PC = Polite

Great Debates
81

and, to forestall the objection in the one site to the case of “intimidation” as being a possability of ‘thought police’ PC ness, let me quote State of MI ethnic intimidation as an example: person would be guilty of ethnic intimidation if they:
(a) Causes physical contact with another person.(IOW an assault)

(b) Damages, destroys, or defaces any real or personal property of another person. (again, destruction of property, actual damages)

© Threatens, by word or act, to do an act described in subdivision (a)or (b), if there is reasonable cause to believe that an act described in subdivision (a) or (b) will occur. (or threatens to do A or B, with the caveat that there is reasonable cause to believe they’d carry it out)

So, the ‘hate crimes’ legislation so feared by the anti PC crowd seems to penalize people for criminal acts that harm other people, destroy or deface property or threaten such things.

82

A Washington, D.C. city employee (a manager of some kind) was also fired for using the word “niggardly” in reference to a budget after a co-worker objected (incorrectly) to the word. After he was terminated, the city was frightfully embarassed by the misunderstanding, but the employee was not reinstated, IIRC.

Esprix

83

Thanks for the link, Dangerosa. Lots of excellent comments on the other thread, so there’s no need to discuss the Asian-Oriental topic further here.

**Wring wrote:quote:

“These politically correct ideas about white oppression and white racism have consequences which are before us now, not only in the perpetration of the Wichita horror, and the assassination of the forgotten 8-year-old Kevin Shifflett and others but in the media’s calculated silence, and in the aggressive campaign of the Democratic Party as it promotes the idea, through law and innuendo, that hate crimes can only be committed against politically designated groups with special protected status - blacks, Hispanics, women and gays.”

Well, now this is a loaded one, isn’t it? One item that this conveniently doesn’t consider is that, for example, “hate crimes” are also charged when a white person is victimized. Sorta dispels the idea that last statement, eh? here **

As I understand the statistics at Wring’s link, hate crime charges involving Black victims were about 5 times as common as those invovling caucasian victims. I have read elsewhere that black-on-white crime is about 5 to 10 times as common as white-on-black crime. Combining these statistics, one calculates that a white person attacking a Black person has 50 to 100 times as great a chance of being charged with a hate crime as a Black attacking a White.

So Wring’s link is evidence that hate crime charges are indeed racially biased to an enormous degree, although not quite 100%. This is only one of many examples of how PC is used to pick winners and losers. The winners are empowered at the expense of the losers.

84

good god december-

You cannot combine statistics in the manner in which you just attempted. The probability of a white person being charged with a hate crime on a black person would equal the number of white folks charged with hate crimes against a black person compared to the number of white folks there are in the country. So, while the raw number of whites convicted are greater, they certainly are not greater in the proportion of their frequency in the country as a whole.

to get an idea of relative frequency of being victimized by a hate crime, you’d compare the numbers of victims to the numbers of that minority. So, while it would be true that if you were black, you’d have a much greater chance of being victimized by a hate crime (much fewer blacks than whites), you’d also realize that anyone’s chances of being either victimized or convicted of a hate crime, are not all that significant.

In addition, while the data shows race of perp, race of victim, it’s not necesssarily correct that you can assume that for example, all of the cases of white victims, the perp was black etc.

Since I’ve just demonstrated that your conclusions are not supported by the stats in question, I’ll assume you’ll retract the last two statements?

85

Wring – I’ve been an actuary for 32 years. Several of my papers are required rading on the exam syllabus. I’m a statistics expert.

Let’s try this one point at a time.

  1. You address “The probability of a white person being charged with a hate crime on a black person.” I was addressing “The probability of a white person **who committed a crime against a Black person **being charged with a hate crime on a black person.” Key difference.

  2. You know you were stretching when you wrote, “…while the data shows race of perp, race of victim, it’s not necesssarily correct that you can assume that for example, all of the cases of white victims, the perp was black etc.” Almost all people charged with hate crimes against Blacks are White, and vice versa. (We don’t hear about violent mobs of American Indians or Asian-Americans rampaging through the inner city or through the suburbs.)

  3. You’re half right when you write, “…chances of being either victimized or convicted of a hate crime, are not all that significant.” One’s chance of being convicted of a HC is very small. However, one’s chance of being a victim depends on what is a hate crime. My point is that Blacks are overwhelmingly less likely to be charged with a HC for a given inter-racial attack than are Whites.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s National Review about the Cincinnati riots.
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg042501.shtml

"Carr is some moron who threw a brick at a black motorist while shouting racist remarks. To date, he is the only person to be charged with “ethnic intimidation,” what Ohio calls its hate-crimes law … So, out of the 837 arrests and 63 indictments stemming from a black riot full of the standard operating riot procedure — lootings, beatings, and excessive teasing — the only person to commit a hate crime is one white dude. Isn’t that interesting?

Of course, the Hamilton County prosecutor’s office says it is looking to see if some of the scores of blacks already in custody might also be guilty of hate-crimes violations. But, so far, they haven’t been able to show probable cause that the numerous attacks on white motorists might have been motivated by racial animus…"

  1. Back to the topic, one problem with PC is that it encourages dancing around certain unpleasant facts, such as the high Black crime rate. Your post illustrates the problem.
86

I see that I left the word “feminism” out of the sentence you quoted, so perhaps that explains the confusion, but I do not see that any of your examples indicate that either vegetarianism or marxism have in some way become intermingled with political correctness.

wring has dealt in detail with the examples you posted, and I see little to add except:

  1. Google search not withstanding, most of them do not seem to be examples of political correctness at all.
  2. If they were all good examples of political correctness, your argument would still amount to criticising the philosophy for the actions of a few adherents. It is the same argument behind condemnations of Islam for the actions of terrorists or of Christianity for the Inquisitions.
  3. Outcome, not accusation, is the important element when you are arguing that a general trend toward dangerous extremism is present.
87

Right, but here’s a question for you: If Muslims, Confuscians, Atheists, Jews, etc. were to mail presents out to people labeled as a holiday gift (Say, Passover, Ramadan, Lunar New Year, etc.) would they be prevented from doing so? Probably not. Why? Because they are in a so-called “minority.” They’ve had to endure centuries of repression by us so-called “whites.” The fact that we’ve learned that this was stupid and have made efforts to correct this mistake, has no bearing on the issue apparently. Why doesn’t Europe, Africa, and Asia sue Italy for the centuries of oppression they suffered at the hands of the Romans? While Rome did bring its version of civilization to large expanses of the globe, to claim that those countries were completely uncivilized before the Romans got there would be totally wrong. Or, perhaps no one wants to sue Italy as they’re no longer seen as a major world power and therefore, don’t have any money? Yet, the topic does come up of forcing the US government to pay reparations for slavery in the US. Every nation, every so-called “race,” every religion has oppressed and brutalized someone else that they didn’t consider to be human. It has always been so, and it will probably always be so. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to stop it from happening, but for a group to cry out, “We’re a victim! We’ve never harmed anyone!” is a lie. If it isn’t PC to say that someone is inferior because they belong to a different classification than those considered to be “the majority,” then it shouldn’t be PC to label everyone in “the majority” as an oppressor. Not all Germans were Nazi’s, not all Soviets were Communists, just as not all white males think that the various minorites are worth less as human beings than a white male. It cuts both ways.

88

Do you have information that Dartmouth actually has supported the exchange of gifts for Passover, Ramadan, etc. or is that diatribe based solely upon your perception of what would happen?

For the record, I agree that it is not politically correct to label all white males as [insert negative characterization here]. So, are you arguing that PC should be practiced even more rigorously to ensure such characterizations do not go unchallenged?

89

** only if you assume that all crime is racially motivated. Are you concluding that? 'cause the prosecutors who were intimately involved with the prosecutions did not. Not all crime is hate crime. Therefore, your attempted analysis is flawed. And, your conclusions as well. Again, hate crime is a very rare thing in this country. Have you looked at any of the source data for these crimes? They are the sort of thing like the Matthew Shepard case, where 2 guys attacked and killed a man, targetting him 'cause he was gay. (that of course was 2 white guys attacking another white guy).

  • frankly we don’t hear much about any of them, now do we - the data I saw indicated that there were roughly 10,000 cases across the country annually. Given the numbers of other crimes, that’s a mere drop in the bucket.

So, in any event, no one in this country is at serious risk of being convicted for a hate crime. Your odds go down considerably, of course, if you refrain from murdering, raping, assaulting, robbing, destroying the property of and/or threatening to do same, of persons of another group, while clearly indicating that you targeted them because of their race, ethnicity and/or sexual orientation.

No, it doesn’t. Hate crime is clearly defined, and rarely utilized. Not all crime is a hate crime. come on, say it with me. Just because you were robbed and the perp was black doesn’t mean that you were targeted because you were white. Now, if you were robbed, and while you were being robbed, the perp handed you a pamphlet that outlined his manifesto that ‘whitey’ had kept him down and he’d be robbing all the ‘whiteys’ he saw til he felt he was repaid, then you probably were a target of a hate crime.

As an example, no, I don’t find it unusual that only one person was charged with a ‘hate’ crime in the Cinnci riots. Why would you assume otherwise? Some one looting a store is robbing a store, n’est ce pas? Check out the hate crime legislation. Most laws are very specific, you need to be able to show, in addition to the assault, theft, destruction of property, that the motivation was clearly because of race, ethnicity etc. It’s a tremendous burden to the prosecution. You’ve got some one dead to rights for assault, they didn’t say anything during the assault, how can you derive/prove that it was racially motivated?

Really? Check out info in some of the other threads about racial profiling, etc. I work in the field. You will find more crime per capita in urban areas vs. rural areas. You’ll also find a higher concentration of minorities in the urban areas as well. You’ll also find that substance abuse is a commonality.

One excellent example of how crime stats can be skewed was one I posted in another thread. As an accuary, you should be able to appreciate what would happen to your stats if instead of a random based analysis, you inserted a specific condition - so, instead of looking at all white males over 55 who have had heart attacks, you only looked at data of white males over 55 who had been professional atheletes, and had a heart attack. It skews your results and you cannot make valid conclusions from them. here

tuckerfan, Spiritus Mundi already answered your objection, but let me add too, that in my own personal experience in the United States, Muslims, atheists etc, do not tend to assume others around them in their office or school environment are members of their faith. Christians often seem to. YMMV I have long held the standard of not discussing my religious preference at work, on line, etc. The people who need to know, do. Most people do not need to know.

90

Wring – your example described an Illinois law giving harsher treatment to young people selling drugs near a school or near public housing. The article claimed that this law was more likely to affect Blacks than Whites.

That sounds correct to me. I agree that this is an example where statistics would be unfairly skewed.

91

There was something said earlier that seemed to be missed, though it struck a nerve with me.

originally posted by TheRyan

To me, this is one of the dangers of overzealous PC Police. A case in point: I have a dear friend, who is half Black (his preferred term) and half Japanese. He is extremely physically attractive, as are both his parents.

Now I’m standing in a supermarket with another friend of mine, and showing her a picture of him. She said, “Wow, he’s really good looking - nice dark skin tone.” Mind you, we are both Irish, and rabidly jealous of anyone who possesses enough skin pigment to go outside during daylight hours. Another shopper, total stranger to both of us, glances over at the picture and snaps, “I’m sure he’d prefer it if you called him African-American.” WTF? I looked back at her and said, “Actually, he prefers to be called Paul.”

Now, this woman was an extreme case, sure. But she assumed we were referring to someone in a derogatory way because we mentioned skin tone; not only that, she jumped to incorrect conclusions about his ethnic background and what he would want to be called. This is one of the dangers of PC - when someone who is absolutely, utterly incorrect feels totally justified on correcting everyone around them.

How do we teach polite behavior to the masses without encouraging people like the Supermarket Sniper?

92

These are not examples of political correctness according to your definition of what political correctness is. I think the definition of PC has changed from it’s original meaning. Read on to see what I mean…

My point in posting those quotes was simply to illustrate that many people do view PC as not just deconstruction of language. Whether or not you define PC as inclusive of these other ideologies it seems clear that many other people do.

So what exactly does “politically correct” mean? Let’s say we were to ask a group of 100 people what it means to be “politically correct” and 20 people describe it as being generally polite, 20 people describe it as a whole range of ideologies in addition to language deconstruction, and the remainder are distributed between the two extremes. Obviously this is a hypothetical distribution but it seems reasonable to me that there wouldn’t be a consensus as to the definite meaning of the term. What this indicates to me is that the term as it’s currently understood by the general populace isn’t well defined.

I will agree that inoffensive language deconstruction may have been an accurate definition of what PC was a number of years ago. But if people’s perception of a terms meaning changes, then the terms meaning does in fact change.

Here’s a little experiment you can try that I think will illustrate that the definition of “politically correct” has become blurred. Ask some friends which of the following are politically correct statements, which are not politically correct statements and which have nothing whatsoever to do with political correctness.

  1. We should not eat meat since animals are conscious beings with feelings

  2. Race based preferences for college admission, in order to achieve a more diverse student body, are a good idea

  3. Reduction of money budgeted for welfare recipients is a good idea

  4. Women can be just as violent as men

  5. Minorities consistently score poorer during tests because they are inherently less intelligent then caucasians and asians

The veracity of the above statements is irrelevant. What is relevant is how each of these statements are categorized and why. Using the definition that political correctness is simply language deconstruction then all of the above statements should be categorized as having nothing to do with political correctness at all. In my own impromptu survey the results I got were:

Question 1:
Politically correct:11
Not politically correct:
Nothing whatsoever to do w/PC:111

Question 2:
Politically correct:111
Not politically correct:11
Nothing whatsoever to do w/PC:

Question 3:
Politically correct:11
Not politically correct:11
Nothing whatsoever to do w/PC:1

Question 4:
Politically correct:
Not politically correct:
Nothing whatsoever to do w/PC:11111

Question 5:
Politically correct:
Not politically correct:1111
Nothing whatsoever to do w/PC:1

If we’re only defining political correctness in terms of changing the language then I would agree with you. If, however, it can be shown that the terms general meaning has changed (in this case changed to include attitudes and beliefs) then PC’ness can be criticized on the basis that it is attempting to state what are and are not acceptable beliefs. Based on the survey it seems likely that people do indeed categorize beliefs and attitudes (not just speech use) as politically correct, or not politically correct.

What sort of “Outcome” based evidence would you accept as proof that there is a general trend toward dangerous extremism? Number of extremist events per year that are a direct result of PC’ness? If so, what can be considered an example of extreme PC’ness?

Grim

93

Note to Spiritus: Whoops, forgot to change those marks to numbers in the previous post… 1111 = 4 responses for this item, 111 = 3 responses for this item, etc.

No, the professor wasn’t punished. Even though the professor wasn’t punished that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a problem.

  1. Universities rightfully feel obligated to investigate charges of discrimination or harassment among their faculty. Conducting an internal investigation in a trivial case like this wastes time and money.

  2. Even if a professor is exonerated many people will still consider that person to be racist, sexist, etc. simply because of the publicity surrounding the event and their own preconceived notions. This wrongfully stigmatizes an innocent person.

  3. A professor who knows that innocuous speech may be interpreted as being offensive, and that students may attempt to seek punishment, may very well sidestep controversial issues. This is counter productive to learning.

Don’t you think there is a very large difference between…

  1. Yelling FIRE!!! in a crowded theater (which exposes people to direct physical harm)

  2. State workers being advised not to speak to the media (which is a condition of employment)

and…

  1. Making a remark which is perceived as offensive whether intended that way or not

?? Are you suggesting we should add “un-PC” speech as an extra restriction on our first amendment rights?

I’m in agreement that the offenses listed require punishment. I disagree that speech perceived to be offensive should be on the punishable offense list.

When I refer to legal punishment of “un-PC” speech, I’m referring to incidents such as a case at the University of Pennsylvania where a student, trying to write a paper late at night, shouted “Shut up you water buffalo!” to some black women who were being loud near his dorm window. After the women complained that this was a racial slur, campus personnel offered the student this “settlement”

Here’s a link: http://www.shadowuniv.com/waterbuffalo/wb2.html

That definitely seems like punishment to me.

Here’s an incident where an Arizona State University professor was denied tenure and fired because feminists were offended by his curriculum, specifically the classics that he covered such as Shakespeare, Aeschylus, and Ibsen.

Here’s a link: http://www.boundless.org/1999/departments/isms/a0000053.html

Losing your tenure and job. That definitely seems like punishment to me.

There seems to be a link between the rise and prevalence of politically correct speech and the number of frivolous lawsuits, investigations and misguided implementations of speech codes based on offense. While it’s true that 15 years ago people probably used less respectful language, it’s also true that 15 years ago examples of the type of extrism mentioned in this thread would be much more rare then they are today.

To what factors do you attribute the rise in “offense” based litigation and codes if not a growing acceptance of the PC movement?

Grim

94

I just got a copy of a controversial book called PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine
by Sally Satel, M.D.

The Amazon editorial review begins:

The shenanigans of political correctness have been well documented. But most people, even those who keep up with these debates, probably assume they’re confined to the liberal arts, rather than the hard sciences. Think again. As Sally Satel shows in PC, M.D., political correctness has also infected the world of medicine and public health–with results that may actually threaten everybody’s well-being. Satel begins her well-told exposé by describing the presumption of some health professionals that because the sickest people in society are also disproportionately the poorest, the practice of medicine must address matters of social justice. “Many public health experts see their mission literally as attacking the conditions that lead to poverty and alienation in the first place,” writes Satel, a practicing psychiatrist who also lectures at the Yale University School of Medicine. Unfortunately, this has led to the diversion of resources away from what the medical profession does best–the treatment and prevention of injury and disease. “Worse, putting social justice at the core of the public health enterprise undermines individual accountability. People who practice unsafe sex, stick dirty needles in their vein or fail to take their TB medications daily are too often seen as passive victims of malign social forces,” writes Satel…

FWIW Dr. Satel and some other experts believe that PC is doing major harm to medical care. I haven’t read the book yet, so I have no opinion on her thesis. The jacket has some positive blurbs from medical experts, but the New England Journal of Medicine panned it.

Dr. Satel’s definition of “PC” seems to include dealing with certain public health issues in a politicized, un-scientific way. Her definition goes way beyond simply using proper names for various ethnic groups. IMHO the PC defenders on this thread would mostly opt for a more limited definition.

95

grim Sorry, but I consider dealing with complaints as part of anybody’s job. So, if the prof involved wasn’t disciplined, it’s a so what to me. I had to deal with folks writing unwarrented, baseless grievences, fast food workers have to deal with unreasonable customers. What’s the difference?

all employers feel the obligation to investigate allegations against their employees. As well they should. This is routine. Your other points about folks having opinions, the prof changing the way they speak etc.:
I have changed how I speak, often, when issues have been brought to my attention - years ago, at the correction center, I learned that many of my clients thought I was ‘talking down at them’, because I used words that were unfamilier to them. I altered, consciously, the way I addresed them. This was/is a good thing, it fostered a better working relationship with my clients, etc. OTOH, I had a supervisor who did not apply a self censor and often ended up with complaints that she was racist etc.

The speach thing - as explained above all employers at some point will check their employees actions and words if it’s perceived to cause problems. this is not new or unusual, nor to be attributed to PC.

And, keep in mind, I’m generally speaking about public speech. My employer has ways of controlling my speech while I’m at work (as do the universities). If I’m at a restaurant and create a scene, they have a right to toss me out. On the street corner, my rights of speech follow the law (ie can’t incite a riot etc). I don’t see the problem that you claim.

“offensive speech” shouldn’t be on the 'to be punished list. hm? well, in the case of hate crimes, as I explained before, offensive words alone were not sufficient - they had to include threats of violence, threats of destruction of property, actual violence, acutal damage. As far as offensive speech getting punished by an employer, happens all the time and has always happened. I have no problem with the concept of disciplining an employee who has been rude/insulting etc. to co workers, customers, supervisors etc. You do? If not, fine, then where exactly is offensive speech being punished if not by an employer/ or when it’s included in a hate crime (which includes harm/threat of harm)?

your examples from the universities (about the student getting ‘consequences’ for their loud and rude behavior, again - why not? Universities are in a unique position - they’re employers, educating, offering services, and in some cases are also the landlords. Because of this unique combination, many things that happen there are different and shouldn’t be used as an example of a system gone haywire. But in particular, that example - As a landlord, they have the obligation to deal with folks who attempt to provoke incidents with others. The student who wanted quiet had other, better options to get their point across. As a teaching institution, the univeristy has an obligation to it’s students to understand that in the real world, behaviors have consequences, and that there are proper ways to express your feelings to other people. As a service provider, they had an obligation to investigate and take action based on the complaint. Now, if the student wanting quiet had gone to the noisy person and asked politely or gone to the resident aide and asked them to intervene or even called the police as a noise hazard, these options wouldn’t have resulted in consequences.

your second cite can also be looked at as “the employer has asked that these changes be made in how the work is performed” and they failed/refused to do it. your cite does seem to take the one side rather strongly. And, even if all of what you suspect is true, again, what you have is one event where some one may have taken things too far. On that basis, should we scrap the entire idea because some people can use it wrongly?

The issue seems to be coming down to: you and others who believe as you do, wish to consider all sorts of things connected with the PC movement and therefore declare the concept of PC flawed beyond redemtion.
I don’t agree. Under any system you will find idiots who claim wrongs.

96

Wring, Grim-beaker and I all seem to think that a big part of the disagreement comes down to the definition of PC. Here’s Merriam-Webster’s definition:

**Main Entry: politically correct
Function: adjective
Date: 1936
: conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated **

They mention practices as well as language, but, they don’t describe which practices are included. If “PC” includes the practice of substituting politics for valid medical treatment (as Dr. Satel defines it), presumably wring would oppose it. If “PC” includes the practice of adding 200 points to African American college board scores and keeping that adjustment secret or lying about it, then what?

BTW note the date of 1936. Who knew the term was that old?

97

december, thanks for the Merriam-Webster definition. I decided to check out the definition from http://www.dictionary.com. This is what I got:

The online American Heritage dictionary had the exact same response. The allwords.com online dictionary had this definition:

The online encarta word dictionary had this definition:

This last definition is quite similar to that proposed by wring and Spiritus. So it looks like the dictionaries (just like people in this thread) give the same term different but valid definitions.

This could also be reworded to be:

If dictionaries disagree on the specifics of the term can we truly say that PC’ness is only speech and actions?

The difference is in the way the complaint is handled. Obviously trivial grievances should have trivial responses. In my eyes the appropriate response to the student’s complaint would have been:

“I’m sorry but the professor used a perfectly legitimate word with no racial connotations. He explained the term so that no one would misunderstand it’s meaning. Based on the description of this incident the professor will not be investigated”

An inappropriate response would be:

“I’m sorry that you feel that you have been violated. We will conduct a thorough internal investigation into the professors behavior to ensure that you aren’t being harassed or discriminated against.”

Is it your position then that the “settlement” offered the student was appropriate based on the situation and that the student should have accepted it?

Let me quote a few pertinent passages from the web article…

bolding mine…

I think a more accurate assessment of the situation would be “the employer has asked that these changes be made in how the work is performed because certain hypersensitive people wanted their way” and they failed/refused to do it.

How many “one events” does it take before you decide that it’s evolved into something beyond it’s original intent?

Wring, please address the following questions from my previous post:

To what factors do you attribute the rise in “offense” based litigation and codes if not a growing acceptance of the PC movement?

Are you suggesting we should add “un-PC” speech (absent any activity currently considered criminal such as assault, theft, etc.) as an extra restriction on our first amendment rights?

Grim

98

december: *FWIW [“PC, MD” author] Dr. [Sally] Satel and some other experts believe that PC is doing major harm to medical care. I haven’t read the book yet, so I have no opinion on her thesis. The jacket has some positive blurbs from medical experts, but the New England Journal of Medicine panned it. *

So does Ivan Oransky on Salon.com. I quote:

99

Does anyone have any information that Dartmouth supported the exchange of gifts for any holiday of any religion? I don’t think so. I seriously doubt that Dartmouth placed signs up encouraging Christians to mail Christmas presents to people at random, and from the OP in which the Dartmouth incident was mentioned, there was no statement that indicated that the presents were to be mailed to people who might not share the Christian faith. Personally, if someone wants to mail me a present because its “Wave a Dead Chicken Day” in Cowland, mail away! I like free stuff. Most people do you know, that’s why they put it in ads.

I’m not arguing that PC should be enforced more rigorously, I’m trying to point out the very hypocracy of the PC Movement. If the thrust of the PC Movement is to sponsor a greater diversity in thought, then it must accept that there will be people who choose not to accept some or all of the tenets of the movement and that their choice is as equally valid as those who choose to adhere to its most rigorous tenets. As I pointed out in my first post, someone in the US of Egyptian descent could be referred to as an “African-American” even though the common term for such an individual is "Arab-American"! Despite claims to the contrary it seems to me that there’s still racial stereotyping going on here.

Additionally, let me throw out that some people have a problem with the term “black” and prefer the term African-American, but its perfectly okay to call me “white.” If you say its wrong to refer to a certain ethnic group by an inaccurate description of their skin tone, why is it okay for you to use an equally inaccurate term to refer to people in my ethnic group? Is it just because the only ones to claim to be offended by the term are racist pigs like David Duke and others of his limited gene pool, or is there something else going on here? If I’m not mistaken, one of the goals of the PC movement is to structure speech so that one does not innocently offend another person. Doesn’t that mean that we all have to modify our speech so that even racists aren’t offended by what we say? Where do we draw the line? Ever hear that Richard Prior routine where he talks about the different terms that have been applied to African-Americans? Has changing the terms really made a difference in society? Did the Civil Rights movement begin the moment someone said, “I know! Let’s call ourselves African-Americans!”? And did “white” America at that moment say, “Oh my God! They really are human! Let’s embrace these people as our brothers and sisters and offer our sons in daughters in marriage to them!”? No. It didn’t happen that way, and let’s not try and pretend that it did.

I used to work for a company that lived and breathed PC and I hated it. Hardly anything ever got done because they were always worried that their actions might “offend” someone. Disciplinary action was next to non-existant because people rapidly figured out that all they had to do was go over their boss’s head when he/she chewed them out for not doing their job and claim that he/she “offended” him/her. It didn’t matter how nice the boss sugar coated the chewing out, or what the employee did to cause the boss to chew him/her out (You could get caught sleeping and still keep your job!), if they cried “Offended” they were off the hook. If the boss used a racist term, fine. Fire him/her and tell everyone else such behavior won’t be tolerated, but to put a halt to all disciplinary action because no matter how nicely it may be put it “might hurt someone’s self-esteem” is insanity!

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It seems clear that those who criticize PC and those who support it (at least in this thread) understand the term to mean significantly different things. For instance, I do not place radical feminism as a subset of political correctness, yet grim_beaker does. I do not consider sponsoring a greater diversity of thought to be a cornerstone of the PC movement, but tuckerfan does. Obviously, for the purpose of reasoned debate some consensus on scope needs to be established.

Now, since there is no authoritative body for teh PC movement, and since I can think of no “seminal works” in the field from which to draw a definition how might we establish a baseline? Well, the trend toward a limited definition from supporters and a broad definition from detractors is clear. Interestingly enough, one way to view this is as an example of the very power of terminology that the PC movement intially recognized. One way to attack a position is to associate the label for that position with the most extreme attitudes available. Another way to view it is that each person accepts or rejects the association of an act with PC depending upon his preexisting attitudes toward the movement. Thus, I do not consider radical feminist absurdities at ASU to be an expression of PC; I see them as an expression of collegial power politics and feminist ideology gone mad. Grim reacts identically to the particular example, but groups it into a larger PC movement to which he already objects.

Who is right? Impossible to say. None of us determine the character of this particular movement. In fact, it appears that at the present time nobody is giving a coherent and widely accepted voice to PC. So, if we can’t be right, shall we at least try to be inteesting?

Allowing the enemies of PC to define PC leads to a trivial condemnation. Point to the most absurd and outrageous examples of stupid people wanting the world to arrange itself according to their ideals; call it PC; I will nod my head and agree that it is bad.

Is it more interesting to take the restricted definition? Many people have commented that this is “simple politeness”. I responded to that that if it were really simple then nobody would have to point out that using sexualized terms for women in the work place might be offensive. Now, if those arguing against PC can look at the more restricted definition that wring and I are working from and say, “of course I agree that’s a good thing” then we might have an inteesting discussion about how to reclaim the label from extremists of both camps. If not, then we can have an interesting discussion about why the more limited sense of PC is bad.

One thing:

Sorry to single you out for this, tuckerfan, but this point needs to be made. You used the statement that Dartmouth would treat gifts associated with Muslim or Jewish holidays differently than they treated “Christmas gifts” as a support for your belief that PC is hypocritical. Yet you admit you have no evidence to support the statement. It is nothing more than a conclusion drawn from your belief that PC is hypocritical. I see such tactics used again and again in ideological debates. Repetition, unfortunately, does not improve the taste. It is bad logic and poor rhetoric. Please tell me that you can see why.