Forums > Social Discussion > PC gone absolutely raving insane

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Tao StarPooh-Bah
1,662 posts
Location: Bristol


Posted:
ok, i know there's always been a few people who are a bit ott about political correctness - but it seems to me that recently the PC bug is infecting even your sensible lay-person.

this is just my opinion, so if you find it offensive then bear that in mind before replying, but some people - argh!!!! It gets to the point where threads like [Old link] have to have someone posting to defend Hitler!!!

But nazism aside, a certain amount of discussion on sensitive matters like religion, politics, you know, that stuff that actually affects people's lives (as opposed to weather David Cameron has ever taken coke) is useful, and constructive.

in this world, people are insulted every day. they don't die from it, they aren't scarred for life. (and i'm not talking baout shouting names in the street, violence, you know.. actual racism) maybe they take another look at their views or maybe they just think you are a w***er. either way, that's their choice.

i can see free speech getting closer and closer to that drain, and it worries me. it worries me that in the future we will all be so busy discussing whether David & Kate took coke, and forget that some people are killing eachother in Iraq.

On another note....
look at this . i'm sure a lot of people saw this story. it made me sad that i'm not allowed to be proud of my country anymore. being proud of my country doesn't, for example, mean that i think anyone who's not caucasian doesn't belong here. it doesn't mean that i think asylum seekrs are scum, it doesn't, in short, mean i am a racist. i am pround of my country partly because it is multicultural, and i think it would be nice to set a standard for some other counries rather than pretend i am embarrased to live here.

I had a dream that my friend had a
strong-bad pop up book,
it was the book of my dreams.


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
I have a few examples that IMO, of pc gone mad.

Last spring our fire spinning group was contacted by our local university women's center to do a show at an event they were putting on, an event billed as a celebration of sexual and cultural diversity. We put together a routine and showed up for rehersal the night before the event ,and an hour before the event, they cancelled us. Why?? turns out they didn't like the staff routine that a male/female couple had practiced together ( too heterosexual ) they didn't like the fact that we used the word tribe in our name ( apparantly white people can't form tribes ), they thought that the faux fur we had on our costumes might be offensive to some, they didn't like the fact that the flags we were spinning were white. Clearly, heterosexual white people were not welcome at this event and I wonder why they even contacted us in the first place, after all our bios are on our website.

Back in the day when I was a government employee, a man of East Indian origin was hired on and I had to train him, a year later when a more senior position came vacant, he got the job due to an affirmative action policy, and he was the least qualified canditate for the job. I'm not on with the idea that I can go into an establishment and apply for a job and the interviewer can look me straight in the eye and say somthing like " we're not going to hire you because people who look like you already make too much money" Nice to know under law that I have less human rights than a visible minority or a woman.

In Vancouver a mtf transexual joined a lesbian/feminist group and was harassed into resigning. This resulted in a lawsuit and the demise of the group ( and their gov't funding ) Women born women ONLY, this is tolerance?

A bisexual friend of mine had a very difficult time getting accepted by the gay community, the gays all thought there was somthing wrong with him, or he was just comfused. Tolerence again?

This summer we had a guy from Peru playing classic am hits of the seventies on an amplified pan flute, and when my ( white ) buddy politley asked him to turn down the volume he was accused of racism. The Peruvian didn't speak english, but he sure knew how to play that card. We told him race had nothing to do with it, it was just that he was too loud, and he sucked, but all he could say was racism, racism.

Same thing happened when some Chinese people showed up trying to sell Native American artwork claiming they had made it. When I pointed out the made in China stickers on their product they said,,,,,you gussed it....RACISM.

I'm getting tired of racisim being portrayed as somthing that only afflicts white people and I have no respect for terms like reverse discrimination and ethnocentricity. it's all the same thing IMO, our culture is better than yours, our beliefs are true, yours are false.

Throw in the victim focus mentality that many groups thrive on, a mentality that forces us white straight people to be oh so sensitive and nurture our feelings of guilt while these same groups IMO are guilty of the same discriminatory attitudes they accuse us of, but feel no need to change them, because they are victims.

NYCNYC
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA


Posted:
I don't see how half of those stories have anything to do with political correctness gone mad.

A gay group ostracizing bisexuals certainly isn't poltically correct. Neither are fraudulent sales people.

Just because it has to do with race doens't mean it's politically correctness gone too far.

confused

Yeah, reverse discrimitation isn't political correctness, it's reverse discrimination. And intolerance is intolerance.

Are you people using the term 'political correctness' for anything involving a minority?

If someone refuses to stop playing a flute, that's not 'political correctness gone insane'... nor is it if someone lies about the origin of manufacture of a product. That's just someone being a jerk.

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
When I was first introduced to the whole p.c. concept it was back in the late eighties, and the message was tolerance of minorities and the disadvantaged through non offensive speech and actions. Has it changed?

Gay groups were but one of the many who championed the tolerance idea, and I put that story up because after 5 years living right in the middle on North America's second largest gay community, I didn't see them practicing what they demanded of the straight world. Bisexuals and transgenders had to fight for their place in the gay community, much like gay people are still fighting for their place in society as a whole. I saw irony in this.

NYC, you're missing my point about the flute player and the importers ( I failed to mention this took place in a artist made, artist sold marketplace and we take a very dim view of imports ) What I was trying to say was......As visible minorities, both the flute player and the merchants automatically put us whites on the defensive by accusing us of racist motives in communication with them, this was not the case too loud is too loud,,imports are imports.

Why play the race card? easy,,,,, they thought they could just keep carrying on as they were while we walked away chastised, that we should feel guilty for even thinking that they,, as visible minorities ( read disadvantaged ) might be doing anything wrong.

Reverse discrimination as a term did come a few years after the pc thing but was closley related and seen as less serious that outright discrinination, sort of using the term shoplifting, somehow it just doesn't sound as serious as theft.

onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
I appreciate that its bad when a member of a minority group accuses someone, wrongly, of being racist (as in the examples above).

I just don't see what its got to do with pc, or with misusing pc.

I've been in that situation- a dispute with neighbours about the amount of noise they made at all hours. As it progressed, they accused me of racism. I explained that my issue was nothing to do with them being black, but was purely about the intolerable amount of noise they were making.

It was something I had to deal with, and it wasn't particularly pleasant; but, at no point did anything like 'pc gone mad' go through my head.

It was nothing whatsoever to do with political correctness, it was simply one human being accusing me of something that wasn't true.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
OWD, didn't you wonder WHY your neighbours accused you of racism when clearly race had nothing to do with the music issue? Do you think they might have tried that tactic without the current climate of political correctness?

They were just hoping that you would reflect on the fact that people who look like you once sold people who look like them into slavery and maybe you should just take your guilty white personage back to bed and quit trying to oppress their culture.

It's ALL about guilt using it as a weapon. I'll bet the conversation turned away from the music very quickly when they leveled the accusation. I'll also bet it put YOU on the defensive. They were hoping you would see your own concerns as politically wrong.

In the early nineties, p.c. taught us that being a racist was the worst thing you could be in society, now that's been eclipsed by child molester but the accusation still carries a hefty stigma. I'm betting your neighbours know that.

Given the seriousness of the accusation, and the fact that it's quite often used out of context is why I class it as p.c. gone mad.

onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: stout



OWD, didn't you wonder WHY your neighbours accused you of racism when clearly race had nothing to do with the music issue? Do you think they might have tried that tactic without the current climate of political correctness?





...........It's ALL about guilt using it as a weapon. I'll bet the conversation turned away from the music very quickly when they leveled the accusation. I'll also bet it put YOU on the defensive. They were hoping you would see your own concerns as politically wrong.








No, it didn't alter the course of the conversation. That's the point I'm trying to make- I didn't let it. I had a valid complaint, and wasn't going to get side-tracked by distraction tactics.



In the situation where someone is wrongly accusing you of racism, the onus is on them to provide reason or evidence for that- if they are using it soley as a distraction tactic, then that reason and evidence will not be forthcoming.



As far as I can see, every example given on this thread of supposed 'bad use' of pc, seems to be actually cases of people simply not knowing how to stand up for themselves.



If someone wrongly accuses you of racism, then they're in the wrong; if someones normal reaction, in the face of that, is to immediately back down, then I'd say they need to address that issue within themselves.



Because, in that situation, they are not the victim of misuse of pc, there are quite simply the victim of bullying, and, if pc never existed, they would be equally suseptible to other, non pc related, forms of bullying.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


NYCNYC
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA


Posted:
Well said Dave.



Stout, I do think you're missing a point.



Political correctness ONLY has to do with STOPPING racist and intolerant attacks.



Any attacks back or attacks not related to specific cultural intolerances have nothing to do with political correctness.



I really believe that the term 'political correctness' has gotten blown out of proportion NOT political correctness itself.



It does not mean that minority groups should have MORE rights, nor does it mean they are privelaged to them makeup for the past history of opression. [That's affirmative action and that's something TOTALLY different.]



And racism isn't history. This is present. This is New Jersey Police Officers being told it's OK to pull over cars just becuse the drivers were black and they were more likely to be committing a crime. That rule got changed LAST YEAR. Not 200 years ago. And a thousand other stories both big and small.



I taught predominantly black students for several years in New York (not pulling rank... just sharing experiences here) and I was AMAZED at how they were treated differently by police, store clerks, restrant owners, and just about anyone else because of the color of their skin. I even walked into a store in their neighborhood and bought a $20 TShirt... I handed the store owner a 20 and he surprisingly gave me $10 change. "For you, it's a discount, you're the first white guy I've seen all day".



And I would still say I know nothing of the black experience.



Bah... now I'm cranky which means I'm leaving. Not at you... but at the fact that there are people out there privelaged enough to actually think that if minority groups just worked a little harder, they'd have all the comforts of the majority. "If blacks worked harder, they'd be just as sucessful as whites. If blacks had been too lazy to swim, they wouldn't have drowned in Louisiana. If black people just worked harder, they could have gotten A's on their report cards and gone to Harvard too."



Well Chris Rock is right. "America is a nation of B and C Students. But let's keep it fcking real, OK? A black C student can't run no fcking company. A black C student can't even be the manager of Burger King. Meanwhile, a white C student just happens to be the president of the United States of America!"



Heck yeah I fell off topic. I give up. People want to tell blacks to 'get over' slavery. People want to tell jews to 'get over' the holocaust. People really think that everyone in every country has just as much opportunity based on race and skin color? I can't stop ya.



Just be lucky you're all white.

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]


NYCNYC
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA


Posted:
And don't worry, I'm not actually cranky. Just intellectually cranky. There's a difference. I'm still smiling while expressing dissatisfaction with the state of the world. biggrin

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
hug smile

Tao StarPooh-Bah
1,662 posts
Location: Bristol


Posted:
ah well.....i think we're on completely different tracks here....i agree with some of what you said and disagree with some of it.

the important thing is that we all know what has to change...or at least are willing to learn. smile

I had a dream that my friend had a
strong-bad pop up book,
it was the book of my dreams.


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