How PC are you..

[morph4me]

I will be PC, to a point, once it gets to the point where I feel it's stupid, I become decidedly PI. I remember that years ago there was a story on the news, and the anchor used the phrase "chinks in his armor" after the commerical he came back and apologized to his asian audience for any offense that may have been given. In that context, the word chink was perfectly acceptabe and nothing to apologize for.

The problem with some of the terms that have become PC is that they are not necessarily accurate. I have some very good friends that were born in South Africa, the came to the US and became citizens. In the truest sense of the words, they are African American, they are also white.

 

[thardey]

I will be PC, to a point, once it gets to the point where I feel it's stupid, I become decidedly PI. I remember that years ago there was a story on the news, and the anchor used the phrase "chinks in his armor" after the commerical he came back and apologized to his asian audience for any offense that may have been given. In that context, the word chink was perfectly acceptabe and nothing to apologize for.

The problem with some of the terms that have become PC is that they are not necessarily accurate. I have some very good friends that were born in South Africa, the came to the US and became citizens. In the truest sense of the words, they are African American, they are also white.

That reminds me of some public figure who used the phrase "Tar-Baby" and got into trouble for being racist.

How is that racist? It's a folk-tale from Africa, and yes, the baby made of tar is black, but what makes that racist?

 

[Gordon Nore]

That reminds me of some public figure who used the phrase "Tar-Baby" and got into trouble for being racist.

How is that racist? It's a folk-tale from Africa, and yes, the baby made of tar is black, but what makes that racist?

Context.

 

[Gordon Nore]

sukerkin, maybe you can answer this for me: i know irish are sometimes called micks, which i've always assumed derived from the prefix of Mc/Mac in front of many irish names. is there a derogatory term for scottish, welsh, or manx folks?

jf

Watch the movie or read the book Angela's Ashes. Very stark depiction of the treatment of poor Irish Catholics seeking charity. I think it was the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul depicted in the story. Anyhow, you see these repeated scenes of a struggling mom begging for things like a fresh mattress after one of her children died in bed.

Another good film to see is Cal,

from imdb: Cal, a young man on the fringes of the IRA, falls in love with Marcella, a Catholic woman whose husband, a Protestant policeman, was killed one year earlier by the IRA

Back in the eighties I tended bar in couple of 'pubs' in Toronto that were modeled after those found in the UK. They attracted customers who had emigrated from the British Isles. I had a lot of customers -- predominantly male -- from England, Ireland and Scotland, in particular. Many of them from very tough neighbourhoods in Glasgow, London, Belfast.

The wrong word spoken at the wrong time could immediately summon old grievances and erupt in violence. Occasionally, Canadian-born patrons, in an effort to be chummy, might use terminology they thought to be quite benign (Mick or Paddy), only to discover that it had strongly nationalistic or religious undertones.

It provided a good insight for me into the power of words... I met one fellow once, who was visiting with a soccer club from Belfast -- actually I stepped in when two people people were beating him up. He thanked me for the rescue, and explained that he was Catholic, and they were Protestant, and that started the row. After calming him down, I quietly explained to him that I was born Protestant and had come to his aid for other than religious reasons...

He went on about having brothers and uncles in the infamous Maze Prison, and one day we'd hear about him going there too. (Now this was all taking place in mid-town Toronto in the 1980s) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_Prison

There was a pair of brothers I knew who were from Glasgow. Occasionally the elder would talk about going back there to avenge his brother, who had died in a bar knife fight.

When I was attending a Catholic school as a Protestant in the early seventies, I was vaguely aware of some people who had held hostility towards me. It wasn't until I was older that I learned that the City of Toronto was essentially run by the Orange Lodge (a Protestant organization) until the late sixties. This meant Catholics -- especially the Irish -- were locked out socially, virtually unable to get city jobs. At one time if you had Scottish surname in my town, you had a very good shot at getting a job with the fire department or police.

My mother's home Province of Newfoundland on the eastern coast of Canada was hot-bead of Irish-Catholic hostilities right into my lifetime. It's harder for me to see these hostilities as someone who has grown up in a generally more secular world, but they do exist. And they are still close to the surface for many people.

 

[myusername]

This guy here pretty much summarises my views on political correctness. I think he takes it a little far near the end of the clip but I think he was getting a little carried away with his passion for the argument. I think on the whole he makes a really good point though.

 

[Gordon Nore]

This guy here pretty much summarises my views on political correctness. I think he takes it a little far near the end of the clip but I think he was getting a little carried away with his passion for the argument. I think on the whole he makes a really good point though.

I think it's an astonishingly good argument. What he's saying, IMO, is, You get caught calling someone a "N" or the like, don't turn around and say you're some kind of victim of PC.

Stewart is speaking of taking responsibility for ones own beliefs, I think.

Personally, if it comes down to extremes, I would rather be tagged a sniveling, twittering PC droid, than be in the same room with a fellow middle-age, white educated male who talks -- often in hushed tones and carefully chosen words -- about how tough it's gotten for "us." If I am PC, it is by choice, not by indoctrination or some conspiracy against my intellect.

I am not a self-loathing white. I don't believe that I have stolen anything from my fellows, but I am the recipient of stolen goods. Regardless of what laws are enacted in the name of equity or affirmative action, my privilege remains intact. It doesn't rub off. In my country, I am not questioned when I identify as "Canadian." Nobody says, "Yeah, but what are you really?" There is no intense curiosity as to my ethnic origins.

Nobody raises their eyebrows when I say I have two university degrees. There is no, "Good for you," in condescending tones. Successes I've achieved in life, while they may be associated with that privilege, have never been misconstrued as being the result of someone else's largesse over my incompetence or disadvantage.

Certain terminology -- let's take "N" -- got tossed on the scrapheap of vile, cruel incivility before the term "political correctness" reached mainstream consciousness. I chose -- as a sentient human with a fully-functioning heart -- to put other words, like "fag" and "Paki," which were staples of my adolescence, on there as well. Nobody had to tell me to do this -- there was no Grand Poobah of PC who told me that certain words and ideas are despicable. I learned that from the pain in other people's faces. I learned it from the anger of those who said those things. And I learned from the guilt I heard in my own voice when I repeated them aloud.

My beliefs -- PC or not -- were not the result of some trivial list. They're very much informed by people who had an impact on me, like my parents, who -- though far from perfect -- in their small way, identified injustices and tried to point them out to me. Similarly, the lives of people like Dr King had a transforming affect on my youth.

I sense the anger in my own post here, so I will end soon. That little YouTube clip by Stewart really encapsulates the frustration I feel when having my choice of language castigated by others. I suspect PC and PIC are mutually censoring of oneanother and, in the extreme, suggest that the two arguing don't have the stones to debate what eachother is saying, so criticizing how they say it will have to suffice.