Examples of political correctness gone too far.

http://www.screensound.gov.au/images/whatson/exhibitions/sights_sounds/promo_heyhey.jpg

one segment was a game called 'celebrity head' - three contestants would wear a name on their heads and have to guess whose name they were wearing by asking yes/no questions. the audience would yell out YES!! or NO!! darryl would interpret the yesses and nos and provide the definitive answer if the audience was unsure.
so anyway, one time i remember xmas was coming up so one of the celebrity heads was santa claus. the first question the contestant asked was 'am i a woman?' the audience was quick to shout out NO! but darryl wasn't so sure, he ummed and erred and said "well to some people this person is a woman and to some people this person is a man." poor darryl.

http://www.dlg.nsw.gov.au/dlg/dlgimages/ca_darryls1.jpg

eg 'It's just another example of political position'.

And remember that the speaker also has a political position.

1. The police have been pussyfooting with this white man for ages.
2. You are several times as likely to be 'randomly' stopped by the police if black.
3. Who are these black one-legged lesbians who have been getting away with major crimes?
4. Is there a single word of sense here at all?

!!!!!

The 'reductio ad absurdum of identity' idea assumes that a master identity (or perhaps we should call it a 'slave identity') -- usually that of 'angry victim' -- emerges from identity politics. It doesn't sufficiently recognise that a person's identity might be complicated, rather than simplified, by indentity politics. Feminism created a new sense of what it meant to be a woman, but ended up adding another skin to the onion, another layer of identity accessible to the post-feminist individual: 'housewife, superstar, feminist, wife, lover, white person, employee...'

I'm not sure I would describe this as having to do with political correctness running amok. Rather the opposite: it's that everyone's fear of rampant political correctness caused them to beg and capitulate rather than point out the simple verifiable fact that the word "niggardly" has no racial implications. Only later did they realize that they were being, well, cowardly little idiots, running in terror from some illogical P.C. police they expected to stomp on them. (And exactly the opposite happened: everyone wondered why the hell they had to fire the poor guy for doing nothing at all wrong.)

Well, for starters... everything.

One of the smartest shows they ever did. That nothing was learned can be seen in, among many other examples, how there was a fuss after the fourth Harry Potter book when there were complaints because a character was killed off. Death happens and kids can and in many cases do experience the loss.

Raising children to enjoy life while not ignoring its hardships versus raising them in pristene sentimental bubbles -- for my mind no contest (though the latter approach did end up leading the Buddha to enlightenment, indirectly).

HISTORY OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Being 'politically incorrect' in Asia Minor in the 100 years before or the 200 years after Christ got you crucified.

Being 'politically incorrect' in Britain in the Dark Ages, especially if you were a woman, got you branded a witch and burnt at the stake.

Being 'politically incorrect' in western Europe in the 1500s made you a target of the Spanish Inquisition.

Being 'politically incorrect' in Salem and such places in the second half of the 17th century sent you up the same road as the uppity women from the Dark Ages.

Being 'politically incorrect' in the USA in the 1950s ended your career, destroyed your reputation and brought in its train years of surveillance by J Edgar and his happy band of freedom-loving minions.

Being 'politically incorrect' in the new millennium gets you a bagging from certain journalists, whose opinion you supposedly care not a rat's arse about, and who still give you a right of reply. For the more exhibitionist and attention-addicted among us it also carries its own hero status and allows you to indulge the first conceit and deceit of the conspiracy theorist: that you are cutting- edge enough and significant enough to be worth the hassle of setting up the conspiracy in the first place.

Martyrdom, like most other things, has become easier in the modern age, hasn't it?

After nearly 2000 years, self-righteous conservatives, the wind has changed and now you're kicking against it. Could it be that you are bitching not so much at the concept of PC but at the fact that you are no longer its definers and administrators?

Aw diddums.

-- BJ (bjhaus200...), May 17th, 2002.

(PS What about the term 'politically incorrect' itself? Bearing in mind that the words 'polite' and 'political' actually come from the same root, is it not possible that the term itself is just more PC talk for 'bloody rude'?

Interesting thort occurred to me after reading Virginia's post - presumably at some point Americans stopped using "snigger" to mean a quiet sarcastic cackle and started using "snicker". When was that? And is it an early example of language being modified to reflect changing sensibilities?

Political correctness gone made = the assumption that any kind of discrimination must be arbitrary and unjustified. E.g.:

“…the owner of a travel agency wanted to set up a coffee bar for his staff. So he wrote an ad, which read, “We require a friendly person with a flair for preparing fresh sandwiches and making soups for a team that deserves simple but special lunches.”

Anything wrong with that? Yes: that word “friendly.” As the paper reported, the travel-agency owner, Dominic Speakman, “was stunned when the local Jobcentre told him he could not advertise for a ‘friendly’ catering manager . . . because that would discriminate against applicants not lucky enough to have that sort of personality.”

Said Speakman, managing director of Travel Counsellors in Lancashire, “I’ve never heard a more ridiculous example of political correctness. We normally use newspaper adverts to recruit people and we always ask for friendly staff — it’s part of our philosophy. We’re a family-run business, and we have a pretty good atmosphere. We thought it was particularly important to find someone friendly to run the coffee bar — you don’t want someone miserable serving you sandwiches at lunch. You want someone who likes a bit of light-hearted banter, not a dragon.”

The ad was run without the offending word, “friendly.” Said Speakman, “We have to wait until the interview to find out whether people are friendly now, which wastes everyone’s time. Perhaps they’ll ban us from assessing whether people are friendly next — these people really aren’t living in the real world.””

http://www.strauss.za.com/hip/ms_ds_20020629.html

if a black male was cast southern affiliates would be in an uproar.

I keep forgetting, is this politically correct or not?

Metahint: Starting a response with 'Hint:' sounds more arrogant still.

Clarification: I like you.

Inevitable closer: I hate myself.

-- BJ (bjhaus200...), January 9th, 2003.

I don't follow your logic. Because there is less punishment for political incorrectness, it should stop? Those martyrs were martyrs for a reason. They didnt suffer/die, in hopes more people could follow their lead and suffer/die. They hoped people wouldn't have to.

Then, I'm not sure if that's what you were saying.

But that pales into almost total insignificance next to my main point, which is when you reflect on the fact that it was controlling conservative interests that were doing the persecuting on most of those occasions, the current sanctimonious bleating of the political/moral Right Whingers at the challenge to their authority is so completely hypocritical and transparently, insultingly self-interested as to be laughable.

(PS I know Stalin was a communist. I did Form 4 history. But he was 'conservative' in terms of maintaining State power, as long as it was vested in himself, which is what conservatives have always been most interested in conserving.)

For instance, Mr Speakman, the travel agent in the scenario above, created a new kind of victim (the job applicant with the insufficiently friendly personality) but became, himself, a victim of 'political correctness gone mad'. That's just in the reporting of one incident -- no doubt Mr Speakman is also a simultaneous victor / victim in many other contexts.

The constant transition between all these different roles is such a normal part of our experience of modern life that we take it for granted. But it bears looking at, and I won't apologise for linking for the second time to Speaking Azza, a review of a crucial book about the legacy of identity politics by David Simpson: 'Situatedness: Or, Why We Keep Saying Where We're Coming From'.

One thing that you may not have thought of: Does Lancashire have a history of using code words in job listings as a way to get around job discrimination laws? Has that particular company been caught doing that in the past? Maybe the Jobcentre was worried that "friendly" was a code word.

1: Had the term "Happy Friendly People Wanted!" or words to that effect;

2: Went out of its way to convince me that the job was fun;

3: Had the word "fun" anywhere in the ad.

These were always indications that the job was a boring hell-on-earth experience with few prospects and very little pay.

?!!!?!?!???!!!?!?

seems like a pretty good historical description of conservatism

They say the word "thin" is a term of abuse used by "fat over-rulers" to put down slender people.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1053472.html?menu=

those crazy dutch.

Results 1 - 10 of about 182 for "fat over rulers".

This term must be allowed to catch on.

Chestnut change

A result of political correctness or a sign of the times? After years of being plagued each autumn by children attacking our chestnut tree with battens, stones and other missiles, this year nobody has bothered. Large numbers of chestnuts are lying around awaiting collection.
B0yd Houston,
Old West Man5e,
Dollar.

Golliwog only offends me now when I see photos of myself in that shocking outfit. Shame on you mother.

That't not so much political correctness gone wrong, as just plain wrong.

"Imposing Christian beliefs where these may be unacceptable."

?

"The terms before the common era and common era are simple to understand, are in increasingly common use"

They are?

Uhm, if you want to bolster your case, statements like this probably don't need to be said.

And with that, neither side in that story is representing themselves too particularly well.

on THIS board? surely you jest n' shit.

But I just don't see how it's "unacceptably imposing Christian beliefs" to use the standard BC and AD dating system. The majority of people in this country who use it aren't Christian. It's just the historical origin of our dating system. And remains so even if you use call it "the common era", whatever that means. Who is going to get offended by it?

Keep in mind that the scientific and academic communities (where CE / BCE get used) span not only various religions but various calendars, too. (Which, ha, can lead to a subtler rejection of BCE: "it's not common to me, you imperialist fuck.") I mean, where my people come from, it's 1998, because we are Julian / orthodox western-culture rockist fuxx.

I thought it meant "before christian era"/etc. though

crossposts

Makes more sense if you're a meta-fixated nut, maybe.

I think that is the key thing here, Nabisco.

AD = Anno Domino = "in the year of our lord," i.e., I am now praying in Latin.

BCE = Before Common Era / Before Christian Era (sometimes) = This is the 2005th year since the starting point of the most commonly accepted calendar, which is based on the birth of Christ and the beginning of the Christian era.

There's no question of retaining the Calendar, just a question of whether there should be Latin swears of Christian fealty involved in saying what year it is! "Yard" is a horrible analogy, Alba, unless yard secretly means "Our Lord the stick." The closest analogy I can think of is using days of the week based on Norse gods, and hey guess what: those really aren't at issue for planet-wide scientific calibration, so it doesn't matter as much!

It's an analogy that doesn't cover the supposed offensiveness, only the lost etymology. But I've already said that I think the offensiveness is bunk, on the "not that anybody really cares, but technically" argument.

I wonder if one day, casually using suggestions of mental illness as pejorative rhetoric in arguments will be deemed unacceptable in our society.

I'm not saying that as a cheap joke, and I'm not picking on Nabisco, not least because I do it myself, but it's an interesting one.

(NB the more I think about it the difference between AD and CE is like an exaggerated version of the difference between Celsius and centigrade.)

Just by the by. I'm not offended by the use of domino.

It is currently AO34

Well, I usually say "Happy Holidays" because 1) I'm not certain of the religious affiliation of the person to whom I'm speaking and 2) most people around here get the second half of December off and don't come back to work until after New Years, so that does constitute a couple of "holidays".

My history books in grade school used CE and BCE and that was 20 years ago.

But Nabisco, s1ocki, simian et al. have almost won me round (though I think a Jewish school is a bit of a different case to the Burrell Collection), to be honest.

I thought that just once I could be on the butch anti-PC side but I have failed again.

Mandee – I still have no idea either.

- uselessly arbitrary and
- not actually accurate

Is kind of telling. Reminds me of Naomi Klein in No Logo wondering how the right stole a march on the cultural academic left in the 80s, when the obvious answer was 'you were becoming increasingly marginalised in your ever more arcane attempt to identify a liberational and emancipatory politics with linguistic modifications whilst the people being emancipated by such linguistic intervention were getting deunionised, sacked, made ill and generally shafted'.

I'm (naturally) quite comfortable with the idea of saying 'before this point, all be backward and barbaric and stuff' but would rather date it at the point we humans became the MASTERS OF THE EARTH rather than when JC didn't get born, because I think we should be more expansive in claiming dominion. The human race is the bollocks, not the Christians (=eat meat!)

Is everything a politician does determined by how it appears politically? Can't he just want to see a high profile new release? If people think he's only going to see it to show that he's down with teh gays then surely that's detrimental to his image.

Unfortunately, yes. Career politicians aren't human beings in the sense we understand. They have no interests other than self-aggrandisement. That's why they've got such shit taste.

But my point is that this 'has gone too far', because the signs are confusing and unhelpful. I'd been going there for about 6 months, wondering who all these visitors to Asda were, before I realised it meant customers. Also, can 'colleagues' really stand alone without a possessive pronoun? (ie 'my colleague', fine, but can one be 'a colleague'?).

I can't really put my finger on why I find it quite so annoying.

Yes. It's being serialised in the Daily Mail every day for the rest of my fucking life.

no they aren't.

it's not business. you wouldn't say "i'm here on business."

Also, have you never heard of WINDOW SHOPPING?!?!?

Watching the gig: Entertainment.
Paying to get in: Business transaction.

I didn't think this would be a controversial stance!

Also, have you never heard of WINDOW SHOPPING?!?!?

At the supermarket? No.

but going round selecting items isn't.

do you really think people oppen store for the purpose of entertaining you?

this is the queerest line of logic ive ever seen on this board and thats saying something

Being Fun Doesn't Automatically Preclude It From Being Business!

Wankers. Wankers. Wankers.

Not quite sure what this has to do with PCGM, mind.

SN07 license plates banned, would offend snot-hating civilians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6897494.stm

must be more to this.

Looks like there isn't, it's just one of those offensive combinations (like 666, ooooh!) : http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1093002007

Hahahahahahahaha this thread!

I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE WERE YELLING ABOUT

IT'S A BUSINESS TRANSACTION

Reminds me of Naomi Klein in No Logo wondering how the right stole a march on the cultural academic left in the 80s, when the obvious answer was 'you were becoming increasingly marginalised in your ever more arcane attempt to identify a liberational and emancipatory politics with linguistic modifications whilst the people being emancipated by such linguistic intervention were getting deunionised, sacked, made ill and generally shafted'.

Okay that is the best obvious answer I've ever heard. :D

oh god the business transaction "discussion".

serious lols: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2261307/Toddlers-who-dislike-spicy-food-racist,-say-report.html

loling until you get to the first comment...

The western world is being turned into a third world cesspool run by politcally correct "dont do this dont do that" mind control slaves. To hell with the UK and the US. I say just move to a remote area where religion and politics and MTV are banned and the natural order of earth is the religion. Anyone whoever tells me how to run a family will get a 7.62 to the skull.

standard NATO round, nice attention to detail there

omg i dont like spicy food and i am the most unrasist person ever so if a kid doesent like it eather are they rasists can a 3 year old even have a consept of rasism? if a kid is rasist then its the parents fault

I can't seem to find the article on the Chicago Tribune website now, but over the weekend there was a story that the City of Chicago forced the production of Jersey Boys to get rid of all smoking in the play, even though all the cigarettes were fake, thanks to a complaining patron.

It is funny that the paper equates "foreign" food with "spicy" food. You know, from culinary traditions other than ENGLISH.

omg i dont like spicy food and i am the most unrasist person ever so if a kid doesent like it eather are they rasists can a 3 year old even have a consept of rasism? if a kid is rasist then its the parents fault

-- The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Tuesday, 8 July 2008 17:40 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Forget to log in as Veronaintheclub there Dom?

you all whinge about this sort of thing but do nothing, ever. many of us lost our children years ago to the socialist state order, where have all of you been? fattening your asses and watching the tv . buying into any and every lie presented to you. i greatly enjoy watching all of your pathetic little lives crumble under the heel of totalitarianism. its the only happiness left.

I am more frightened by these comments than by knife crime.

3. Posted by Simon Reynolds on July 08, 2008 07:38 PM
'they smell' - is this really a racist comment? People from different cultures that eat different foods (sometimes spicy, sometimes not) do actually smell different. For exampled, I've read that the Chinese believed that Europeans invariably smelt of milk when they began to settle in China.

Children will be very confused when they are chastised for smelling things and correctly associating certain smells with certain cultures. Reason has no place in this socialist nightmare

Simon Reynolds smells bad. It had to be said.

the business transaction conversation upthread never fails to brighten my day

Little Billy's love of McDonalds over rival Taco Bell back in 1985 seemed to foreshadow his later penchant for American imperialism and his desire to round up Mexican aliens and deport them. And we thought he hated the Bell because the taco sauce gave him stomach problems!

Damn you political correctness. I was about to make a joke about dirty eye-talians on my school chum's facebook until I realized our mutual friends were Italian to the Jurz degree. Curse you!!!!!

apparently in New York they had to rename all the manholes personholes. It's well known.

In Tanzania, they had to rename the Black Rhinoceros as the African American Rhinoceros. You couldn't make it up!

To the best of my admittedly dim recollection, Heinz Baby Foods did not do a "spicy" line when I was three.

Usually when I'm on ilx it's after working a graveyard shift and I'm too tired to completely read a thread or form a coherent thought, so I go "hey! I have a vaguely related story!" and then tell it:

Once at a casual, small gathering some acquaintances were discussing this grad student in one of their lit classes who only always complained about the reading ("why are you paying for school if blah blah blah...").
Someone said, "Do you like to read? Do you enjoy learning?"
Without much thought, and in the thickest redneck drawl I could muster, I said, "Do I look like a faggot to you?"
Silence. Then a very condescending scolding, "We don't use that word", and on and on.
I tried to explain, "Context! I figured you'd be able to tell the difference between a liberal person poking fun at bigotry and like...actual bigotry, sorry, I mean it was just a tongue in cheek shitty lampoon, but I didn't mean to..." etc etc, being defensive, attempting reason, failing.
Someone else, "Yes, and I like to put burning crosses in black people's yards for the irony."
"Dude that's a hate crime, and just scaring people, there's no irony, I just made a bad joke...with irony!..."
Still failing, spiraling, trying to convince them I'm really on their side and I don't feeling o_O... wtf do you do in a situation like that? It was so totally hopeless.
I mean it shouldn't even have to come to that, it should have just been a cheap laugh and someone else responding in the same exaggerated voice, "Book learned liberal art queers aint tell me what is and aint and what to eat", and then we get drunk and probably forget about it...

Actually, I think my joke was really funny.

Whoa longness.

and I don't >just< feeling o_O

it's a hate crime to use those words, we've covered this before.

you're just lucky HOOS wasn't around.

Um, could you not use the word "redneck"? "Rustically Challenged" is the preferred nomenclature.

cutting "I'm an Indian Too" from productions of Annie Get Your Gun.

People shouldn't make up stuff on this thread it WILL end up in the Daily Mail as an actual real life example of pcgm.

Or the THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS! column in "Reader's Digest".

an actual real life example of pcgm

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/325043_b70ad71758.jpg

Apparently the Dail Mail is being forced to rename itself as the Daily Personn Of Non Specific Geinder.

Rabies - Yeah, dude. I took part in a program right after college that was OVER-populated with WAY PC folks. Any attempt on my part to inject humor of the type you're talking about above was met with similar responses:

"We don't use those words" or "Its offensive that you think that's funny."

Wow.

Among the sexually explicit material on his site that he defended as humorous were two photos. In one, a young man is bent over in a chair and performing fellatio on himself. In the other, two women are sitting in what appears to be a cafe with their skirts hiked up to reveal their pubic hair and genitalia. Behind them is a sign reading "Bush for President."

"That is a funny joke," Kozinski said.

well, it's not a funny joke. there's not even any churches in it, for a start.

What pisses me off more is when someone like some dullard on Radio 4 yesterday read out an article from about pcgm when it had absolutely nothing to do with PC-ness. It was about police dogs not being used to arrest people because it might start their asthma off. Of course the whole thing was a load of bollox anyway, as stated at the end of the article...
(A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers said last night...'The idea that anyone is suggesting criminals should be given advance warning is entirely false.').

So, nothing to do with PC, except...er...Police Constables, and a total non-story but led into to a rant about compensation culture blahblablah.

And voila - the story goes around and around from the usual suspects outwards...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2049162/posts
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/021546.php
http://www.barking-moonbat.com/index.php
http://whichendbites.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/you-couldnt-make-it-up/

It's really quite frustrating.

oh jihadwatch.paws

Looks like a live one - Bingo caller told to cut 'fat ladies' patter by council

Oh I read that yesterday. Good work journalists and the cockfarmers who invent pretend stories for them to get incensed about.

I hear Christopher Biggins getting a bit heated about this story on Radio 4 earlier. Jane Asher politely slapped him down tho, so all's good.