~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you think)

[lordmagellan]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

I just want to reiterate something here because I feel like I'm being misunderstood. I'm not saying white people should be free to toss out the word just as freely as blacks to blacks and around them. I'm not going to claim that I fully understand why it's acceptable in one sense, but totally wrong in the other, even if it's done for the same reasons. I think this comes from looking at the world from an individual standpoint, rather than from someone who feels like a part of a larger organism. I've been told that was a big difference between blacks and whites, which I thought to be ironically racist. But whatever, like Samurai said, language is fluid; it's part of it's beauty.

But this:

on a personal note. this posting is the first time that i have written either word in full ever that i can remember. doing so made me feel slightly dirty and wrong.

bothers me. This is written in an examination of a word; a word that's been morphed into a weapon of dehumanization and hatred, but a word, nonetheless. It's an examination of history; one that was cruel and largely unjustified and fueled by greed. And yet, Samurai, being who he is, places guilt on himself for even writing the word. I can't get behind that. I can't feel guilt for an ancestor's wrong. For the same reason I don't subscribe to the myth of Original Sin. I didn't do wrong, so I can't be held accountable. That's like making a son serve a sentence for his father's crime. I don't think good will come of it. If anything, I think that inherited guilt will hold back progress.

I missed this before bed and figure I may as well address it here:

I personally think the whole question is so obvious that it doesn't warrant a bunch of new discussion...especially on this sort of forum.

This is an open forum where we discuss everything under the sun (and a few things beyond). If you don't want to participate in the discussion, to quote so many of the girls here, "move on, click next." This is a community of (mostly) friends where everyone, I would hope, feels they can ask a question or just bounce a few ideas off others to more fully examine a topic. That's a beautiful thing! Something that can't often be found in the physical world because people react, rather than contemplate and respond. It's not perfect; people still just react at times and respond to something they didn't fully understand or wasn't conveyed in the correct way. But even that can be nothing more than a speed bump to understanding and enlightenment.

 

[Nordling]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

The topic is about the concept of "politically correct," which I'm perfectly happy discussing. The subtopic, "a" ending versus "er" ending struck me as obvious and not needing more tortured analysis. I could be wrong, of course...perhaps the subtopic needs to be analyzed by people who aren't really affected by it to death.

Certainly I understand that it's an open forum, and have myself posted in threads that have very little or nothing to do with internet cam modeling, but unless people who are directly affected by these issues aren't active in the subject, I strikes me as similar to a carpenter giving advice to a surgeon.

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

I find it kind of funny, and ironic, that it's actually kind of politically-incorrect (or at least frowned upon) to be politically-correct lol.

So what is politically correct? Basically it's a term only ever used by those in opposition to a presented view - and imo it's generally used as a kind of last-ditch attack on someone whose argument can't be discounted on logical grounds, so the respondent resorts to ridiculing the perceived attitude of the person or community, rather than having any logical objection to the position itself.

In other words, politically-correct is what conservatives and right-wing nutbags call anyone who happens to not agree with them and/or present a liberal point of view.

Really I don't see much of evidence of PC being frowned on. For instance in the latest incident with President Obama, The only criticism the President received was from folks on the "lunatic" left like Mika Brzezinski. or Jonathan Chait. Us right-wing nutjobs supported the President, cause objectively the President was right..
It is either Kamila Harris or Kathleen Kane PA's Attorney General are the best looking AG, . More importantly praising someones looks should be something you need to apologize for unless it is hell of a lot more creepy than what the President said..


If your hypothesis that being PC is being now the new politically incorrect than I'd expect to see criticism of Mika or Jonathan for their criticism of the President but that isn't happening.
There is no downside for being easily offended.

Well I probably didn't express it so well, but what I was trying to say is that to some extent 'political correctness' is a point of view, and also a political buzz-phrase itself, that regularly gets trotted out by the right wing and their supporters in reference to their opponents.

You notice no one ever refers to themselves as politically correct? That's because it's a perjorative term, used almost exclusively by people holding a generally insensitive set of values, to describe someone who goes out of their way not to offend others, often with overtones of pandering and cowardice thrown in.

I can virtually guarantee you, if you looked up public/media use of the term 'political correctness' you would find it is used almost exclusively by right wing groups to describe left wing groups. Afterall why not? It's a tactic that allows you to make fun of how your opponent says something without addressing the content of what they said.

 

[LadyLuna]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

about the "a" vs "er" discussion, I am glad that it happened.

and I would like to point out something: you don't get over something by being offended every time it's brought up. When I was little, I was called geek, nerd, and dork. I got offended, and felt much abused by everyone. Now, I get called geek, nerd, and dork. I thank them for noticing my intelligence, explain that while I used to be very dorky and definitely a nerd, I have since gained some social skills which have moved me firmly into the realm of geek. I do not get offended, and do not feel abused by it anymore. I have gotten past the idea that I am something that a large number of people think is a bad thing, but I could only do that once I embraced the idea that I am indeed a geek. But here's the sticker- once I took back those words, and made them my own, it became acceptable for other people to call me them.

You may say "well, that doesn't matter, because you weren't oppressed because of it." But I was the outcast because of it. I was the one that no one would talk to, or touch, or even look at if they could help it. I was the one who didn't even merit the time it would take to ask me to move, they'd just step over me. Not go around, not ask me to move, not push me out of their way, STEP OVER ME. Like I was nothing. Now, the black people today, it wasn't their parents who were slaves. For most of them, it wasn't even their grandparents. Am I saying slavery is fine? No. I'm saying that the fact that their grandparents or (more likely) their great-grandparents were slaves has very little bearing on their lives today. What does it do? Oh, right, it says that if they are applying for a job against a white person and that company has affirmative action, they will get the job over the white person. It gives them a carte-blanche to cry racism and feel entitled to a bunch of stuff, even when no racism is there.

No, what affects their lives today is the culture they decided to embrace once they were out of slavery. The culture of gangs is their choice. The culture of disrespect is their choice. The culture of random destruction is their choice. And those who try to get out of that culture are accused of "acting white", "betraying their race", or other such bullshit. The biggest thing standing in the way of black progress today is blacks themselves.

I am fully aware that I am probably going to be called a racist, or accused of blaming the victim... but I'm just calling things as I see them.

 

[southsamurai]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

about the "a" vs "er" discussion, I am glad that it happened.

and I would like to point out something: you don't get over something by being offended every time it's brought up. When I was little, I was called geek, nerd, and dork. I got offended, and felt much abused by everyone. Now, I get called geek, nerd, and dork. I thank them for noticing my intelligence, explain that while I used to be very dorky and definitely a nerd, I have since gained some social skills which have moved me firmly into the realm of geek. I do not get offended, and do not feel abused by it anymore. I have gotten past the idea that I am something that a large number of people think is a bad thing, but I could only do that once I embraced the idea that I am indeed a geek. But here's the sticker- once I took back those words, and made them my own, it became acceptable for other people to call me them.

You may say "well, that doesn't matter, because you weren't oppressed because of it." But I was the outcast because of it. I was the one that no one would talk to, or touch, or even look at if they could help it. I was the one who didn't even merit the time it would take to ask me to move, they'd just step over me. Not go around, not ask me to move, not push me out of their way, STEP OVER ME. Like I was nothing. Now, the black people today, it wasn't their parents who were slaves. For most of them, it wasn't even their grandparents. Am I saying slavery is fine? No. I'm saying that the fact that their grandparents or (more likely) their great-grandparents were slaves has very little bearing on their lives today. What does it do? Oh, right, it says that if they are applying for a job against a white person and that company has affirmative action, they will get the job over the white person. It gives them a carte-blanche to cry racism and feel entitled to a bunch of stuff, even when no racism is there.

No, what affects their lives today is the culture they decided to embrace once they were out of slavery. The culture of gangs is their choice. The culture of disrespect is their choice. The culture of random destruction is their choice. And those who try to get out of that culture are accused of "acting white", "betraying their race", or other such bullshit. The biggest thing standing in the way of black progress today is blacks themselves.

I am fully aware that I am probably going to be called a racist, or accused of blaming the victim... but I'm just calling things as I see them.

in response to the experience of being an outcast, i know just what you mean ma'am. i walked that path until i got strong enough mentally and physically to not have to. the experience still shapes a lot of who i am today, 30 odd years later.

im going to respond to the other part in pieces, so please bear with me.
affirmative action first i guess.
i hear what lady luna has said. i have heard it often, and occasionally loudly. when affirmative action first started it was a very badly needed course of action. there absolutely had to bee a legal balance to social inequity. if there hadnt been then we would still be where we were in the 80s on that issue. it has had the intended effect of giving a chance for oppressed people to get a start at having a fair shake. (btw i'm choosing to not go into what affirmative action actually is and how it works, instead ill work with the common assumptions about it)

now that is is 2013 do we still need it? i think we still do, at least for the most part. certainly in business management and other related fields the inequity is still there. sexism and racism havent faded enough to completely do away with legal recourse in that field. yes the laws and practices meant to bring about social equity have drawbacks. sometimes a white male might lose a job opportunity to someone that isnt a white male. sometimes a black male will lose out to a hispanic or native american. (lets not forget that in terms of numbers neither white folk nor black folk are a minority anymore) those same laws work to make sure that women have recourse as well.

perhaps reworking the standards behind the laws and then the laws themselves is timely. ideally the best , most qualified person for any job would get it. if any two or three people were equally qualified then it could come down to other issues. alas, there is still a huge educational and economic disparity between most groups. white males still have the best advantages in a lot of cases. that is why the laws are still needed. eventually that inequity will catch up and pretty much every grouping will have a fair shot at education and training in any given field. then we can just get rid of the outdated rules. we're still at least 50 years from that point imo. maybe longer.

 

[southsamurai]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

snip here

Now, the black people today, it wasn't their parents who were slaves. For most of them, it wasn't even their grandparents. Am I saying slavery is fine? No. I'm saying that the fact that their grandparents or (more likely) their great-grandparents were slaves has very little bearing on their lives today. What does it do? Oh, right, it says that if they are applying for a job against a white person and that company has affirmative action, they will get the job over the white person. It gives them a carte-blanche to cry racism and feel entitled to a bunch of stuff, even when no racism is there.

No, what affects their lives today is the culture they decided to embrace once they were out of slavery. The culture of gangs is their choice. The culture of disrespect is their choice. The culture of random destruction is their choice. And those who try to get out of that culture are accused of "acting white", "betraying their race", or other such bullshit. The biggest thing standing in the way of black progress today is blacks themselves.

I am fully aware that I am probably going to be called a racist, or accused of blaming the victim... but I'm just calling things as I see them.

on the idea of the effect that 100 plus years of separation from slavery does or does not effect us now. for us white folk it doesnt effect us as much. to be honest slave owners were a minority as far as percentages go. slaves were an expensive commodity. so its pretty doubtful that for the average modern american that we had more than one or two ancestors who did.
should we feel guilty for what people dead 200 years did? certainly not, even if they were our own direct ancestors.
but it behooves any person to look at the past so the same mistakes are not repeated. it is wisdom to remember that our nation as a whole profited from and was built at least in part by slavery. (which is true of pretty much every civilization in the world really, just not as recently).
part of that, part of learning and changing that is to address the situation that came about because of it. the echoes of slavery still exist. the newly freed slaves were poor, uneducated and vilified anywhere they went. it would be generations before that would change. matter of fact the last laws preventing the descendants of freed slaves from taking part in american society as equals didnt go away til 50 odd years ago. the hatred and anger from that are still echoing. that is not that long ago.
even though my great great whatever grandparents did not own slaves, my grandparents at least on one side of my family were racist as hell. THAT is the onus i feel responsibility to fix, not the onus of slavery itself.

as to the black folk, i am reticent to speak for them too far. i will say that the stories and history of slavery still ring very deeply in the psyche of modern african americans. some of their parents and grandparents were beaten, hung, shot, stabbed, arrested and otherwise demeaned for nothing more than wanting to have the inalienable right to vote. for the right to not be treated like diseased animals who must be kept in separate neighborhoods, restaurants, schools and, well pretty much everything. again, the end of that being legal was not even a century ago.

in other words, slavery and its consequences do indeed effect modern african americans. not in the terms of scars from chains and whips, but in the terms of the world around them only recently being a place where they are not treated like dirt across the board. now that kind of treatment is at least not sanctioned by law, and the majority will decry it when it happens.
it isnt the actual slavery that has the impact today (not directly). it is the mindset, laws and culture that partook in slavery that do.

please. please if someone reading this is of african descent and i am wrong, educate me. i hate being ignorant.

 

[southsamurai]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

big snips and one last section

No, what affects their lives today is the culture they decided to embrace once they were out of slavery. The culture of gangs is their choice. The culture of disrespect is their choice. The culture of random destruction is their choice. And those who try to get out of that culture are accused of "acting white", "betraying their race", or other such bullshit. The biggest thing standing in the way of black progress today is blacks themselves.

I am fully aware that I am probably going to be called a racist, or accused of blaming the victim... but I'm just calling things as I see them.

now on this subject i am a bit torn myself. on one hand the gang culture is a real thing, and a major problem. and i agree that glorifying it leads to bad things. where i object is the painting with too big a brush. gang culture is not the same as black culture. it's just the part that gets seen the most the last 20 years or so. it is linked to the rise of hip hop as a cultural phenomenon, though that may be a fallacy of information really. early on hip hop and rap was a way of rising above a bad situation, getting out of crime and speaking on the issues that came with living in a world that a person had to be a gangster to survive and thrive.

gang culture (if you want to call it that, and i do so merely as a neutral term). goes back way further than the 70s, and it started way before people think it did here in the states. new york for example had gangs of all kinds of neighborhood and ethnic groups dating back into the 1800s. (gangs existed in pretty much every major city across the world for centuries before america was even conquered, but im focusing on american gangs).
what is a gang? it is nothing more than a group of people who cooperate in some form of criminal activity. some of them do nothing more than fight with other gangs for turf and pride. some of them span all froms of criminal activity... drugs, illegal weapons, numbers running, extortion etc. here in the states black gangs get and got a lot of attention for sure, but remember the italian gangs? we call them mafia, but they were just larger, more organized gangs. russian mobs, yakuza and other organized crime groups have made their way here too, they just keep a lower profile.

working from that definition, yes anyone who joins a gang is making a choice to do so. i will say that in some places that choice is the only choice allowed. i know a guy from san diego (not the hot spot of gangs as far as the media is concerned) who had two choices. get beat into the local crew, or get beat to death by them. his story is far from unique.

plenty of people say that the popularity of that idea is a bad thing. hell everyone that has a lick of sense does. but it isnt truly a racial issue as much as it is an economic and local one. historically gangs start in the neighborhoods where poor people are marginalized (some call them ghettos) when you get suck in that place and need a way out sometimes the options you choose are not good ones.
but these life choices, the popularity of gang culture is NOT a thing chosen by black people at large. from what i have seen and lived it is a choice made by a small percentage that tars the rest. even here in my neighborhood where crack and prostitution were endemic from the 80s til the late 90s it was no more than 20 or 30 people choosing that life out of the 100 odd people who lived here.

so my disagreement isnt that gang culture is holding black people back in some way or another. it is that the blame was placed too far around. i've had this basic conversation several times, with people of all different skin colors. the consensus usually comes down to one thing: inequality causes problems. poverty causes problems. any group who is faced with inequality and poverty will have some part of it that uses means other than what is socially accepted to try and make a better life for themselves. thus, the biggest thing standing in the way of the progress of black people isnt black people. the biggest thing in the way of poor people is selfish and criminal poor people. race really doesnt enter into what causes gang mentality. it just factors in to what a specific gang may have as the majority of its members.


as far as the lovely lady luna being racist. no ma'am i do not think you are. perhaps some of your phrasing was, but not the person behind it (and i didnt read it as such, just acknowledging that it could be taken that way).
blaming the victim? ehhhhhhh maybe so, maybe so, but not in the way you actually meant it.
the only judgement or labels i would place on what you said is perhaps sheltered, or naive? no not naive, that doesnt fit. just not exposed to some of the seedier sides of life, and not versed in this specific aspect of sociology and human behavior. there is more to the phenomenon that you used as your central idea that you didnt address, so i would assume that you werent aware of it, not that you were biased against a group as a whole.

 

[LadyLuna]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

Thank you very much for your insights. (using "chocolate" because that's what Fox said she wanted. ^_^)

My thoughts were based on cities where there were plenty of opportunities for chocolate people specifically to choose something else*, and yet the bloods and crypts are still very strong, and almost exclusively chocolate. Where you can tell the difference between the chocolate neighborhoods and the white neighborhoods because the chocolate ones didn't bother taking care of their things, and so they got run down real quick.

My partner is a quarter chocolate, and he very much grew up around the sort of culture where items are not taken care of because "I can just buy a new one" and where money management was practically unheard of. I haven't even tried to get him to create a budget (he won't see the value in it, and won't understand how to do it yet, but eventually he will), but I've watched him in the past few years grow leaps and bounds in money management. And yet, he still has a long ways to go. And these are things that I saw rampant in the chocolate communities when I was working with those teenagers in my teacher's training. So, while I will admit that we do need to work more on racism, there is a huge factor of the poor chocolate community not even trying anymore, and flat-out ridiculing those chocolate people who had sweated their way out of poverty.

I can't help but wonder if they are just losing their hope...

*what I mean by this is that there were programs specifically for them, and scholarships specifically for them, a place specifically for their children which was created and very beautiful when it was created, but a few years later it looked like a piece of shit...

 

[Jupiter551]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

Thank you very much for your insights. (using "chocolate" because that's what Fox said she wanted. ^_^)

My thoughts were based on cities where there were plenty of opportunities for chocolate people specifically to choose something else*, and yet the bloods and crypts are still very strong, and almost exclusively chocolate. Where you can tell the difference between the chocolate neighborhoods and the white neighborhoods because the chocolate ones didn't bother taking care of their things, and so they got run down real quick.

My partner is a quarter chocolate, and he very much grew up around the sort of culture where items are not taken care of because "I can just buy a new one" and where money management was practically unheard of. I haven't even tried to get him to create a budget (he won't see the value in it, and won't understand how to do it yet, but eventually he will), but I've watched him in the past few years grow leaps and bounds in money management. And yet, he still has a long ways to go. And these are things that I saw rampant in the chocolate communities when I was working with those teenagers in my teacher's training. So, while I will admit that we do need to work more on racism, there is a huge factor of the poor chocolate community not even trying anymore, and flat-out ridiculing those chocolate people who had sweated their way out of poverty.

I can't help but wonder if they are just losing their hope...

*what I mean by this is that there were programs specifically for them, and scholarships specifically for them, a place specifically for their children which was created and very beautiful when it was created, but a few years later it looked like a piece of shit...

amg I could eat a whole chocolate neighbourhood after reading this

 

[lordmagellan]

Re: ~Politically Correct~ (what's it mean & what do you thin

Thank you very much for your insights. (using "chocolate" because that's what Fox said she wanted. ^_^)

My thoughts were based on cities where there were plenty of opportunities for chocolate people specifically to choose something else*, and yet the bloods and crypts are still very strong, and almost exclusively chocolate. Where you can tell the difference between the chocolate neighborhoods and the white neighborhoods because the chocolate ones didn't bother taking care of their things, and so they got run down real quick.

My partner is a quarter chocolate, and he very much grew up around the sort of culture where items are not taken care of because "I can just buy a new one" and where money management was practically unheard of. I haven't even tried to get him to create a budget (he won't see the value in it, and won't understand how to do it yet, but eventually he will), but I've watched him in the past few years grow leaps and bounds in money management. And yet, he still has a long ways to go. And these are things that I saw rampant in the chocolate communities when I was working with those teenagers in my teacher's training. So, while I will admit that we do need to work more on racism, there is a huge factor of the poor chocolate community not even trying anymore, and flat-out ridiculing those chocolate people who had sweated their way out of poverty.

I can't help but wonder if they are just losing their hope...

*what I mean by this is that there were programs specifically for them, and scholarships specifically for them, a place specifically for their children which was created and very beautiful when it was created, but a few years later it looked like a piece of shit...

amg I could eat a whole chocolate neighbourhood after reading this

:shock: ............Should this be moved to the vore thread? :lol: