PC Stupidity

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Not PC as in "personal computer", but PC as in "Politically Correct". What is the most annoying/nausiating PC phrase you've ever read and why?

For me it has to be "multi-racial". I have a friend that has one parent from Caucasian decent, and one from African American decent. He doesn't have any problem with someone calling him, for example, "half-black". He even describes himself that way when speaking of his ethnicity. He says, "I'm 50% Irish and 50% African American." No different from someone who would say, "I'm half Italian and half Polish." He never says I'm "multi-racial". I have another friend who's mother is Asian, but father is European. Same with him - he doesn't refer to himself as "multi-racial". I mean, if the people who actually are multi-racial don't refer to themselves in such a manner - they view themselves as HUMANS not multi-racial humans - then why do we need the term?

 

Anything where you have to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Who cares if the original meaning of the word "Christmas" involved a reference to Jesus? If we removed every word from our language that had a religious source we would probably have no words left. The holiday I get on 25 December is called Christmas and that is what I will always call it. If someone else wants to call it Happy Green Elf day, that's fine with me - just don't tell me that I can't call it Christmas.

 

Where to begin on this one....

One thing I find odd is the requirement for multi-lingual forms. We pay to have every government form and instruction booklet translated into every conceivable language -- why?

I was quite surprised when in Washington DC -- they didn't have a multi-lingual constitution and declaration of independence. I wonder how long before special interest groups jump on that.

 

I've always viewed it as people looking different and maybe similar to each other in some culture... then Asian or black people would be a higher stage of the same thing that makes Germanic people tend to have blond hair or European Southerners to have black. Then again, everyone here is either white or new.

What I don't like about race-related PC-ness is coming up with silly expressions like "African-American" or whatever. I go tongue in cheek and call it "Afro-Saxon" instead just to mock the concept.

To be honest, I'm fed up with affirmative actions. They only really make people believe they're handicapped and need privileges to offset it. Especially quotas - nothing serves better to make a group feel inferior and give bigots a weapon.

I'm generally fed up with all the naming practices. When will people realise that coming up with names won't change reality? It's like thinking legislating something is going to solve the problem.

Cutting Christianity out of everything bothers me too. If I can wish happy Hanukkah to a Jewish person or Happy Insert-a-Religious-Holiday for everything short of Satan's Day or Screw Christians Day, I don't understand what's wrong with Christmas for people who claim they don't give a damn.

I also don't like it how traditionally morally reproachable things are being given more sympathetic names to deceive the general public into thinking it can't be anything wrong.

All those compulsory difference trainings also give me creeps.

I've always had issues with that. I still remember being chastised for calling other kids thieves for stealing my toys.

 

You know, I really never gave it that much thought, but this really is a valid point. For someone to be "African-American", it suggests that the person was born in Africa and immigrated to the U.S. However, most African-Americans have never set foot upon the African continent. Many present day African-Americans are direct decendants of slaves (obviously several generations removed at this point), meaning their family has been American far longer than anyone in my family.

As an aside what do they refer to people of African decent outside of America? Blacks perhaps? Obviously not African-American as there is one half of that definition lacking.

 

I don't think we would call them anything other than their actual name. If we really had to give them a label, it would probably be "black" unless they took offence to it. If he or she was really from Africa, we might call them African or Nigerian or Kenyan or whatever country they were from.

But the term African-American is pretty silly. It would be like calling my Dad an English-New Zealander.

 

Agreed, but it is necessary on some level. I assume that most countries conduct a census every so many years, and most countries try to get more than just a head-count. They are looking at relative ages of people (not exact ages, but specifically looking at how many are minors (under 18) or seniors (over 65). Another thing they look at is race. On a census form there has to be several options to check as a race. There may not be many people of African decent living in New Zealand, but I imagine there has to be some racial diversity.

In the U.S. for example there are severaly choices:

Caucasian
African-American
Asian
Native American
Pacific Islander

Those are the major ones, and there are even subdivisions from there. For example if you're a Native American, but you're an Eskimo, you can check off "Inuit".

 

Well, we also have Italian-Americans, Hispanic Americans, German-Americans, Irish-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans; what's wrong with African-Americans? Plus, if you look at the geneology of many African-Americans, they have spent so many generations in North America that it would be hard to pinpoint a country of origin. Recently, several African-American politicos, including scarily enough super-conservative Alan Keyes (who was running against him at the time, but otherwise attacks affirmative action whenever he can), disputed whether Barack Obama, a newly elected US Senator from Illinois (Democrat) whose father is Kenyan and whose mother is a white American, actually qualified as an African-American. Why? Because, they argued, the term "African-American" only refered to those people who had been in the US for generations and had slavery in their family background. I suppose they would call Barack a Kenyan-American then. No one took this very seriously, though.

 

Therefore, the more time passes, and the more all of those terms become silly. If your great grandfather came to America from Italy in the 19th century then it is just as pointless to call you an Italian-American as it is to call someone descended from a slave an African-American. You're all Americans. By enforcing labels onto people, you're just reinforcing stereotypes and divisions. By all means, cherish your cultural heritage and traditions but you shouldn't need an arbritary officially sanctioned label to do that.

 

What annoy me the most about PC'ness is that it mellows everything. Taking away the rough edges from many unpleasant things in pursuit of not offending anyone.

This mostly go for religion, how all the major religions are said to be for peace and love and whatnot while in reality it is mostly about ignorance, violence and control of the masses.

In the relation to the multi-racial thing I have no problem with that term but I am wondering why anyone with even a drop of black blood in them are viewed and view themselves as black. Most "blacks" in America have quite a bit of black blood in them but they are still "only" black and feel their black heritage while feeling nothing for their white. Really annoyed me when I read a book in English class written by an "aboriginal" woman who searched for her heritage, she was 1/16th aboriginal I think and viewed herself as aboriginal, nothing else. Odd.

 

Believe you me, I've read at least one article referring to black people in Africa as "African-Americans" (or "Afro-Americans"), as well as those that moved to Europe. Can't find that precise article, but it did appear in either Newsweek or Time, and the tone was definitely serious.
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Added:
Another thing which completely bugs me is the reproach to woman admiration. Until recently, it was rude to sit when a woman is standing; it was rude to not bow when greeting a lady (and thake off your hat), or to tip the hat if you were an older gentleman (while she would only need to nod); it would be considered rude to not help a lady across the street, pick up a handkerchief, etc. Now? It is rude to even think of any of the above, and feminists call it the triumph of equal rights (yeah, like calling a victory that they conceded perfect ground freely given to them by men).

Come to think of it, this applies to not only women, but elderly people as well. I understand that some of them might not want special privileges for just being older—some do not like to be reminded of their age, some simply don't need this politeness. But it was nevertheless correct to acknowledge social status of the other person—whether due to age or position. Now? I commonly see students standing with their hands in pockets when talking to professors who have definitely spent enough effort to be at least addressed properly…


Oh, and approach to children—that also ticks me off. The whole nonsense of stressless upbringing. Plus, all the attention given to the child, whether rightfully or not. The fact that it is incorrect to lecture or punish your child, but it is encouraged to reward it.


Oh, and definitely the language silliness. It is PinC to use the inclusive 'he,' and the form has been changed to inclusive 'she,' or idiotic linguistic structures such as singular inclusive 'they' or the redundant form 'he or she,' which might cause confusion when used near non-exclusive (ie. 'or') lists.

[ April 01, 2005, 02:11: Message edited by: toughluck ]

 

How american black people call each other niggers but a white man can't call him one... (the mind boggles).

Hearing impaired? You mean 'deaf'. If my ears are waterlogged I'm hearing impaired.

My mother is a teacher and they've been told they can't use the term 'activities' anymore for some bizzare reason (activities is what a junior school teacher would ask part of the class to do while he teaches the rest of the class on something they haven't grasped yet). We could be less PC and call them 'activities for the smart kids' but we can imagine the hoo-ha that would cause.

 

Well, it's all context specific. Granted it would be better if everyone could just call themselves, say, "Americans," and save their personal identities for their private time. However, given that various groups still have very personal grievances, especially African-Americans (civil rights laws weren't enacted that long ago, remember), these attempts to solidify and define identity will persist. Greeks and other Orthodox Christians are still pissed at the Turks for taking Istanbul, and to the Catholic Church and Western Europe for letting it happen. As the thread on the IRA showed, "Irish-Americans," whose Irish ancestors may have come to the US in, say 1830, and who might be half Italian ethnically anyway, still feel aggreived enough by the British to donate to the Republican cause. In India, a great deal of communal violence was set off when some guys from the Hindu nationalist party decided that a mosque built over the remains of a temple (considered by some to be the birthplace of Ram) in the 16th century should be torn down. Some historical grievances take a while to calm down, and they might never quite disappear completely. So a certain amount of PC-ness can be helpful at times, to keep things civil until the situation is rectified and people can move on. This isn't to say that PC-ness isn't overplayed once in a while, but the annoyance of being PC is in my mind a far easier price to pay than the sectarian conflict or open oppression that might have taken place before.

 

I don't like "aboriginal" because the first word that I associate with that one is "abnormal" and that just defeats the purpose of being PC.

 

To me thats just as silly as saying multi-racial.

As for being P.C. towards certain women, I think some women like to make exceptions for certain 'sexist' gestures.

I think I mentioned once before I got in trouble in an cafe in Leeds for asking for a 'white' coffee.

 

I call white white, black black and yellow yellow. I consider "Asian" to have little sense any only use for lack of a better word in English (Semites and Hindu people are no less Asian than the Chinese or Japanese). Been called racist on many occasion, I don't care. For each group I've been called "anti-", I've been called "-file" by just different people. I express my opinions as I have them and I couldn't care less about the person's complexion when forming judgement. So you don't get brownie points from me for being a member of an oh so opressed minority any more than you could have it easier with me just because of belonging to the majority. Down with quotas. Down with brownie points for race. Down with "compensational preference". Down with affirmative actions. Call me a racist all you want, I have like 10 ethnicities mixed in myself and I'm a blond guy with diagonal eyes, so I couldn't care less.