Exactly. If you disagreed you were ostricized and deemed “incorrect”. Let the floggings begin…
It’s clearly strongarming and oppressive to impose this type of political correctness on anyone… whether its from the left or right. I won’t be strongarmed. And I don’t need to write a thesis to explain why…
I was clearly responding to Sarahfeena’s statement.
If my “locked” thread didn’t meet your high standards, I can’t help you. I was stating an opinion about political correctness - without citing or writing a 10 page thesis to back it up. That happens sometimes.
And I’m not a “he”. I’m a female. I created my logon at a time when I was posting regularly at another site where a group of female trolls were constantly harrassing me. so I didn’t want a repeat of that here… I figured if I hid the fact I was a woman it would give me an edge.
Now I don’t want to hide it any longer… so, just saying.
I don’t want to get caught up in whatever this is, but you could request a change of name if you wanted. Stick a post in ATMB or email TubaDiva, I think is the normal way.
Thanks!! 
I maintain that “politically correct” in the broadest sense is pretty much synonymous with “conservative”. The most familiar kind can be regarded as a new kind of left-wing conservatism.
The prevailing belief system has it that our language and culture are infused with racism and euro-centrism (in the same way religious conservatives see Satan everywhere), so any usage that in can any way be associated with a minority group is presumed to intend racist mockery.
In the Eden Jacobowitz case, what he said to some black people was presumed to be racist. “Tar Baby” is associated indirectly to the slavery era.
But these days the most illogical–not to mention hypocritical–form of political correctness is the way right-wing conservatives cry “anti-christian” whenever someone disagrees with them, even though Christianity has always been the dominant culture in our society.
You have misunderstood my point (as well as getting your facts wrong).
Some persons of all political persuasions abuse language and some groups of all political persuasions employ abuses of language to intimidate persons with whom they disagree. My point was only that the explicit phrase “political correctness” is currently employed by some persons on the Right attacking either the excesses of those on the Left or attacking legitimate efforts of those on the Left that run counter to the desires of some on the Right.
Characterizing those who opposed the invasion of Iraq in the Spring of 2003 as traitors or friends to terrorists was every bit as abusive as claiming that someone who called a bunch of drunks “water buffalo” was racist simply because the drunks were of a different race than the name caller. “Traitor” and “friend of terrorists” were hardly correct, but they were clearly political.
The attempt to control perceptions of one’s group by controllin g the label by which they are known is a longstanding practice throughout the world that has nothing to do with “Political Correctness,” per se.
However, if you are going to throw out this particular anecdote, you might want to get your facts straight.
Colored was the word in common usage for many years, set as the counterpoint to nigger. When blacks began raising their voices to demand an end to Jim Crow and lynchings and similar phenomena, newspapers began to employ the word Negro (capitalized as a reference to the racial categories commonly believed to exist at that time), in an effort to avoid giving offense. However, in the late 1960s, pundits in the black community noted that the same papers that used “Negro” eschewed the use of “Caucasian,” continuing to refer to the majority population as “white.” After a few discussions within the black community testing People of Color, Afro-American, and a few other terms, the consensus view that arose was that since the majority was simply called white, it made the most sense to simply refer to themselves as black. (This discussion occurred simultaneously with such movements as the “Black is Beautiful” movement.) At that time, some older blacks continued to use the more familiar term colored in their private conversations.
At the end of the 1980s, a group of black leaders, mostly from rust-belt cities where ethnic groups are most often identified as “hyphenated-Americans,” concerned that the black community appeared too different in print, decided to adopt their own “hyphenated-American” moniker and chose African-American (since no single nation in Africa legtimately represenmted all their varied geographic originds). Many blacks liked the new terminology, although for many years, now, a majority have continued to prefer the word black to the term African-American.
At any rate, this is hardly a case of “political correctness” except to the extent that some truly tiny number of persons will get upset over the use of the word black.
Living in Canada, I suspect that you miss a lot of the day-to-day foolishness that many of us encounter down here in the tropics. Note that I pointed out that the conflation of euphemism with PC was the realm of the truly ignorant, not the realm of right wing ideology. I have encountered this sort of claim by several local radio personalities–not all right wing, but all ignorant.
Here is one example,
(He even goes on to make the idiotic claim that
displaying rank ignorance (with more that a dash of stupidity) by claiming that a man who wrote primarily in German would make an effort to invent a term with English initials for a political party that was not even formed and named until several decades after his death.
Euphemisms have been around forever. Conflating euphemisms with PC is just dumb.
Johnny and Sarafeena, was it the act of labeling that you felt was oppressive or was it being disagreed with that was oppressive?
Did you still feel free to give your opinions?
I think the expression “leftist agenda” is an example of meaningless blather that comes from the right and means nothing anymore*. Is there a parallel term “rightist agenda”? “Conservative agenda”? We were certainly never privy to a “liberal agenda” when I was in college.
*And a “leftist agenda” would have smacked of Communism and the Red Scare. I suspect that even Kennedy’s opponents wouldn’t have used it as a synonym for liberal back then. Of course, if you want to have sinister implications, leftist and agenda are perfect words to use.
Movement is a better word to use than agenda when talking about the extremists on the right. IMO.
Oh, Zoe, I hope you don’t think that I am the kind of person who is afraid to be disagreed with. Do you think I would hang out here on the SDMB if that were the case? I definitely felt, among my group of friends and acquaintances, that disagreement was verboten. Back then, I was more in agreement with them than I am now, but on the issues where I wasn’t, I did not feel free at all to express it. Attitudes towards people who did express disagreement ranged from loud cries of disbelief and eye-rolling, to anger and accusations of Nazism.
Well, as you mentioned in another thread, you and I grew up and went to college in different times (and different places, for that matter). There were plenty of kids who were conservative at my school, but they did not tend to be politically involved. The “voice” of the campus when it came to the vast majority of student-run printed literature was a liberal one, and it stuck very close to a specific party line. I absolutely agree that, in politics in general, there is an “agenda” on the right, just as there is on the left, but on my college campus, you didn’t hear much about it.
Well, I’m talking about leftists and I’m talking about an agenda. I’m not trying to imply anything “sinister,” but only trying to express what I thought was going on at the time on my campus. Leftist is how THEY described themselves, and as far as having an agenda, I think that’s typically what it’s called when there is a list of accomplishments that are trying to be achieved.
IMO, agenda is more descriptive.
I agree.
Here’s a newspaper article from a couple weeks ago about a summit that was held to address racial disparities in California Schools:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/12/MNH8T5LTC.DTL
. . .
For all I know, getting parents more involved in their childrens’ education might be a good idea. It’s possible that white parents really are better than black parents and that black children would be better off if their parents tried to act more like white parents.
But apparently it’s politically incorrect to make such a suggestion. It’s racist, and therefore wrong.
Similarly, relaxing discipline in the classroom seems like a terrible idea. And yet, the California school superintendant has to come up boneheaded ideas like this because he would be crucified if he dared suggest that the achievment gap is intractable and not the result of white racism.
Certain conservatives use the term “politically correct” to describe anything they do not like. They mean nothing specific by it; it’s merely one of their generic insults, just like “traitor” or “communists”. (One might be forgiven for believing that these people desire to eventually reduce the meaning of the entire English language to nothing.)
As for me, whenever I hear someone bragging about being politically incorrect, I take that to mean that they’re about to say something extremely stupid, and I’ve never been wrong yet. That certainly would explain books like The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.
Of course, fabricating a red herring about “relaxing discipline” that appears nowhere in the article to which you linked would seem to be an example of a way to twist the discussion off the topic of this thread to go haring after some agenda of your own.
Dude, what are you talking about?
This is from the article:
In essence he seems to be claiming that white teachers are culturally ignorant and that as a result, they punish black student for being loud and raucous. I read it as suggesting or implying that white teachers should be more tolerant of loud and raucous behavior on the part of their students, particularly black students.
i.e. relax discipline.
I find it offensive, personally. I think it is the embodiment of the current trend of don’t-offend-anyone-at-all-cost, feel good Pollyanna bullshit.
I’m sorry. People are “handicapped”, they are not “differently abled”. A restaurant has waiters and waitresses, not “waitrons” or “waitstaff”.
Next thing you know, we’ll be changing our gender designations to 'positively penised" and “penisly challenged”.
Except that no one uses “differently abled.” A handicapped parking spot is still a handicapped spot. And while “waitstaff” occasionally used, I think you’ll find the more common term is “server.” Either way, using non-gender-specific terms like “server,” “flight attendant,” and the like can hardly be called feel-good bullshit when they simplify all sorts of matters. Or would you prefer we go back to using unnecessary terms like aviatrix and comedienne?
I keep hearing this assertion, and yet it just keeps on seeming not to happen.
If you can really show that the Pollyanna bullshit is increasing rather then decreasing, I’d like to hear about it. But I don’t think you can.
.
That is not a relaxation of discipline. Your claim assumes that tolerating giggling from white kids is OK while insisting that non-white kids limit themselves to giggling instead of guffaws is casting away discipline. He made no comment regarding actual discipline (except as you have chosen to read into his comments). Two groups of kids could behave equally well in terms of being quiet when addressed, raising hands to be called upon, and other matters of classroom propriety–note that he made no reference to that behavior–but on those occasions when the class might erupt in displays (equally between whites/Asian and blacks/Latinos), many white teachers would decide that the second group was being disruptive simply because of the volume of their otherwise identical displays.
Now, I have no idea whether his ideas have any overall merit, but you leaped the Grand Canyon to arrive at your conclusion.
As to the broader claims of cultural ignorance, it goes both ways, but it has been documented as one (of many) classroom issues for forty or more years. Years ago it was pointed out that black kids were punished for disrespect when they would refuse to meet the eyes of a teacher scolding them. The (particularly Northern) white teachers expected students to look them in the eyes during scolding as a sign of respect that the child was paying attention while the black kids came into the classroom with a culture that said looking authority figures in the eye was a sign of “boldness” and disrepect. So the kids would behave as demurely as their culture had taught them and would suffer punishments for being “shifty” or dishonest as a result. I’m sure that teachers trample social taboos in many areas where they are ignorant (which could just as easily be black, Latino, or Asian teachers in white classrooms). I would see a call to ensure that teachers are more aware of the mores of the kids they teach to be a generally good thing.
Not exactly.
Do you agree that if a teacher tolerates noisy classroom conduct that he or she did not tolerate previously, this can be described as “relaxing discipline”?
Simple yes or no question.
Cite? Not that it really matters. That’s a good example of political correctness at work. As a result of political correctness, people advance these half baked ideas to explain group differences. Usually blaming white racism and male sexism.
If the achievement gap could be closed by teaching teachers to be more culturally sensitive, the problem would have been fixed long ago.
What if the differences are intractable and not due to white racism and/or male sexism? Oh sorry, that’s offensive and therefore wrong. :rolleyes:
Depends on what the teachers specifically do or don’t do as a result.
I quote both posts, because the term “patriotically incorrect”, offered by DoctorJ is, in my opinion, this years most useful new expression.
No.
As long as the noise is simply louder than the previous noise (the only claim made) and is not bursting out with more frequency or at inappropriate times, there is no relaxation of discipline.
(It might even be possible that tolerating a bit more interaction with the kids would help encourage participation and as long as they are not allowed to be disruptive, the discipline could be enhanced by being more appropriate discipline.)
I will have to look for a citataion in my printed references; it was long ago.
On the other hand, no one blamed racism or sexism for the issue. No one was “blamed” at all and it is telling that you immediately leaped to that position.
The phenomenon was pointed out as a situation resulting from discrepancies in variations between subcultures that would be better addressed, not as a case of oppression or suppression.
You appear to want to make every such issue one of defending white males from non-existent attacks by imposing assumptions that have no existence outside your mind.
As to closing the gap simply by making teachers more sensitive–an assertion I have not and will not make–your assumption is that teachers have, indeed, responded to efforts to make them more sensitive, while I suspect that we would find many teachers following your lead and simply giving lip service to the training, then rolling their eyes and going back to the classroom and ignoring what they might have learned if they were not so disdainful of the effort.
Is it political correctness being a demon when a governmental body tries to get computer manufacturers to not refer to devices as ‘master’ and ‘slave’?
Then you and I have different understandings of what it means to “relax discipline.” I actually don’t understand what your view is on what it means. But it doesn’t really matter.
Lol. You can call it “blame,” or something more politically correct. But it is what it is. Is it an accident that O’Connell pointed out that 72% of teachers are white? Of course it isn’t. The clear implication of his words were that these white teachers need to behave differently.
Certainly some teachers would take that attitude. But some wouldn’t. And if it made a significant difference, it would get a lot of attention.
But instead, when these PC proposals fail, excuses are made. For example, that the teachers aren’t taking their sensitivity obligations seriously enough. No, the achievement gap can’t possibly be intractable and not the fault of whites. Because that’s offensive and therefore wrong. :rolleyes: