals to do not come from identical situations, and social circumstances such as socioeconomic status and race play a large role in the extent to which an individual has the opportunity to have an education that is both equally fair to all participants and good in quality. I am definitely in agreement with this idea, but if it is to be held seriously it must be taken into consideration for every claim we make about the status of individuals in a society. With this in mind, I would simply like to introduce a third possible factor that may play a role in, although not determine completely, the distributions of socioeconomic status we see in academia and the workplace.

For the sake of argument I will focus on socioeconomic status here-- it's easy enough to at least imagine a society where racism does not exist, but differing levels of socioeconomic status would seem to be an inevitable fact of a capitalist economy. Race is only implicated to the extent that a larger percentage of minorities belong to low socioeconomic classes than do non-minorities in our society.

Now suppose there is some ideal capitalist society where racism does not exist, and the statuses of the socioeconomically disadvantaged are given the ideal amount of consideration when it comes to college admissions, hirings, etc. That is, for person A with a low socioeconomic status and person B with high socioeconomic status, suppose that A is given the perfect amount of consideration such that s/he is on exactly equal footing with B-- in other words, the disadvantages of B are perfectly balanced out in all considerations of merit, as if in fact B had come from the same socioeconomic class as A, and so they can truly be compared fairly to each other purely in terms of their personal merit, with all underlying social factors effectively canceled out.

Let L be the set of all individuals coming from a low socioeconomic status and H be the set of all individuals coming from a high socioeconomic status. Even given the idealistic and impossible set of considerations above, could we expect to see a ratio Rwork of people from L to people from H in academia and higher positions in the workplace statistically equivalent to the ratio Rpopulation of |L|/|H|? Certainly Rwork would be much closer to Rpopulation than it is in our own society, but that is not the question here. According to the claim above, we should expect to see Rwork = Rpopulation, and if we don't, then it must be indicative of some kind of systematic bias.

But could it at least be possible, given the above ideal situation, that Rwork is still less than Rpopulation? I think the answer is, possibly yes. The reason I say this is that it is critical that we recognize all of the social influences that go into determining a person's future. Included in these social influences is not just effects on education and opportunity, but also the unique attitude that comes with being a member of a certain subculture. People from H, on average, may feel pressured to achieve high successes academically, vocationally, and financially in order to 'belong' to their subculture and may even depend on such successes for their sense of self-worth. Likewise, people from L on average may be more content living a simple life with a simple job, rather than essentially making academic/vocational/etc success the focal point of their lifestyle. If this were the case, then we would see that Rwork < Rpopulation, even though all compromising socioeconomic effects on an individual's merit have been perfectly balanced out.

Please make note that I am not saying something to the effect of "poor people are lazy, and it's their fault for the situation they're in." Indeed we do not live in an ideal society like the one described above. Rather, I am just questioning the specific claim that if socioeconomic factors affecting individual merit were balanced out perfectly that we would see a statistically equal ratio Rwork = Rpopulation.
 
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  • #73
All of that made sense...what we should see is a situation where a person's drive and ability carry them as far as they can go. That situation doesn't exist, and there should be ways to address it.
 
  • #74
Originally posted by Chemicalsuperfreak
So why aren't there a proportionate number of minorities in colleges and corporate boardrooms? There are two explanations that I can think of. One is that it is a racist society, that's what I believe. Or two, blacks have the same opportunity, but can't compete do to some inferiority. So which is it? What's your explanation?

It's not as (forgive the pun) black and white as that. It is a diverse mixture of various factors, race being one, but not necessarily the most prevelant factor. If you eliminate race you still have socioeconomic factors that contribute to the overall picture. The problem is that people are highlighting racism above everything else when it's but one of several factors that contribute to the overall problem. I everyone were the same color, and race was a non-issue, you'd still have economic factors to contend with. As Hypna pointed out, We live in a capitalist society where variable economic classes are inevitable. Everyone can't be a doctor or lawyer, because someone has to fill manual labor jobs. People would then focus on the separation of classes, as has been the case in the past. What it boils down to, is that while racism is an issue, it's one of many, and solving racism while not end bias. Bias will always exist in one form or another, weather it's over race, money, social status, or some other factor of seperation. If everyone in the world was given a single bottle cap,then someone got 2, there would instantly be a class seperation, and everyone with 1 bottle cap would be jealous of the ones with 2. In a truly utopian society everyone would be exactly equal. We do not live in that kind of world.
 
  • #75
Originally posted by Zantra
It's not as (forgive the pun) black and white as that. It is a diverse mixture of various factors, race being one, but not necessarily the most prevelant factor. If you eliminate race you still have socioeconomic factors that contribute to the overall picture. The problem is that people are highlighting racism above everything else when it's but one of several factors that contribute to the overall problem. I everyone were the same color, and race was a non-issue, you'd still have economic factors to contend with. As Hypna pointed out, We live in a capitalist society where variable economic classes are inevitable. Everyone can't be a doctor or lawyer, because someone has to fill manual labor jobs. People would then focus on the separation of classes, as has been the case in the past. What it boils down to, is that while racism is an issue, it's one of many, and solving racism while not end bias. Bias will always exist in one form or another, weather it's over race, money, social status, or some other factor of seperation. If everyone in the world was given a single bottle cap,then someone got 2, there would instantly be a class seperation, and everyone with 1 bottle cap would be jealous of the ones with 2. In a truly utopian society everyone would be exactly equal. We do not live in that kind of world.
No college admission takes race as the sole factor...the other factors are also accounted for, pro and con. And no one is suggesting that everyone be made completely equal, but there should be an effort to raise the minimum to a reasonable degree.
 
  • #76
There also seems to be an angry sort of anti-PC movement, where people go out of their way to be the most worthless human beings they can possibly be, in order to show that they aren't PC.
 
  • #77
"PC" - only in America?

Reading through this thread again I'm wondering if this whole "PC" thing is just a social phenomenon of the US of A? Of course, given its current position as the only superpower, and the incredible success of its cultural exports, that means the concepts are at least recognisable throughout the world.

To what extent would a discussion like this make sense in the EU, or anyone of its members? Japan? India? China? Russia? Brazil? Indonesia? Nauru?

If our concern is somehow to do with people of the world, and not just the <5% who live in the US, let's look at the admission policies for Tibetans (and other ethnic minorities) at prestigious universities in Shanghai and Beijing, or the numbers of women CEOs of leading Brazilian public companies!
 
  • #78
LOl, you know it's funny you mention that. I converse regularly with a group of "internationals" and have on occasion been accused of being "too white" meaning in general "too american" in being overly PC. This from a group of people heavily involved in UN supervisory missions (elections) and seeds of peace type of situations with youth throughout europe and the middle east.
 
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  • #79
I have recently recognized conservative political correctness. If you try explaining reasons for terrorism, your accused of trying to justify it. If you try to discuss the causes of anti-Americanism, you are accused of being anti-American.

Njorl
 
  • #80
This thread(certain posts anyways) could certainly be renamed 'In Defense Of Stupidity'...

Yes, some people go too far in trying to avoid offending people, but the anti-PC crowd sometimes seems to be going out of their way to offend.

See, here's how I see it: at some point, certain people decided it would be a good idea to promote equality, and end racism and sexism. Everyone was going along with it, and the world was becoming a better place for everyone but the racists and sexists. So, what did these slimeballs do? They took a page out of Orwell(and Gingrich), and used language to redefine the terms of the debate. Since they couldn't demonize the terms 'equality', 'freedom', or 'dignity', they wouldn't use those words. Instead, they decided to use the term 'politically correct', and then defined it by using the mistakes of fair-minded people who were a bit overzealous in trying to promote the American ideals of equality and treating all people with respect.
Once Americans became used to the phrase 'politically correct' in regards to admittedly foolish behavior, the trap was sprung, and commentators started using it any time someone tried to promote equality, or counteract racism or sexism. Now, if a racist makes racist comments, and anyone challenges that person, their defense is they are being attacked, not for being an obvious racist, but for being 'pollitically incorrect'. In other words, the racists and sexists and other haters of equality have created a situation where not only can they go back to their pre-civil rights movement behavior, but now they have the support of many Americans who are anti-PC.
 
  • #81
Sociobiology anyone?

Let me see now, humans are observed to use language in creative ways, to say one thing and mean another, to appear to deliberately set out to deceive other humans by, and in, their use of language, etc. Chimps in chimp society are observed to display similar behaviour (sans the language). Something inherent about primate species?
 
  • #82
Ok, think back to what Zantra originally started this thread for.

Then read this story:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=7&u=/nm/20031126/od_nm/master_dc

And I think the point he was attempting to make is clearly outlined here.
 
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  • #83
Only in America?

Reminds me of a story (urban legend?) about the invaders from (today's) France (they invaded England, when the US was merely a collection of Indian nations). Some years ago some ignorant folk in the USofA felt they would, henceforth, refer to them as 'Norpersons'.

What's next, a Ministry of Truth?
 

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