Political Correctness

[Gov Kodos]

^ although to be fair, that thing about the roommate does have a 'Citation needed' tag on it. Are there any other links backing it up?

Not sure, I'd like to find one. Sheldon Hackney, the then University President, does describe the incident here.

One of the measures of Professor Kors's rhetorical success is that journalists almost always describe the "water buffalo" case as the episode in which Eden Jacobowitz got into trouble by calling a group of noisy sorority sisters "water buffalo." If that were the whole truth, Professor Kors is right to call it "wacky." That is, however, a bit of edited reality. One can only understand the event, and the depth of anger felt by the black women students, if one realizes that Eden Jacobowitz was not alone when he uttered his curious epithet. He was part of a large group of white students who were hurling insults and racial slurs at the black women. It was an ugly racial confrontation.

http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0399/0399letters.html

George Will has an amusing piece on the nights events, which it mentions that Eden Jacobowitz was the only one to come forward in admitting he had shouted at the group.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/19...077_1_hackney-university-diversity-jacobowitz

The Will article also brings up in the same year as Edan Jacobowitz's situation the case of an edition of the student newspaper 'The Daily Pennsylvanian' being destroyed by a group of black students who subsequently faced no disciplinary action.

In the letter by Hackney he says the decision to take no action on the students was made after he left the presidency of the university. It says nothing of whether he might have while he was president, though. Hackney did not come off as being conversant with free speech, civil liberties or moral backbone. A typical university bureaucrat in other words.
http://articles.courant.com/1993-05...dents-judicial-inquiry-office-eden-jacobowitz
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/25/us/blacks-at-penn-drop-a-charge-of-harassment.html

 

[horatio83]

You don't read very closely, do you? Nor do you appreciate the US has a different history with black/white relations from Europe that has created a lot of hypersensitivity in many institutions in the US to avoid the appearance of racism, if not always the presence.

Appreciate what, that "water buffalo" is considered to be a racial slur while millions of black folks are unjustly incarcerated in the US? Sounds more like something to be detested.
We gotta fight against real racism instead of playing this pointless newspeak game.

 

[Gov Kodos]

You don't read very closely, do you? Nor do you appreciate the US has a different history with black/white relations from Europe that has created a lot of hypersensitivity in many institutions in the US to avoid the appearance of racism, if not always the presence.

Appreciate what, that "water buffalo" is considered to be a racial slur while millions of black folks are unjustly incarcerated in the US? Sounds more like something to be detested.
We gotta fight against real racism instead of playing this pointless newspeak game.

Let that righteousness flow!

And clearly you don't read closely, or just read what you want.

two groups are got worked up and the university over reacted. It's not the next coming of Lenin's Cheka.

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=5506984&postcount=73

The far right in the US would like you to believe these things are the coming of Lenin's Cheka. Enjoy the company with them.

 

[horatio83]

Saying that "water buffalo" is not racist is simply true. Acknowledging that it is not racist does not make one a right-winger. I would agree though that there is a bias in the media, after all many large media companies are owned by right-wingers.
Interestingly you called me, a social democrat, a right-winger the very moment at which I pointed out an example of real racism. This does not merely show how political correctness quickly turns into its very opposite, total intolerance, but also points towards a more general problem, the hypocrisy of a certain type of contemporary feel-good liberal who cares all about sanitizing language and nothing about real violence, suffering and exploitation.

I am not happy about this attitude of my fellow-lefties but unlike you I'd never call them right-wingers just because we differ slightly.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Saying that "water buffalo" is not racist, it is simply a fact. Acknowledging that it is not racist does not make one a right-winger. I would agree though that there is a bias in the media, after all many large media companies are owned by right-winger.
Interestingly you called me, a social democrat, a right-winger at the very moment at which I pointed out an example of real racism. Not the first time I experienced such a reaction on this board. So this points to a general problem, the hypocrisy of a certain type of contemporary feel-good liberal who cares all about sanitizing language and nothing about real violence, suffering and exploitation.

horatio83 wrote:
Gov Kodos wrote:
You don't read very closely, do you? Nor do you appreciate the US has a different history with black/white relations from Europe that has created a lot of hypersensitivity in many institutions in the US to avoid the appearance of racism, if not always the presence.

Keep on the selective reading and crusade of righteous indignation coupled with that vast knowledge you have there.

 

[horatio83]

About your own post which you quoted, I already responded to it here. Quoting oneself does not make one a classic by the way.
I guess it is pointless to talk with a fellow liberal who calls his fellow liberal a crusader and right-winger. Come back once you have learned some manners, then it might actually become a fruitful discussion.

 

[Ultramann]

Here is some more food for thought. We use the word racist a lot when in actuality to be a racist would be to have an issue with another race, and we are all one race, the human race. So that word in that context is faulty. Being prejudiced on the basis of an irrelevant aspect or ethnicity is a different matter. For that matter, a married man would hopefully be prejudiced toward sex with his wife, which isn't a bad thing. Again, context is key, and in today's society there are too many mentally lazy people too trfiling to actually think about how something is meant and ASK if you aren't sure.

 

[sidious618]

People who complain about political correctness just want to be able to martyr themselves by ignoring that those of us who live in the first world enjoy more free speech than in any point in the past.

Plus, when PC language is pointed out people get angry because it is also being pointed out that the language that they use is ignorant. No one likes that and thus they lash out at the "PC police" who, of course, don't really exist.

 

[Gov Kodos]

About your own post which you quoted, I already responded to it here. Quoting oneself does not make one a classic by the way.
I guess it is pointless to talk with a fellow liberal who calls his fellow liberal a crusader and right-winger. Come back once you have learned some manners, then it might actually become a fruitful discussion.

Scolding and self-righteous offense now, coupled of course with avoiding the bolded points of those quotes so as to keep on playing the martyr. Enjoy your time with Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, they're the folks in the US who complain of political correctness.

 

[horatio83]

People who complain about political correctness just want to be able to martyr themselves by ignoring that those of us who live in the first world enjoy more free speech than in any point in the past.

Plus, when PC language is pointed out people get angry because it is also being pointed out that the language that they use is ignorant. No one likes that and thus they lash out at the "PC police" who, of course, don't really exist.

The problem is rather that these right-wingers you mentioned also try to use political correctness for their own good, e.g. that you should not be allowed to say that the Koch Brothers are wicked oligarchs.
I think it is obvious to anybody that racism, sexism and homophobia have to be fought against on every level. What we are talking about is not that certain words should not be taboos, of course they should be. The actual issues are rather the exaggerations and side-effects of political correctness. One such side-effect is the one of sanitizing and taming language. I am sure we all know Carlin's piece about shellshock, battle fatigue and post-traumatic stress disorder. Which brings us back to my initial point about right-wingers, only people who wanna hide the truth can profit from the euphemization of language.

About your own post which you quoted, I already responded to it here. Quoting oneself does not make one a classic by the way.
I guess it is pointless to talk with a fellow liberal who calls his fellow liberal a crusader and right-winger. Come back once you have learned some manners, then it might actually become a fruitful discussion.

Scolding and self-righteous offense now, coupled of course with avoiding the bolded points of those quotes so as to keep on playing the martyr. Enjoy your time with Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, they're the folks in the US who complain of political correctness.

Paranoically seeing the enemy in your own lines, you'd make a good nazi or Stalinist.

 

[Gov Kodos]

People who complain about political correctness just want to be able to martyr themselves by ignoring that those of us who live in the first world enjoy more free speech than in any point in the past.

Plus, when PC language is pointed out people get angry because it is also being pointed out that the language that they use is ignorant. No one likes that and thus they lash out at the "PC police" who, of course, don't really exist.

The problem is rather that these right-wingers you mentioned also try to use political correctness for their own good, e.g. that you should not be allowed to say that the Koch Brothers are wicked oligarchs.
I think it is obvious to anybody that racism, sexism and homophobia have to be fought against on every level. What we are talking about is not that certain words should not be taboos, of course they should be. The actual issues are rather the exaggerations and side-effects of political correctness. One such side-effect is the one of sanitizing and taming language. I am sure we all know Carlin's piece about shellshock, battle fatigue and post-traumatic stress disorder.

About your own post which you quoted, I already responded to it here. Quoting oneself does not make one a classic by the way.
I guess it is pointless to talk with a fellow liberal who calls his fellow liberal a crusader and right-winger. Come back once you have learned some manners, then it might actually become a fruitful discussion.

Scolding and self-righteous offense now, coupled of course with avoiding the bolded points of those quotes so as to keep on playing the martyr. Enjoy your time with Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, they're the folks in the US who complain of political correctness.

Paranoically seeing the enemy in your own lines, you'd make a good nazi or Stalinist.

And now we move on to the ad hominem strategy, very convincing.

 

[horatio83]

I see, it is totally OK for you to call me a right-winger but not for me. Lovely double standard. Anyway, despite your total dickery I suggest we end this bickering as it pointless and does not contribute anything to the discussion.

 

[Gov Kodos]

I see, it is totally OK for you to call me a right-winger but not for me. Lovely double standard. Anyway, despite your total dickery I suggest we end this bickering as it does not contribute anything to the discussion.

Just letting you know who you're siding with in the US version of the PC debate.

 

[horatio83]

I am not siding with racist anti-PC right-wingers, they are of course the enemy (notice that I do not water myself down via a soft term like "political opponent"), but I am neither siding with people who consider "water buffalo" to be a racist expression. You totally misread me because you could not imagine that there are people who like to talk about the issue of PC beyond the way the enemy forces it upon us.

As I already wrote in this very thread, I am for progressing from explicit regulation of language to a much harsher, implicit rule. Take the incest taboo, nobody has to ever explain it to you, you somehow just pick it up. It is extremely powerful and has endured for thousands of years independent of all the numerous social changes.
I want us to progress into this direction concerning racist, sexist and homophobic slurs. When you say e.g. the N word nobody cries foul but you are looked at as somebody who just disqualified himself from the discussion, who is "out" because of the totally unimaginable thing he said.
I know that this is utopian, I know that until then political correctness, explicitly regulating discriminatory language, is the best method we have. But especially as Trekkers we should know that having a vision is not a bad idea.

 

[milo bloom]

After Kestra's great statement, this was pretty much the end of the thread for me:

I personally have seen a lot more annoying complaints about political correctness than annoying examples of it.

But I'm glad I kept reading for this:

Most people who complain about "political correctness" are actually complaining about being required to speak reasonably politely and take other people's feelings into account in expressing themselves in order to avoid censure and disapproval. I have little sympathy for that kind of offended privilege.

It's not about putting the speaker in a little box, it's about asking the speaker to not put an entire people in a little box.

And the majority of the comments I see on the issue are people complaining about the idea of PC and not actual instances someone being "corrected". Also (and I say this at the risk of being considered "politically incorrect"), the majority of the complainers (in other venues besides here) about the whole idea of PC seem to skew Right and Religious. That just speaks volumes to me.

 

[siskokid888]

Its become an easy smear word for people that don't want to have to consider others that are different from them as equals. They want to be able to continue to debase and de-humanize others, so when someone protests their behavior, they scream "political correctness!" in order to try to stigmatize those that are simply trying to be treated with respect that we all deserve. Sorry to burst the bubble, but everyone is deserving of basic human dignity and respect, even if you don't like it.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I agree that everyone is deserving of basic dignity and respect. Real respect has to be freely given, though. Just as it is wrong to compel someone to convert to or away from a religion by the sword or by threats of ostracism or anything else--just as that is fear and not legitimate faith/disbelief--it's not legitimate respect if you only do it out of fear.

I'd rather people treat each other right for the right reasons...because it is right...and not under threat of consequences. (Unless of course someone is engaging in violence or threats of violence--that MUST be stopped.)

 

[Deckerd]

No idea what point you were trying to make there Nerys.

 

[milo bloom]

I agree that everyone is deserving of basic dignity and respect. Real respect has to be freely given, though. Just as it is wrong to compel someone to convert to or away from a religion by the sword or by threats of ostracism or anything else--just as that is fear and not legitimate faith/disbelief--it's not legitimate respect if you only do it out of fear.

I'd rather people treat each other right for the right reasons...because it is right...and not under threat of consequences. (Unless of course someone is engaging in violence or threats of violence--that MUST be stopped.)

No idea what point you were trying to make there Nerys.

I understand it, Nerys thinks we should learn to speak to each other better without "official" rules making it so. It's a nice idea but it in reality it's just as untenable as Ron Paul's disagreement with the Civil Rights Act, saying that "market forces" would have been sufficient to end discrimination and segregation. Sometimes people need rules laid out, specifically defining problem issues so that we can learn to properly give that respect.

 

[JarodRussell]

I wish for a world where words are seen just as that: words. The actual idiot is always the one who gets himself offended easily by words.

Someone calls you a "motherfucker". Is it true? No? So why are you offended? You know better, so let the silly guy talk as long as he likes.
Someone calls you a "nigger". Obviously, he's a racist. But why should you give him the satisfaction? His goal is to annoy you. Ignore it.
Someone calls something he doesn't like "gay". Are you gay? Yes? Don't you know better? So why bother? What, you aren't gay, but some of your friends are? Well, see above: you know better. Why waste your time?
Seriously, words get their power in the mind of the receiver. Especially adults are able to take that power away by ignoring insults and slurs and bullshit. It's actually pretty easy.


It's not like physical violence, where you can't simply ignore it. There you have to defend yourself.


And the greatest idea ever is to teach people respect and tolerance by telling them "you can't say this, you can't say that". Geez. That has absolutely no effect on anything. You are saying these things because you already lost or never had respect/tolerance for the other side.