Banned as in not being allowed to perform live or played on the radio, or his work not being allowed to be shared or talked about amongst ethnically mixed groups.
Yeah, there’s always the looney toons extremists, but the vast majority of the time I hear some person blabbing about PC this and PC that, it’s not about that kind of stuff. One example from yesterday: on a Facebook page, there was a story about a man who drowned in the pond after trying to save a dog. Everybody came in to express their condolences except one idiot who said “well, next time he won’t walk his dog off-leash. Uh oh…” When called on his crap, he complained about how he’s not afraid to say something “un-PC” and offend people. That’s not at all about PC. That’s about not being an asshole and not pissing on somebody’s grave. And that is how I normally encounter the term. People bitching and complaining about PC this or not being-PC as an excuse to say and do vile and disgusting things, and being proud of it.
Racists used to take people they didn’t like into the middle of a town square and hang them. Racists should be controlled. And racism should be eliminated.
Those racists I just described felt the need to gather together in a large crowd before they killed one person. Racists are cowards and they seek safety in numbers. If you isolate them, they’ll be too afraid to act up.
And nobody is born a racist. It’s something they learn from other racists. And they need to say things out loud to do it. A guy who’s thinking racist thoughts isn’t infecting anyone else. He’ll eventually die of old age and his racism will die with him.
The debate is over. It ended fifty years ago. The racists lost. Now we’re applying the outcome. We’ve drawn a circle around racism and every day we’re making it smaller.
Sucks to be a racist but nobody is forcing anyone to be a racist. If being a racist is uncomfortable, then the solution is to stop being a racist. It’s not to make it easier to be a racist.
By whom?
So don’t post on Tumblr.
Start you own web platform–one that doesn’t do the “trigger warning” thing. Or find a platform that doesn’t do this. Like Reddit.
There are plenty of “safe spaces” for edgelords and their fans. Every other post at Reddit, Yahoo, YouTube, and every online article comment section is un-PC. Usually the worst that happens to “un-PC” commenters is that they get downvotes. Big whoop.
The constant seeking of validation for any and all opinions is a million times more problematic than the imaginary “PC police”, IMHO. People are looking for “thumb-ups” for every turd they drop in a bowl and then crying when people tell them to stop shitting everywhere. That’s not “PC run amok”. That’s just people not being afraid to voice their opinions. The anti-offenderati want to silence people just as much as they believe the offenderati want to.
I’ve been banned from three subreddits for not following the rules or for posting something that rubbed someone the wrong way. But again, big whoop. I’m not entitled to say whatever I want wherever I want. This was true 100 years ago, and it’s true today. I can’t scream “FUCK YOU, JESUS!” in the middle of a church service and expect nothing but love and tolerance. But for some reason, we expect the online institutions to have different rules. That’s crazy to me.
The only beef I have with political correctness is when it tries to blot out the past. I’d like to watch Song of the South but I can’t access it. I’d like to see the rich history of black Hollywood movies from the days of segregated theaters, but I don’t see that on TCM. I’d like to judge Amos and Andy for myself, but they were only on television as a special for Black History Month once. The Lyric Opera will probably never stage Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha.
It’s part of history, and it’s sad to see it suppressed because some people can’t bear to look back.
The argument against PC, and it’s a real thing, not imagined, not a synonym for politeness, also does include the control factor. Just tactically speaking it’s an advantage in a debate to challenge an opponent on what particular terms they are using, and accuse them of moral inferiority because they don’t use the right terms.
Which goes along with raising the issues of differences between groups (racial, ethnic, religious etc) and how they are dealt to to an all dominating moral issue. Not just whether people are physically harmed or insulted, but every possible implication of ‘race’ (the dominant word because nowadays ethnic, national and religious group interaction is often characterized as ‘racism’, it’s the short hand) gets elevated to a deep moral issue, and most political issues get reduced to really being ‘race’ issues, so it tends toward being everything put in over-moralizing terms. But in that case it’s a powerful advantage if you can wrong foot an opponent by pointing out that his or her terms are ‘morally’ flawed.
So it is a power thing or that’s the really negative element of it IMO. Some aspects of mild PC encompass politeness by reasonable definition so no problem there. Some aspects of extreme PC are just ridiculous like your examples and if they remain broadly viewed as ridiculous that’s not a big problem either. The real problem as I see it is over moralizing of issues of human relations and a constant rapid evolution of acceptable terminology to gain advantage in debate by implying moral inferiority on the part of those who don’t use the dictated terms.
The recent ‘Hidden Tribes’ study found upwards of 80% of Americans think PC has become a problem, and some of the highest %'s were among non-white groups. So if it’s an imaginary problem, a lot of people are imagining it. And if it’s a triumph of the ‘right wing lie machine’ in misrepresenting a simple call for politeness, it’s a triumph over a lot of people who don’t seem to believe the ‘lie machine’ about much else.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a70a7c3010027736a22740f/t/5bbcea6b7817f7bf7342b718/1539107467397/hidden_tribes_report-2.pdf
By those who are (IMHO, unjustifiably offended) and call for a boycott of his performances, live or recorded. Or by a workplace policy that prohibits discussion or reference to his work because it contains politically verbiage. Ala co-workers being offended by discussions about the “Mulva” Seinfeld episode or those that feature the “Soup Nazi”.
A current ongoing example are the complaints about the playing of “Baby it’s Cold Outside” on radio, because some are (IMHO) reading too much into the lyrics.
I’m curious how you came to this conclusion.
I disagree. It is forcing the speaker to use language with which he or she may not agree. Look at when Lenny Henry went to America and was corrected when he described himself as black. He isn’t African American - the PC term - but British. And he just happens to be black.
Disney doesn’t make it readily available because it IS pretty fucking racist and offensive. It’s not part of “history,” it’s part of a bullshit re-imagining and whitewashing of the starkly vicious realities of slavery. It’s about as historically relevant as Bambi, especially if Disney had decided to take out the bit where Bambi’s mom gets slaughtered by hunters.
All of those things are available for purchase on Amazon. Along with all the uncensored Loony Tunes cartoons.
So it’s not so much a banning as people having different opinions than you?
Part of it is based on what I learned in a Plantation history course and another part is my knowledge of our local (ethnically mixed) culture and pidgin English language which is is mix of all the different languages of the immigrants, allowing them to communicate with each other.
Despite being separated into camps (Japanese/Okinawan, Filipino, Korean, etc), they worked together in the fields and picked up on terms used by the the other groups during their daily conversations, often changed for easier pronunciation. The ability to communicate (somewhat) effectively broke down cultural barriers and opened the door for inter-racial, inter-cultural (though still frowned upon back then) relationships.
Japanee = Japanese
Nanchu = Okinawan (from Uchinanchu, the name for the people of Okinawan descent)
Bukbuk = Filipino (Tagalog for hole, as in a tooth cavity. Filipino immigrants would point to someone with a cavity and call out “bukbuk!”)
Yobo = Korean (From Yobo sayo, an informal form of hello, usually used when answering the phone, not in person. Also, yobo is an affectionate term for a husband, like darling).
The thing is, it’s a moving target, and people get sick of having to keep abreast of what the “acceptable” term is.
I mean, growing up in late 80s/early 90s SW Houston, I had a bunch of Vietnamese/Chinese friends because the area has a lot of Vietnamese/Chinese immigrants.
At the time, the term THEY used for each other and preferred was “oriental”. It wasn’t derogatory, it wasn’t some kind of thing like black people calling themselves “niggas” or anything like that. It was the term.
Fast forward another 6-7 years to the late 90s/early 2000s, and I got my ass chewed for saying someone was oriental instead of “asian”. I hadn’t kept up with the asian guys, so I didn’t know the term had changed.
I was perplexed to say the least. And I didn’t, and don’t think it was fair- how the hell was I supposed to know? And it’s not like whatever I had said was derogatory, etc…- it was something innocuous along the lines of “Those oriental guys who work at <somewhere> wear funny t-shirts.”
That’s what a lot of people get frustrated about- it’s a moving target, and the get awfully tired of being told they’re wrong when there was no malicious or derogatory intent in the first place. They’re not wanting to offend anyone, but it’s not something that they’re willing to put a lot of effort into keeping up on.
It also seems like a way to manufacture outrage. If you keep changing the terms, you generate new and different ways to confuse people and keep them saying the wrong terms.
Overall the issue I have is the moving target aspect- someone could be considered non-sexist, non-racist and generally PC in say… 2008, and now be considered all of those things because they haven’t kept up. And it’s unreasonable to expect that everyone actually give a shit about it to that degree; cut people some slack unless they’re being malicious about it. Assume the best of people. Don’t get your panties in a twist unless it’s egregious and intentional.
There’s also the people who felt they had to call Nelson Mandela “African-American,” even though he’s not American at all.
I’ll stand up for anyone’s right to an opinion whether I agree with it or not. But I disagree with boycotts or outcries that inhibit my ability to enjoy something that in my opinion is fine given the spirit and context it’s presented in.
As a Japanese/Okinawan, I am in no way offended by and enjoy the “banned” Looney Tunes cartoons featuring stereotypical Japanese soldiers, because I understand and appreciate the mindset during the era they were created in. I’m sure there are Gilligan’s Island reruns somewhere. Do they include the episode with the episodes with the Japanese solder and the “polynesian” natives.
Some radio stations have self-policed themselves and “banned” Baby it’s Cold Outside because of real and potential complaints. Fortunately in some cases, these “bans” were reversed due to public support of the song. These got the headlines because of the reversal, but what about the other stations that have quietly stopped playing the song (as well as others that may draw complaints).
Flyer, would you be offended if I said that your mother was a “whitess”? Why or why not? Is it just because nobody’s ever used that term? In that case, why didn’t they?
White people used to refer to “negresses” and “jewesses” because they didn’t want to put them in the same category as “women”, a word they used specifically for white Christian women, even though it actually encompasses women of other races and religions. And that’s a problem.
As as I said upthread, no one is stopping anyone from purchasing those cartoons and watching them as much as they want. You may not be able to catch them on TV, but there are a shitload of cartoons that I grew up watching that are no longer being broadcast. Because they are corny and old and children today would prefer watching something that speaks to their generation more than my generation. Looney Tunes would be on the backshelf even if they didn’t contain racist imagery. They are more than 60 years old. This isn’t a travesty. It’s just how media works.
Furthermore, just because you aren’t bothered by the stereotypes in those cartoons doesn’t mean someone else can’t be rightfully bothered by them. (I would argue that poking fun at soldiers of a country that has declared war against your country is a different kind of offense than poking fun of the descendants of the people your ancestors enslaved and terrorized for hundreds of years. But YMMV.) And just because a grown adult can appreciate the context behind those stereotypes doesn’t mean children (the intended audience of those cartoons) have the same understanding.
My point is that nothing you described as banning was in fact banning. You are describing people having different opinions about a work of art than you do. You can still access everything you described, it is just not longer as widely accepted as it once was. The culture is changing and will continue to do so.
Mostly, when people complain about political correctness, what they usually mean is that they still want to engage in sexist/racist behavior and not be called out on it. They want to enjoy a work of art without someone pointing out their opinion on it. When people complain about political correctness, they’re usually mourning their loss of privilege.