Political correctness

[Kortney]

No one has said they hate it because they cannot be racist etc. to someone. I would never dream of just going up to a Black person and going "you ******" or someone in a wheelchair "you retard"

But when it comes to the point, here in the UK, I feel too awkward or scared to call a Black person Black or Asian person Asian in fear of being called racist or someone throwing the racist card at me. We have a problem, thanks to PC.

This is exactly my problem. You seem to fail to realise that before that, minorities in England had to put up with people coming up to them and calling them "Niggers" or "retards" or in my case: "sand niggers". It happened on the television, in politics and in schools. Political correctness has (for a very large part) stopped most of this. And if a consequence of that is now you feel a bit awkward when dealing with minorities, then so be it. It's certainly a better trade off.

It really winds me up.

 

[Lunafox]

PC is Manners

Manners at its extream being "I'm better than you becasue I know which fork to use at which corse at a 32 course banquet"

 

[Alssadar]

This all reminds me of Steve Hughes' skit on Political Correctness...

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, I dunno what the Escapist thinks about it, but I know alot of people, self included, say this:

Fuck political correctness.

 

[Mazza35]

It's completely out of control.

But just on the fireman not being gender netrual, if I am correct, fireman actually stands for 'Fire manager' So it doesn't discriminate between gender.

Just my three cents.

No. Because then the plural would be `firemans' not `firemen'. And it's actually gender neutral in the same way `mankind' is.

Ah, thank you for the grammatical correcting, It's just at the railway I work at, we call our Firemen, a Fireman. The girls don't care

 

[TimeLord]

But baa baa rainbow sheep doesn't even fit. . .

Neither does "Baa baa african american sheep"

 

[LandoCristo]

I agree with TC. But the one that gets me is "African-American". So, if you're a black Englishman, and you move to America, wouldn't you be offended by someone calling you "African-American" since you're not American? Just one example that I can come up with of how stupid some political correctness terms are.

 

[Tim_Buoy]

About the only things political correctness wise is not calling black people niggers and not calling native Americans Indians. ****** can be a truly offensive word and native Americans aren't Indian.

and technically native Americans aren't native to america they crossed the biering straight
a long time ago so thier technically asian

 

[Brandon Lum]

It's acceptable, to a degree. It's like drinking alcohol - sure, you can have a few drinks, but you go overboard and you just look like an ass.

Hey... That actually worked...

Anyways, I think it's starting to become a little bit redundant. Yes, it's bad to call a mentally handicapped person a retard, because they can, and probably will take offense to it. You can call your friend, or yourself a retard, as long as present company doesn't exactly bathe in holy water (OH HO). I was in english last semester, and we went over PC.

My reaction?

HOLY SHIT.

It was Little Red Riding Hood, re-written for political correctness. It wouldn't even bother me so much if this shit DIDN'T ACTUALLY EXIST, but it does. Suddenly Grandma was a sporting sixty year old that only ate healthy foods - and nothing non-nutritional because she was a woman and women don't do anything wrong, including eat sweets. Irrevocably, I found myself dumbfounded by the utter idiocy involved in writing this trash.

Me: Little Red shouldn't go into the forest alone because the wolf represents danger and that's bad for children!

Editor: No! She's a young girl and can handle herself because women are competent and men don't have the right to push them around!

Me: What the fuck are you talking about? This is a dangerous animal! It doesn't matter what gender she is!

Editor: THE WOLF IS MALE, AND LITTLE RED IS A GIRL! HE SAYS THAT SHE SHOULDN'T BE ALONE IN THE FOREST, THAT'S SEXIST!!!!!!!!

Me: ...

And that's about when the rifle comes out.

I dunno, I can't stand any of this non-sensical bullshit, but people seem to find every reason to get pissed off.

Take the chick that made Santa say, "Ha, ha, ha," instead of, "Ho, ho, ho."

Why? She claimed he was talking about the cavernous nature of her interior components.

... He probably was, but for god's sake, what the hell?

 

[Haydyn]

I find it odd that no one seems to care if I'm offended. I can be called white or a cracker, and no one will lift a finger. Calling someone a cracker is essentially calling someone a slave driver, while calling someone a ****** is essentially calling them one who is oppressed into slavery unfairly. What sounds more offensive?

I call Indians Natives, Black people African American, don't use gay or retarded as an insult, and to be on the safe side, I'll use the term "little person". Anything beyond that is asinine. PC is just a way for white people to feel less guilty.

When I say white people, I mean people who act white. You know, those smug assclowns who sip wine and watch Dr. Phil in their snuggies. To be honest, I hate white people more than any nationality or country. Does anyone care? Nope.

 

[Jack Macaque]

"Gender-neutral" terms such as "firefighter" in place of "fireman"

That don't fly with me, sorry.

Like this teacher in high school told me that using the work Mankind sets women back thousands of years and makes them seem like a common pet...not sure how that makes sense, silly Feminazi.

I'm all for equal rights believe me, but theres no shelters for men, men can pretty much never claim rape on a woman, we just get told to suck it up.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

There's a particular reason I don't like the types of Political Correctness we're discussing in this forum. It's degrading and condescending. I understand that people of different skin colours get insulted and offended by certain names that have been adopted; but what I don't understand is why lengths are taken to side step acceptable terms.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel that black and white are acceptable terms to describe the colour of someone's skin. I'm not offended when someone calls me white and the number of black friends I've had haven't been offended (and rather prefer) to be referred to as black.
The way I see it is that if you're purposely avoiding calling someone black and instead refer to them as 'coloured' or 'afro-britain'; isn't that equally as (if not more than) offensive as calling them black? Because you've acknowledged that the person is black and yet you're purposely avoiding it.

Political Correctness; no matter how blown out of proportion it may be, puts the taboo on the very word it's trying to avoid simply by enforcing the PC term. For a slightly different example I have an acquaintence who purposely refers to woman as 'females' to avoid calling them women or ladies.

A Serious Question For Women: Would you rather be called a lady/girl/lass/woman/gal over simply being referred to as 'female'. Maybe it's just me, but that bugs me to no end.

 

[Necrofudge]

I try to follow political correctness when talking about race and minorities, but other than that, I don't care a bit about it.

When someone says that I "shouldn't say the R word" I laugh at them and call them a child.
My logic here is that, unlike with the other groups, using the word "retard" supposedly insults a group of people incapable of comprehending that they've been insulted. (I use the word supposedly because when I was growing up, mentally retarded was the proper term to call them).
I guess family of said "mentally handicapped individual" might be insulted though, so I apologize in advance.

I think that the gender neutral idea for words is kind of stupid but I've never bothered anyone since I always say firefighter and police officer in place of fireman and policeman anyway.

As for the physical impairment thing, I've never had that be an issue so far. I would just say that the person can't hear or see.

 

[tzimize]

But baa baa rainbow sheep doesn't even fit. . .

What about 'the gays'?!?! Rainbow sheep. Clearly homophobic Lolololol!

This. If someone wants to take offense, they will damn well find a way no matter WHAT you say. Political correctness...blarg...just about the only thing on earth that ticks me off as much as rap music.

Sigh. People. Think how far we could have come if people werent so god damn stupid.

 

[Madman123456]

Well, some of those new terms have at least some functionality. "Indians" may be confused with "Indians"...
Ok, Native Americans can hardly be confused with People from India.
There are Firemen and Firewomen, and they all fight against Fires. So Firefighter isn't too bad.
What i don't like is "African American". Used for everyone that has enough pigment in his skin too suggest that somewhere in his ancestry, some People from Africa may be found.

Used also for People that don't even know where and when their Ancestors came from Africa. Maybe their Ancestors came from elsewhere. The People who are called "African American" may have as much to do with Africa as i do and i'm as white as the background of this Page.

Why aren't the Whities that came to america called "European Americans"? Bleh.

 

[Merkavar]

Here is a News artical (from 2006) where Children are now being taught to sing "Bah bah rainbow Sheep" instead of "Bah bah Black Sheep"

i will never say baa baa rainbow sheep and i will laugh at anyone who does. i dont really care about people saying deaf or hearing impaired. i dont really care either way.

But changing a song that have been taught to to people for hundreds of years is just taking it too far.

Why is black sheep bad? is being black bad? it has nothing to do with black people so i dont see why it needs to be changed. its a freaking black sheep, is it a black sheep in the nursery rhyme because its just a black sheep or is it because its a black sheep as in not part of the herd, the outsider?