Then you agree that Gutierrez’s remarks are bigoted. Now you’re attempting to justify Gutierrez’s bigotry.
Nope, the OP didn’t say anything about using peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as a learning example being bigotry. Which is the thing you were ostensibly defending, wasn’t it? Or am I reading you wrong when you write:
Reads to me like you think objecting to the arbitrary use of a PB&J sandwich for an example -in a lesson assignment totally unrelated to the history and uses of peanut butter, jellied fruit or bread- is the same as calling the teachers who do this bigots and racists. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have explicitly defended the use of PB&J examples against the odious charge of bigoted racism. Right?
Now, what the OP did is point out that vociferous and passionate attacks against “political correctness” are almost invariably a signal that the attacker is a bigot.
Case in point, your posts in this thread.
Maybe you and doorhinge should get together and try and come up with a competent “gotcha” post between the two of you. Trial and error, my friend. When you don’t have anything else going for you, variation and repetition couldn’t hurt.
I dunno. I’m active in the psychiatric patients’ rights movement. Or semi-active (I admit I don’t really do much that qualifies as organized political activism, I just do whatever public education I can, etc). There are people in the movement that get offended at each and every and any mention or portrayal of us / our constituency as “crazy people”, “lunatics”, “nuts”, “insane”, or dismissively described as being in less than ideal mental and emotional condition, and others in the same movement that have a similar kneejerk response to each and every use of the phrases “mentally ill” or “mental illness”.
Shit, I used to have a t-shirt that said “The world is held together by nuts under tension” with “mental patients’ liberation movement” below that. I know some folks here on this board think I’m kind of kneejerk myself on the subject, but I do think it’s overly PC to get angry any time someone is dismissive of someone else for being “nuts” etc.; and although I wince when I see “mentally ill” as a descriptor of someone, I think it’s unproductive to jump in and go all Tommy Szasz on their asses each time.
But the point of the activists that others accuse of being “PC” is that sometimes it is racist to not treat Blacks differently. Because their situation is different, because we made their situation different.
Etc, yeah I get it. Let me give you an example of the “PC in favor of different treatment” that you should already be familiar with. Gay guys get to call each other “faggot” if they’re so inclined. Your use of the same term to refer to them will not be received the same way (assuming for the sake of this argument that you are not a gay male). It’s called “revalorizing an epithet” when the member of the out-group does it. The act becomes a different act based on who you are, though; if you aren’t in that out-group, you’re just using a hateful phrase and you’re most likely going to be labeled a bigot for doing so.
I sometimes agree with the so-called “PC” perspective on such matters, but I have at other times had my fill of “social justice” arguments that refuse to ever tie anything to an abstraction and instead anchor every single definition of social good or social evil to who it is that is doing the deed and to whom it is being done.
Feel free to call me a jackass if you think I deserve it.
You clearly aren’t reading my posts. I’ve not once inferred, deferred, referred, or any other ferred to the teachers in any way. I made no judgments on them. What I am saying is that the use of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, for fuck’s sake) as the MacGuffin is perfectly viable in a lesson for elementary school children in this country regardless of the individual makeup of the students in that class. It is not culturally insensitive; it is not bigoted. It is an overreach of the handwrinigng and oversensitivities of the principal.
To say that I believe that this is an overreach of over senstivities and handwringing ALSO does not make me a bigot. No matter how much Donald Sutherland wants to point and scream, it doesn’t make me Veronica Cartwright.
The OP said ANYONE who bristles at the oversensitivity and handwringing of the culture (or any culture) at large and the resulting pressures and directions from said oversenstivities and handwringing is by defintiion a bigot. There is no chance that you can say look this oversenstivity and handwrinigng is getting a bit out of hand and NOT be a bigot. I wholeheartedly disagree.
Is there bigotry in the world today? Absolutely. no question, unequivocally. Not everything can be chalked up to bigotry. That’s a lame, lazy way out.
Clearly, you and the OP have the same pudding (or any culturally relevant cold dairy based dessert treat for the bigoted Americans or steamed cake like treat for Europeans or whatever your particular culture calls a pudding or cold dairy based or steamed cake dessert) for brains.
And this is precisely the point I am making.
However, the OP may be able to save the truth of his assertion, since it’s fair to say that while I disagree with the principal in this story, I wasn’t whining about it, and indeed would not have mentioned it except for the OP.
You might not be reading your posts! Make up your mind which point you want me to address: a) that you’re not a bigot because you disagree with Principal Gutierrez (which is almost but not quite the assertion being made by the OP), or b) that using the peanut butter sandwich as an example when teaching a lesson is not bigoted (which is the point I was in fact responding to).
As it happens, I agree with both points above. Of course, the only way you could’ve known that is if you read MY posts.
Where I see bigotry in relation to a) above is not in your disagreement with the concerns of Ms. Gutierrez, it is in your insistence that her instructions are handwringing oversensitivity, and your refusal to directly address the actual argument made in Portland rather than the strawman argument. It’s the same rote dismissal of minority concerns that is always the hallmark of privilege.
Where I see bigotry in relation to b) above is not in the use of any specific example from any specific cultural experience to give any specific school lesson; it’s in the institutionalized practice of pulling those cultural references from a single predominant culture and requiring a significant portion of the student body (possibly half in that particular school, according to the article) to always follow along and “catch up” to the students who already possess the relevant cultural knowledge.
It’s not an imposition, major or minor, to learn how to make a peanut butter sandwich or to continue learning any new things about the dominant culture in which you’re living; that’s not the point. Which is that the exclusive, arbitrary and unqualified use of references from a single cultural aspect is exclusionary and counterproductive for a significant portion of those receiving the education.
That “unqualified use” phrase above is important, because that’s all Gutierrez appears to have been warning against: ‘Hey teachers, if you’re going to use a reference in your class, make sure everyone gets it.’ She suggested modifying their references when necessary. Nowhere in that article is she quoted or even suggested as being against explaining or exploring the references used; in fact, she encouraged discussion in the classroom. -Did you think she excluded or banned American cultural references from discussion in some manner? Can you cite the language from Ms. Gutierrez that does this?
You can continue to react as if this is all just handwringing, weepy liberal tripe, but then I’m willing to bet you’re not in charge of educating a few hundred young people from diverse backgrounds to a consistent set of standards either. Maybe you could draw parallels from your own background (I’m sure you’ve had some good teachers who made sure you understood your assignments before they assessed your performance of them) or maybe you could avoid inferring opinions and concerns not actually expressed by Ms. Gutierrez, as you’ve so nicely avoided doing for the teachers who like talking about peanut butter. And besides, you want to avoid the lame, lazy approach, right?
Nice Body Snatchers reference by the way.
Congratulations, you agree. Welcome to the club. Hoods are on the right; crosses for burning on the left. Don’t forget Friday is “Guess What’s Under the Sheet” Night. The cake raffle is at 7.
…because it is hand wringing weepy liberal tripe. Because, again, the sandwich was not the important part of the lesson. Again, it’s the MacGuffin. It’s just the thing to drive the actual lesson forward but unimportant to the lesson, in and of itself. Unnecessarily forcing an extended cultural discussion of all worldly and culturally bread-based meals, snacks, and dietary supplements to make sure all cultures are represented for a relatively unimportant part of the lesson takes time from the actual lesson being taught and potentially other lessons that could be taught. In the United States, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is pretty ubiquitous and thus, even for kids from diverse backgrounds, should be at least generally known to most if not all. I keep trying use qualifiers because for Christ’s sake there will ALWAYS be a couple of kids who don’t for many, many, many reasons. You will ALWAYS have that case.
Can we teach cultures and expose all cultures to all the students? Of course. We can actually have lessons about that very thing. But to sift through the very minutiae of every lesson for every teacher of every day of every subject in order to explore all the possible extrapolations is ridiculous.
We want to teach a lesson about expressing oneself clearly and fully. Let’s explore that by you, as the student, writing down the instructions for how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and we will try to replicate your instructions. (I am assuming this to be the lesson as my children have had this same type homework assignment. They were asked to write down how they oppress minorities. I guess it depends on the school.) Before we can do that, though, we have to take a trip around the world to visit all the grain based baked goods, legume based fiber board spreads (including but not limited to almonds, peanuts, and cashews) and their pairings (or non pairings) with various fruit flavored pastes including but not limited to jams, jellies, preserves, and marmalades. That’s stupid. It’s not bigoted to say so.
You know, I just realized that this is yet another way in which a majority tries to claim that THEY’RE the ones REALLY being oppressed. Is there a single demographic category this hasn’t happened in?
Probably not. Individual exceptions happen though. I remain hopeful.
Sigh. I think it was a reference to Trump and his comment about Mexicans. Now he’s PC!
Monty, your OP isn’t logical. I could write out one of my lengthy responses but it isn’t necessary in this case. If I am reading you correctly, you are claiming that:
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It isn’t possible to have any examples of politically correctness (colloquially speaking) that are excessive and unreasonable. No examples of political correctness that deserve valid criticism or even ridicule have ever been demonstrated.
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Anyone that complains about specific examples of excessive political correctness is motivated by bigotry.
Neither of those are true or even logical. Correct me if I am wrong about your intent but that is the message I got from your OP. It sounds more like a preemptive strike against complaints about certain controversial behaviors that have multiple sides, nuances and degrees of severity. That is a popular political tactic but it won’t fly on this board.
Your clarifications as to your true position are welcome because you are smart enough to know you can’t defend a position that you wrote if it is taken literally.
Yep. And we have a new user, octopus, who personifies this thread. 114 posts total:
65 posts in The white hood: heritage, not hate!
34 posts in Do African-Americans have extra energy in their muscles?
6 posts in Coontown on Reddit
Lots and lots and lots of talking about PCness and liberals while rushing to defend Confederate flag wavers and racists. I think I spot a pattern.
When shows poke fun at political correctness, is their lampooning of the practice based on the bigotry of the shows writers?
Assuming that isn’t a joke (how is one to tell?), that’s a perfect example of PC run amok. I’d like to see the OP defend it.
You’ll also notice that threads about Israel where people are opposed to Israeli policies also include a lot of anti-semetism.
Therefore, according to your own inference, opposition to Israeli policies is primarily motivated by bigotry.
I’d like a cite of it happening at all first.
I think I need to start a foundation dedicated to the use of basic research skills among American adults. We can support basic literacy and then move on to advanced tops like newspapers and magazines. The top 10% can then move on to such things as www.google.com searches and advanced research skills such as www.wikipedia.com.
The final exam could consist of looking up cases of people being unjustly criticized by people that don’t understand themselves what a word like ‘niggardly’ actually means.
If you ever take that class, I will give a cheat sheet but please don’t tell anyone.
Good thing I’m not an American adult. That sounds boring as fuck.
You may have invented ennui, but we really made it our own.