Political Correctness

[Alex_P]

You know what annoys me? People who ***** about political correctness, seriously it comes up so much more than any real incident of "political correctness gone mad". It seems people just want a chance to complain about some thing they don't like no matter how much they really know about the subject or why these things happen so this gives them a convent little shield to hide their argument behind. Also what the hell is political correctness when you get down to it? It is just a couple of buzz words that seem to get slapped onto any thing some one does not like. Seriously the term is given such varied use it has no real meaning.

Here's the dirty little secret: "political correctness" was never a real movement.

When the Cold War ended and politics shifted towards domestic policy, "political correctness" was introduced to the public eye by American social conservatives specifically to be an easy strawman. They were so effective at acting like it's a real movement that people started believing it en masse. The absence of any real organization or belief behind "PC" makes it more enduring than many real movements, since people just blindly perpetuate "PC" practices under the impression that someone, somewhere is forcing them to do it.

It's really been a raging success.
"Political correctness" allows pundits and politicians to sling mud on social justice movements under the cover of attacking trivial little excesses of speech. Focusing the debate on framing is a great way to shut down action.
"Political correctness" distracts folks who are well-meaning but ignorant -- all those school administrators and zoo keepers and the like -- with pointless frivolity, neutralizing their ability to actually contribute something meaningful to an anti-discriminatory cause they might sympathize with. Their misguided attempts then end up creating fodder for more anecdotes about how crazy "PC" is.
"Political correctness" can be redefined on a whim because it's just a smear term that nobody really "owns". Its only history with the "left" is as a weird self-deprecating in-joke.

When it's 2009 and teenagers who don't even remember 1993 are regurgitating 1993-vintage screeds about "political correctness", that's definitely a political home-run for the inventors of "politically incorrect" rhetoric. Of course, for everyone else, it's embarrassing -- it's embarrassing for the "left" because they've clumsily let this poison meme grow and fester, it's embarrassing for the "right" because they're eating their own dogfood, it's embarrassing for the proudly "politically incorrect" young person because he has absolutely no clue what he's talking about, and it's embarrassing for the rest of the culture because they're too oblivious to recognize it and give him the proper context, too.

...

Why, check out these examples of "political correctness" from this very thread!

http://funnies.paco.to/ridingHood.html Someone had to bring this up.

It's a ham-handed satire of "politically correct" language. People made a ton of those in the early '90s; there was a huge market for 'em, apparently. These things defined a big chunk of "politically correct" language in the first place.

I look at the genre of "modern" fairy tales and wonder: do the people writing and reading these things realize that the stories they're using as jumping-off points have, in fact, already been massively sanitized?

Australian Government renamed fairy penguins to little penguins in order to avoid "Offending" the gay community. Here's the link lol at will. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1615729/posts

This is exactly what "political correctness" was designed for:
1. Identify an overzealous or misguided attempt at inclusion -- the more trivial, the better.
2. Label it "political correctness".
3. Pat yourself on the back for being a "politically incorrect" free-thinker.
4. Use your fancy label for yourself as an excuse to spew hate all over the place.
(Seriously, why the hell are you linking to such a festival of stupidity?)

-- Alex

 

[0thello]

Personally I hate the term "African American", it pisses me off when all black people are called African American.

Look at this guy.

An African American? no, this man is British. Unless you were actually born in Africa and moved to America then you are not an African American mmkay? I'm not called Welsh Australian because my ancestors were Welsh and nor should any black person have "African" in their politically correct title unless they were born in Africa.

Well I'm not sure about that, African/ Afro-British suits me just fine and I'm more or less from the same background as Chiwetel Ejiofor (the guy in your picture). Part of the problem of political correctness is that it leads to false assumptions like the brilliant example you gave.

if you personally hate that term you should also dislike "caucasian" since all blacks can trace their heritage back to africa AND STILL RETAIN the culture of whatever individual place they're from, but not all whites are from the caucasus

I don't really care about the term Caucasian, it doesn't bother me because I've never had to really use it, however in the context of this conversation: The irony of your statement is that White people/Caucasians can trace their heritage back to Africa too and still retain the culture of whatever individual place they're from. Since of course white people are from Africa too if we want to get into the nitty/gritty of the truth however just like the migrations White people/Caucasians made, people who would be considered black (by the incorrect super-umbrella term) exist outside of Africa. They exist in Asia and even Australia. You're very right about the term caucus being an incorrect moniker however in that vain care to provide another?

 

[RedVelvet]

Being political correct is a pain in the ass. because most of the time, these are things by the people that aren't a part of the culture. Like for instance Eskimo's. They don't care that they're called Eskimo's. We don't care that they're called Eskimo's. Only a few twats care that had the power to annoy the hell out of some people so that Eskimo would be politically incorrect to say.

 

[Jorik]

Cheeze Pavilion

No, the City threw out test results because they concluded that the test, however much it may have been DESIGNED to be unbiased, actually was--that the statistically improbable results of the test are evidence tht the test is not "perfectly valid".

Because of these outcomes, the City's independent exam review board, which must vote to certify test results, held hearings to consider the possibility that the tests were racially biased. The board heard from a representative of an IOS competitor, who testified that the results showed 'adverse impact' and that he could design tests with less disparate results and better measuring the jobs' requirements. He also conceded that the City's tests did not show an adverse impact greater than that allowed by law. Another witness, an experienced firefighter, testified that the exams were comparable to those he had taken in the past.

I bolded the important parts for you, since you ignored them. A competitor of the test offered criticism of the test and said that he could make a better test, shocking! The same competitior acknowledged that the test did not cross the legal threshold into the realm of actually biased, just because it had a disparate effect on minority test takers. The test was not "biased", it had an adverse impact, that was within the legal limits of tolerance.

My focus is on city policy and the reasons it decided NOT to follow that policy. The city established a standard, i.e. people who score the best on this test will be promoted, and then ignored that standard, because not enough of the desired class of test takers scored high enough. That is clearly an example of political correctness, the city review board did not want to certify the test because they feared POLITICAL backlash, because the actual results of the test weren't socially CORRECT results, i.e. they threw the test reults out to be politically correct.

Also, it's kinda hard for you people to deflect the charge that your motives are pure when you keep lumping in hate speech laws, hate crime laws, and discrimination in employment with political correctness.

I am amazed by your ignorance in this statement, did you honestly refer to a group of individuals as "you people"? You must be a troll, no one else could be so oblivious to their own hypocrisy.

As for my motives; I'll say this one time for you. The protections of the law shall apply equally to ALL peoples; with no preference given to, nor prejudice levied against, ANY person because of the color of their skin, their religious, personal or political beliefs, their sexual orientation, their gender or their ethnicity.

I acknowledge that the justice system of today does not meet my criteria, but that does not prevent me from having these criteria as my "motive". So, when laws or social policy violate my criteria in order to avoid political confrontation or social criticism, to be politically correct in other words, I will criticize them.

Also, when was the last time you heard of a murder or aggravated assault being committed without any "malice"? You are aware that malice is a synonym for "hate" right? So, why do we need a special classification added to crimes?

When as a society we choose to punish people more severely for their motives, what we are really saying is that it's not o.k. to think or feel this way about a special group, and if you commit a crime while feeling this way or commit a crime after having expressed those thoughts then you are more deserving of punishment than someone who committed the same crime without "thinking" or "feeling" like that.

While society regulating my actions is tolerable, within limits, I'm not o.k. with a government that tells me what is and is not "acceptable" to think or feel. That kind of majoritarian tyranny is detrimental to free equal society, all one has to do is look to California and the recent passage of Prop. 8 to see an example of why.

Does a person who commits murder for money deserve more punishment than a person who commits murder for revenge? Is the victim any less dead? What about beating someone up, does it matter if the perpetrators attacked because the victim belonged to the Mickey Mouse Club? Is the victim any less beaten?

The only justification for "hate crime" legislation, is to place a higher value on the life, liberty and welfare of one class of person, with the corollary being that the life, liberty and welfare of non-class members is worth less. Again, that violates my principles, and is worthy of criticism.

Now one can argue that society has long placed a higher value on the life,liberty and welfare of the majority population, a valid critique. And that this new classification is designed to address that practice, but that speaks to quid pro quo legal arguments. "They" did this bad thing, so it's o.k. for "us" to do that bad thing, that is a childish and counter productive course of action that will only perpetuate a cycle of mistrust and inequality. If the goal is to get "revenge", then that course of action is suitable, if the goal is an honestly equal society, then that course of action is full of fail.

 

[Jorik]

Because the exam review board split evenly, 2-2, on whether to certify the exam results (with one member recusing herself based upon a conflict of interest), they were not certified.

Did you miss the part where half of those board members wanted to certify the results? So, the split decision proves exactly nothing; half for, half against with default permitting discarding the test reults. So next should we not question the reasoning of the members voting to discard the results? "The city could get sued by the minorities who didn't pass the test" . . . they were afraid of a political backlash and negative publicity, which ironically is what they got anyway, their decision was politcally motivated. The City acted in what half of them thought was the "politically correct" way, how hard is that to comprehend?

Well, if you're going to stop reading your source as soon as you see facts that support your desire to find "political correctness" as you call it, and not read the very next paragraph, let alone:

*Citation omitted*

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on what is "clearly an example" and what isn't.

I read every single word of that text, and came to the conclusion that a person with experience taking the tests, the designers of the tests and ONE less person than the majority thought that the test results should be certified, and that the denied firefighters were wrongly deprived, for political reasons, of promotions that they had earned; the Supreme Court seems to think there might be something to this argument. We will have to wait and see.

So, the actions of the City we taken for POLITCAL reasons to be socially CORRECT, the actions were taken for political correctness.

And *why* do you people keep calling *everything* you don't like "political correctness"? Political correctness is about language, not employment decisions or hate crimes. Why do you people keep lumping everything in under this one term? It's kinda hard to argue that your arguments aren't just examples of mindless complaining when you can't keep the things you're complaining about distinct in your discussion of them.

YOU define political correctness as SOLELY language, the rest of the World defines it as:

adj. Abbr. PC

Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.

Being or perceived as being overconcerned with such change, often to the exclusion of other matters.
political correctness n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

So language, employment decisions, legislation to classify criminal motives and societal thought control fit just fine under that definition. Maybe you didn't understand what it meant, and that's fine. I bolded the original reason for my participation in this topic; overconcern.

Maybe in the county where you people come from: in American law, "malice" is a term of art that means 'A wicked intention to do an injury'

http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/m075.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malice_(legal_term)

Under American law, both the person who hates their victim and the cold blooded contract killer that has no feelings whatsoever for the victim--who does not even know the victim's name--both act with 'malice'.

Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed. 2004), malice


MALICE

malice, n. 1. The intent, without justification or excuse, to commit a wrongful act. 2. Reckless disregard of the law or of a person's legal rights. 3. Ill will; wickedness of heart. ? This sense is most typical in nonlegal contexts.

I'll interrupt right here to point out that the 3rd definition is what would be most closely related to the word "hate" and that the definition is not a legal term, meaning that there isn't even a legal terminology for "hate" as a motivation, all un justified motives were considered malicious, until "hate" was created by political correctness.

"Malice means in law wrongful intention. It includes any intent which the law deems wrongful, and which therefore serves as a ground of liability. Any act done with such an intent is, in the language of the law, malicious, and this legal usage has etymology in its favour. The Latin malitia means badness, physical or moral -- wickedness in disposition or in conduct -- not specifically or exclusively ill-will or malevolence; hence the malice of English law, including all forms of evil purpose, design, intent, or motive. . . .

Would acting out of ignorant "hate" satisfy the criteria of the definition of malice? Is acting out of hate a "wrongful intention"? Yes. Is it a form of evil prupose, design, intent or motive? Yes. So far it looks like malice and hate are interchangeable.

[M]alice in the legal sense imports (1) the absence of all elements of justification, excuse or recognized mitigation, and (2) the presence of either (a) an actual intent to cause the particular harm which is produced or harm of the same general nature, or (b) the wanton and wilful doing of an act with awareness of a plain and strong likelihood that such harm may result.... The Model Penal Code does not use 'malice' because those who formulated the Code had a blind prejudice against the word. This is very regrettable because it represents a useful concept despite some unfortunate language employed at times in the effort to express it." Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 860 (3d ed. 1982).

Go ahead and tell me how hate is legally different than malice. And if it's not different, then is it really necessary to create a new classification for crimes, based on that non-existent difference?

Now we come to the crux of your argument.

If my society only had retribution as a goal of its criminal laws. However, it does not. It also has incapacitation and deterrence as a goal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_(legal)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recidivism

When someone is murdered for hate, they're murdered for hate *specific to that person*. When a murder is termed a hate crime, someone got murdered for being part of a group. That's the difference between a hate crime murder and a regular murder: in a regular murder the hate--if there even is hate--is specific to the person while in a hate crime it is generalized against a group.

Your argument is that "malice" directed, and all murders involve malice since "hate" is a general language term shoe-horned into a legal term, at an individual for personal reasons is less harmful than "malice" directed at an individual because they belong to a specific GROUP of people? That argument makes absolutely no sense, and you have ZERO evidence to show that it does.

Now, why is that important? Because crimes that occur because of generalized hate against a group as opposed to specific hate towards an individual are more dangerous to civil order. The reasoning behind hate crimes is no different than that behind why you go to jail longer for assaulting a police officer--or even a bus driver--than for regular assault: it's not that blacks and police officers are better people than the rest of us, it's because the kind of people who assault blacks for being black or police officers in the performance of their duties cause more disruption to the civil order than those who commit regular assaults. Hence, more severe penalties.

Here we come to the glaring flaw in your argument; people are punished more severely for committing crimes against police officers and civil servants precisely because society places more value on their lives, than it does the lives of regular citizens. I disagree with this premise. And now you want to extend that over-valuation to people who are minorities, where as I want to ensure that ALL peoples welfare, liberty and lives are valued equally.

The reason there are hate crime laws is because people who commit hate crimes have no reason to stop until they've killed/hurt/etc. a whole bunch of people they have absolutely no connection to. That's why they have stiffer penalties: they indicate that person is a more dangerous criminal than someone who commits a regular crime, just like people who kill for money or who are willing to kill a witness to get away with a crime or who will kill a cop to avoid being arrested.

This argument is fallacious, and unfounded as well, you argue that people who ignorantly hate other groups are more likely to cause widespread societal harm, I will define "societal harm" in this sense as a higher body count, than people who just hate society in general? Nonsense.

I'll cite you some examples of why your argument is wrong. The biggest "massacres" in recent history were committed by people who did not have specific bigotry as there motive, but I would argue were motivated by general hate. The Virginia Tech shooting, not motivated by bigotry, but certainly malicious. The Shooting in Binghamton may have been specific bias motivated, it's questionable because he never said anything about a specific person or class of people and there are only generalized opinions that the shooter was mocked for his poor english, but the shooter didn't chose a random group, he went to a place he had "connections" with, and acted with "hatred". The Columbine massacre, yup those guys shot up people they had "connections" with too, and in depth researchers have shown that these psychos were not the "loners and outcasts" they were originally portrayed as, but they sure had a general "hatred" for society. The Beltway shooters, were accused of being "terrorists" out to harm America, but the evidence proving that motive was flimsy at best, their hatred of society in general was pretty obvious.

"Hate" crimes as you would define them are actually limited to much more personal and specific instances, showing that they are't this impending apocalypse that requires immediate legislation.

Bias motivated crimes, especially the well known ones, like the murder of Matthew Shepard, more often involve a single individual killed by bigots who they had "connections" with. James Byrd the man dragged to death by bigots in Texas, yup also a case of individuals who had "connections" with the victim. More recently, the murder of Tuba Man in Seattle has been characterized as a bias motivated crime, and it too resulted in a single death.

These crimes do NOT cut a swath of bias based destruction through the country. They result in less body counts than general crimes against society, and there are far fewer of them per year than there are regular homicides, and assaults. So why then do they require more legal regulation? Right, because we want to place a HIGHER VALUE on the lives of SOME Americans.

Some crime stats:
2005:1,823,300(total violent crimes, including rape robbery aggravated assault, and homicide)
Hate crime as percent of --
All crime 0.8 % 0.9 %
Source: Bureau of Justice web site.

So Hate crimes are less than 1% of all crimes committed, are they especially heinous, are the victims more dead, raped or injured because of the motivation of the perpetrators? No they are not. So your argument that they are more damaging to society is false.

The majority of so-called hate crimes are much more personal and individualized than you argue. Your entire argument about greater harm to society caused by bigots, thus requiring laws specifically aimed at the criminals motives falls apart under any kind of scrutiny.

The only justification that can be given, for creating a distinct category of "hate" crime, is social disapproval of personal beliefs, and thats an intolerable reason for legislation.

You now see how completely wrong you are about that, right? At least when talking about my society? I don't know what the justice system is like in your society--I'm not familiar with a jurisdiction where "malice" means "hate" so I have no idea where you live.

No, I don't see how I'm wrong, and I have given you evidence as to why I'm right; where as you rely on insults and generalizations as the basis of your argument.

And I have shown why your argument that "malice" and "hatred" mean different things is also wrong; the word "hate" is not a legal term, and the word "malice" can apply to any crime that you would classify as a "hate" crime. You seem to argue that the reason for that malice is important, and I argue that it isn't.

You want to see the creation of a punishment classification based on the beliefs that people have, and that's not only ignorant, it's scary. A human life is a human life, and ALL of us should be afforded the same liberty and welfare.

Elevating the societal worth of any human life above the rest is terrible and should be condemned. This includes political, religious or famous people.

I do admit that it is unrealistic to expect individuals to agree with this premise, in their personal lives, since personally I value the life of my friends and family above the lives of strangers. But I am not talking about private individuals, I'm talking about the LAW. And I hold the LAW to a much higher standard than I hold individuals.

P.S. I get what you are trying to prove with the classification as "you people" those who disagree with your stated viewpoint. But since I'm not arguing for "politically correct language" my pointing out of your hypocrisy was just to show that you don't really believe in it either.

 

[RollForInitiative]

Political correctness is a crutch for thin-skinned people that take everything they hear/see far too seriously and often completely out of context.

 

[Perticular Elk]

NO. I don't want "hate speech" laws past here. You should not go to jail for expressing your opinion however foul. The Government has used similar laws in the past to place innocent people in jail. You don't have a right not to get your feeling hurt.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

Political correctness and the First Amendment do not mix, and I've far more love of the latter.

 

[Naeo]

The premise of the idea is bullshit. "Let's not say certain things so we don't offend ANYONE."

Example (stolen from George Carlin, requiescat in pace):
Crippled -> Disabled -> Handicapped -> Differently abled (not always, but sometimes).

Okay, "crippled" has taken on a derogatory meaning. So I understand that. "Disabled" is not inherently offensive, and "handicapped" most certainly isn't. And "differently abled"...fuck, it's not that they can do stuff different ways, it's that they can't do stuff most of us can. I, for one, used to be almost totally deaf in my left ear (and am still sub-standard, but I had surgery and it got better). I wasn't "differently abled". I couldn't hear things in a different way that no one else could. I just plain couldn't hear out of one ear. DISabled. Not differently abled.

And this whole thing down in Houston about "we have to have a minority (i.e., black or Hispanic. For some reason, "Asian" and "Native American" don't seem to apply here) holding the title of Superintendent of Schools." And consequently, they chose Rod Paige because he was black (and though it was before my time, some of my teachers have attested that he drove HISD into the shitter) and then Abelardo Saavdra becaus he's hispanic, and he had the policy of "fuck talking about it, fucking thinking about it, fuck telling anyone in advance. I'll announce what I want to do when I'm announcing the plan to bring it up for debate/a vote, and what I say goes".

Political correctness is BS. It's gotten to the point of "we can't say anything bad about a Mexican or a Black person or they'll pull the race card on us, and there's no way out of it because everyone else is too much into political correctnss to stand up and say 'Bullshit, that's not a racist comment. Sit down and shut the fuck up.'"

 

[BardSeed]

I feel you should always be allowed to say what you like, as long as you never try and act upon it.

Edit: Let me elaborate. Freedom of speech means that you can say whatever you like. Yes, even terms that would be considered racist. However, the moment you actually act upon those words (such as using them to insult someone) you can be held accountable.

You had me up until you imposed a limit on free speech. I assume that you're talking about being arrested/fined for "hate crime", when you refer to being held accountable. I disagree with this on many levels. I think insulting somebody because of their race is actually less insulting than targeting them as individuals. If I were to be stereo-typed and called a cracker, I would find it pretty amusing, rather than offensive, as I'm not being targeted personally. If somebody were to insult me based on my actual personality, I would likely take much more offense.
Another problem with punishing people for "hate speech" is that it's only applied if the derogatory phrase(s) in question is directed toward an ethnic minority. That is not equality, and I believe that is what we're meant to be aiming for. I wouldn't expect somebody to be fined or arrested for swearing at me or making an insult directly aimed at me, so why should this be different? It's just "white guilt". We need to stop with this shit and actually treat people equally, if that is indeed our goal.

 

[Naeo]

And "differently abled"...fuck, it's not that they can do stuff different ways, it's that they can't do stuff most of us can.

Actually, color-blind people helped win World War II by being "differently abled"




National Defense: Color-Blind Observers
Monday, Aug. 05, 1940

One man in 20 is color-blind in greater or lesser degree and for that reason ineligible for training as an Army Air Corps pilot or observer. Last week the Air Corps's School of Flight Medicine reported an interesting incident.

In a plane at Fort Sill, Okla. early this summer, an Air Corps observer was able to spot only ten of 40 camouflaged artillery fieldpieces on the ground. An observer of the Field Artillery in a plane spotted all 40 and accurately plotted their positions on his map. The explanation: the artilleryman, selected under less rigorous examination than the Air Corps man, was colorblind. Camouflage, designed to deceive the normal eye, fooled him not a whit.

Last week, at the School of Flight Medicine, clerks combed the files preparing a list of candidates rejected for color blindness. But the Air Corps still wants no color-blind pilots. A pilot must be able to distinguish between colors in Very signals, field lights, etc., where a mistake would be costly.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772387,00.html

IM IN UR RECON

SPOTTIN UR TROOPZ


+++++

And of course there is the issue of heterozygous advantage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterozygote_advantage

Where "most of us" are actually the "disabled" ones ;-D

Well.

I'll be damned.

 

[perfectimo]

I use racist terms, derogatory terms and I use whatever other terms there are.

Please note that I do not use them with hate behind them. That would be the point at which I know I have gone too far.

Wait, so you get to define when you've gone too far in insulting someone else based on their ethnicity?

&nbsp&nbsp No, I've gone to far if I say it towards somebody with hate. I never said it was dependent on race, just if I were to say something with a hateful thought in mind and believed what I was saying to be true. I have never gone so far as to have done that but if I were to I would not feel good about myself.