It is not hard to get.
On the other hand, it does matter.
Telling a person who has only known self-identified “Oriental” people that they are being rude is only going to confuse them that some odd person is correcting their speech for no good reason. Telling an elderly person that “Negro” is rude when not one black person in 10,000 might actually take offense at it is, itself, rude.
Are you serious? You think that 0.001% of black people taking offense at an old white person calling them “negro” is a high estimate?
My counter-estimate: more than 50% of black people would be irritated if this happened, and more than 25% would be offended. The folks who wouldn’t be offended are predominately older black people, who lived at a time when the word was in common parlance in polite company.
I’ll tell you what. I will take a poll of every one of my co-workers and vendors to see if ANY of them would be offended. (Viewing the word as “quaint” or “odd” does not equate to offended; we are talking about giving offense, not simply looking like a dork.)
Well put.
No, but YOU get to decide what offends YOU. If you choose to take offense where none is meant, then be prepared to be offended, because you will be, by your own choices. Of course there are terms that are very emotion-laden and you have little power. But there are plenty that are more marginal where a little self-coaching might be helpful. We have to coach ourselves all the time; this should be no big trip.
I’m not saying that if we’re being “nice” we can use any words we want. What I’m saying is that rather than thinking about cutting slack, you should think about communication and empathy. As should we all.
I’m amused by how quickly we cycle through terms, and what once were euphamisms are now considered offensive. Just look at the list of words we’ve used to refer to old follks! What are we supposed to call them now? Well, since I’m one of “them”, I don’t worry about it any more!
Ah, I misunderstood. When I read “not one black person in 10,000 might actually take offense at it,” I missed where you said, “not one black person in 10,000 that I work with might actually take offense at it.”
I’d say the correct standard for “is offended” is “is irritated and would be appreciative if the person doing it would knock it off.” When you do your poll, you should ask folks if they’d appreciate it if the elderly folks saying “negro” found a different word to use instead, and ask them if they find it a bit irritating.
It’s a two-way street though. I don’t have to give a shit if you’re offended or not, especially if you’re not someone whose opinion I care about. There’s a huge difference between using a word that may not be in vogue vs. using a word that’s deliberately hurtful.
To wit; a black man who gets his panties in a twist about being called “black” vs. African-American doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on, IMO. He’s being pedantic and a bit silly- there’s no reason to believe that the person using “black” had any hurtful intent, and it’s commonly used and considered non-offensive by most people, black or white. Had someone called him a “coon”, then he’d be justifiably pissed off.
Another thing I’ve often wondered about is just who gets to choose what words are offensive and verboten anyway? To continue the above example, I think a lot of black people are just fine with “black”, and some prefer “African American”, but only the really out there ones appropriate “African American” and proclaim that “black” is now offensive or something silly like that.
Or for that matter, the word “tranny” that there’s another heated thread about. I always heard it used for transvestites, not transgender people. And as we all know, there are a whole lot (most?) of transvestites that are just straight or gay, and not transgender. Yet in that thread, there are people getting all torqued because they’re assuming that it’s some sort of transgender slur, when it may not be. Derogatory, sure, hateful, maybe, but not necessarily transgender at all.
Who concocted the wording “decide to be offended?” Being offended is an emotional response and I’ve never seen anyone decide to take offense at anything. You can decide to give someone the benefit of the doubt and not take offense and you can reason your way out of being offended, or for that matter you can feign offense, but the phrase seems like an easy way to imply the other person is being disingenuous.
I didn’t. I threw out a huge number off the cuff–as you and I both know. It could easily be wrong. However I find estimates of 50% and 25% to be even less realistic.
Your definition of “offended” is so narrow as to make public discourse impossible. I know people who are offended by “African American.” I know people who are offended by “black.” I do not know any person who is offended by “Oriental” who actually has Asian ancestors. (I realize that many people of Asian descent are offended, but I do not happen to know any.)
And if “I wish you would stop” is the bar beyond which is “offensive,” then it would seem that we need a new word to identify things that are truly offensive.
The standard is set when a sufficient number of people make their case known expressing displeasure. It is not set when any specific individual gets his or her panties in a twist. I can find actual public statements by some black people decrying “African American,” although too few to make that term offensive. I cannot recall seeing anyone in the last twenty years objecting to “Negro,” as opposed to simply noting that it is old-fashioned.
I don’t know what NewsOne/Blackplanet’s polling mechanism is; it’s probable it’s self-reporting. But that dynamic–a black person would get offended if a white person called them a negro–is exactly what I’d expect.
With all due respect, I believe your post exemplifies the very point he was trying to make.
That depends who the word “we” includes. ALL of society does not subscribe to “political correctness,” especially lower/middle class working Americans.
If his point is that “political correctness” is what happens when someone makes a point you don’t like, and rather than addressing their point you just call them a name, hoping that’ll shut down debate, then he–and others who call people “politically correct”–are the guiltiest perpetrators of political correctness.
Interesting.
To me, the most illuminating was the poll of magazine readers, who suggest it’s just odd and not offensive generally, but would be offended if a white person used it. I wonder if you’d feel the same way: instead of polling your co-workers, would you be willing to drop “negro” into casual conversation with black co-workers or clients? How do you think they would respond, if you used the word in appropriate context instead of saying “black” or “African American”?
I know that when I teach my third graders, occasionally the word comes up–most often in conjunction with the Negro Leagues, sometimes as part of study of MLK, sometimes in a read-aloud. Whether I give some historical usage context first or whether I just use the word outright, I always have at least one black student flinch.
“Political Correctness” is a concept that enjoyed a brief vogue on the Left in the 1970s, but was quickly abandoned and only referenced ironically shortly afterwards as a guard against their own orthodoxy in social change efforts. Nobody serious on the Left today expects ‘political correctness’, and nobody has for decades.
In the 1990s, however, the term was picked up by the political Right as a pejorative, and is now used as an apologia for all kinds of bigotry and willful ignorance, and to gin up the fake ‘culture war’.
Well, there you are, that’s why we need political correctness and need to insist on its observance as a baseline standard of decorum in America. Lower/middle class Americans can certainly learn to observe it regardless of whether they approve, same as with any other rules of courtesy.
“We” and “insist.” Sounds oppressive and dictatorial.
what if the first guy to throw a stone hurled an insult first?
I wonder if your “consensus” is something like this:
I find a lot of “social liberal” ideas are in fact only supported at about the fifty percent mark, give or take a few points, and wonder exactly how that would translate into a “consensus.”
If political correctness has anything to do with making 50% support for something a consensus, then I am against it.