Political correctness is cowardice.

[bump]

@Kimstu

How you figure? I presume that Texas A&M in your day had the same official policy about discrimination and inclusivity that it has now:

If you are unable or unwilling to endorse commitment to those values as an official representative of your university, then maybe being an RA isn’t the job for you.

Clearly you didn’t read- I said I didn’t have a problem with behaving a certain way as part of the job (including off-duty), which would be endorsement of those principles, but I didn’t like being indoctrinated in how to think.

Basically to me it came down to me having a rather live and let live attitude toward LGBT people without necessarily celebrating the LGBT community, and being told that I wasn’t evolved enough or along the progression enough as a result.

In a somewhat hyperbolic analogy, if you’re a customer service person, your employer can expect you to embody the concept of “the customer is always right” in your professional behavior, but it’s something else entirely if they expect you to truly believe it in your heart.

They weren’t expecting me to just act according to a certain standard of behavior and action as part of my job; they were expecting me to think a certain way, and if I didn’t think that way already, they were expecting me to change.

That’s something I disagree with. People should be free to believe what they like, and they should also be expected to be courteous to others who they may not agree with or understand. At no point, however, should someone be judged on the content of their thoughts, only on the outward manifestations as shown in their words and deeds.

In other words, if someone’s polite and courteous to transgender people, it shouldn’t matter whatever hateful things they have going on in their own heads. It’s nobody’s business but their own, until it starts coming out their mouths or they start doing something about it.

[Marley23]

@bump

Basically to me it came down to me having a rather live and let live attitude toward LGBT people without necessarily celebrating the LGBT community, and being told that I wasn’t evolved enough or along the progression enough as a result.

I’m not sure what that means in the real world.

[Kimstu]

@bump

In a somewhat hyperbolic analogy, if you’re a customer service person, your employer can expect you to embody the concept of “the customer is always right” in your professional behavior, but it’s something else entirely if they expect you to truly believe it in your heart.

So you’re saying that the Residential Life people shouldn’t have cared whether you as a representative of the university really were “committed” to its “fundamental principle” of “valuing and nurturing” the “diversity and pluralism” of, e.g., LGBT people, as long as you could fake that commitment well enough.

That actually seems reasonable. But it sounds as though the problem they had with you was that you weren’t faking your commitment well enough in the training sessions. Or perhaps you just weren’t bothering to try:

[QUOTE=bump]

They weren’t expecting me to just act according to a certain standard of behavior and action as part of my job; they were expecting me to think a certain way, and if I didn’t think that way already, they were expecting me to change.

[/QUOTE]

Sounds like you went in there with the attitude “Well, I don’t really agree with all this stuff, but don’t worry, when I’m on the job I’ll pretend that I do”. Under the circumstances, I can see how they might have been concerned that you wouldn’t exactly be the best choice to represent the institution’s commitment to its principles on this issue.

But since, according to you, you got the RA job anyway, I don’t think this exactly counts as an example of oppression by political correctness.

[sqweels]

Playing the victim can be very empowering if the current political climate will harshly sanction someone you can expose as victimizing your group. But this power can be addictive, and as expressions of genuine bigotry become more and more rare, minorities become more and more sensitive to what little they can find–so they can get that “fix” of seeing someone from the majority culture get into trouble.

PC seems focused on perceived insults or mockery because during the Jim Crow era etc., these kinds of expression could be quite hurtful to members of the minority group at which they are aimed.

But when a particular expression is neither intended to be nor tangibly an attack on a minority group, but is seen to be one because certain overbroad associations can be drawn back to certain historical episodes, it can draw criticism as political correctness.

So sharing one or more characteristics with a familiar form of bigotry does not automatically make something bigoted.

For example from this thread:

@Miller

You want the right to be able to say that Christianity is more important than Islam. And you have that right. I want the right to say that people who think that are bigots.

Here Miller is defining Islam as a religious and therefore ethnic minority–equivalent to Jews–and thus immediately calls to mind notorious episodes of ethnic persecution. But on a global perspective, Islam is a powerful and dynamic political movement and as such is subject to unfavorable comparisons with competing ideologies. And so in order to score political points against Fuzzy_Wuzzy, Miller
chose a differently-correct interpretation of the remark.

Now lets look at “Oriental”: Asian-Americans went through a period when they were subject to a great deal of prejudice and discrimination, and during that time “Oriental” was the term for their group. And while in fact it was standard and non-perjorative, they started to draw an association with it and their plight and regard it as a slur. And so while “Asian” is less accurate, it was empowering to dictate to the white majority which term was now acceptable.

[Miller]

@sqweels

Here Miller is defining Islam as a religious and therefore ethnic minority…

No, I’m not.

[Marley23]

@Shagnasty

a rag-tag group of intellectual thugs

What a bizarre combination of images that makes.

that try to intimidate someone else from giving an address just because they don’t like something they did in the past. It doesn’t matter the position or whose side they are on, I am always going to side with the person that was invited to speak at a formal event over a bunch of hooligans. They are both engaging in free speech but that doesn’t mean that they are equal even when we disregard whatever positions each side has.

There was no thuggery, hooliganism, or intimidation.

I freely admit, I have never liked protesters in general just because I think they are misdirected at best and more likely ineffective idiots engaging in a party type behavior with their ill-informed friends more than they care about the actual subject at hand.

Then say you don’t like protesters and instead of acting like they’re doing something wrong. You’re confusing your personal dislike for them with actual wrongdoing on their part.

@sqweels

Now lets look at “Oriental”: Asian-Americans went through a period when they were subject to a great deal of prejudice and discrimination, and during that time “Oriental” was the term for their group. And while in fact it was standard and non-perjorative, they started to draw an association with it and their plight and regard it as a slur. And so while “Asian” is less accurate, it was empowering to dictate to the white majority which term was now acceptable.

“Oriental,” which just means Eastern, isn’t particularly accurate either. And I have to disagree with your premise. Asking that people use a word you prefer is not dictating terms. Dubbing a bunch of people “Oriental” is dictating terms.

[Kimstu]

@sqweels

Now lets look at “Oriental”: Asian-Americans went through a period when they were subject to a great deal of prejudice and discrimination, and during that time “Oriental” was the term for their group. And while in fact it was standard and non-perjorative, they started to draw an association with it and their plight and regard it as a slur.

This is a ludicrously inept distortion of history. It’s not as though the term “Oriental” was somehow kept linguistically neutral and independent of prejudice directed against “Orientals”. The word “Oriental” itself connoted disparagement and prejudice in a prejudiced society, even though there were some contexts in which it was intended to be neutral.

Consider the tone of such stock phrases as “the Oriental mind”, intrinsically insulting in its fundamental ignorant implication that all varieties of “Orientals” can be considered essentially the same psychologically. And that’s not even to mention cliched outright insults such as “Oriental cowardice”, “Oriental despotism”, “Oriental effeminacy”, “mere Orientals”, etc.

Asians didn’t just decide to “regard [the word ‘Oriental’] as a slur” because they were feeling resentful about prejudice: it was routinely used as a slur to express prejudice. “Standard and non-perjorative [sic]”? Nonsense.

@sqweels

And so while “Asian” is less accurate, it was empowering to dictate to the white majority which term was now acceptable.

How is the term “Asian” in any way less accurate than “Oriental”? If you’re imagining that “Oriental” was a more ethnically or geographically specific term applied solely to East Asians rather than to anybody from the Asian continent in general, you are seriously mistaken. “Oriental” in European languages, including English, has been historically applied to populations and cultures from Syria to Japan.

Look, for instance, at the geographic/cultural scope of the American Oriental Society (founded in 1842, hence the now-outdated name), covering the “Ancient Near East”, “Islamic”, “South and Southeast Asia”, and “East Asia” sections.

[bump]

@Kimstu

So you’re saying that the Residential Life people shouldn’t have cared whether you as a representative of the university really were “committed” to its “fundamental principle” of “valuing and nurturing” the “diversity and pluralism” of, e.g., LGBT people, as long as you could fake that commitment well enough.

That actually seems reasonable. But it sounds as though the problem they had with you was that you weren’t faking your commitment well enough in the training sessions. Or perhaps you just weren’t bothering to try:

Oh, no, I never got in trouble or made any noise about any of this in my capacity as a RA.

My point was just that ultimately it was a job, and as an employee, I was judged on my performance of the duties of that job, which included upholding and even to an extent, extending the beliefs of my employers.

That’s as far as it should have gone- as long as I performed my job satisfactorily, it’s none of their business what my personal beliefs were, and I didn’t appreciate the indoctrination to try and change how I thought, when I wasn’t having any performance issues at all.

Look at it this way… if you have an employee who is part of some fringe group that has an 18th century view toward women, do you really care what he believes, so long as he treats your female customers and co-workers in an appropriate way as described by your employee handbook and any training he received? Should you go out of your way to try and change how he thinks if there’s no issue?

I agree that if these sorts of things are important to the powers-that-be over these positions, then they should be very careful who they actually hire, but I disagree that they should try and change the way the employees think, as long as they’re performing up to an adequate standard.

As to the “live and let live” vs “celebrating the LGBT community” thing that Marley23 doesn’t understand, it basically came down to this: At the time, I didn’t have any LGBT friends, and no links to that community, and wasn’t particularly interested in forging any or marching in any pride parades, etc… However, I didn’t have any truck with them either- they were welcome to do their thing however they liked, and I wasn’t going to stand in their way, persecute them or even be rude. I just wasn’t interested in learning more about them at the time was basically it, and the indoctrinational attitude was that since I wasn’t willing to be overtly supportive, that I wasn’t far enough along this continuum and needed to try harder. I resented that.

[Kimstu]

@bump

Look at it this way… if you have an employee who is part of some fringe group that has an 18th century view toward women, do you really care what he believes, so long as he treats your female customers and co-workers in an appropriate way as described by your employee handbook and any training he received? Should you go out of your way to try and change how he thinks if there’s no issue?

Depends what his job is. If his duties include helping women find advice for and resolve personal problems that they’re having in a rather intimate shared-housing situation, and his work is supposed to embody our institution’s strong commitment to a feminist and gender-egalitarian perspective, I would be quite doubtful about his suitability for such a post.

If he’s selling soda water or delivering packages, on the other hand, then hell no I don’t need to know what his personal beliefs about women are, as long as his behavior towards women on the job conforms to the required protocols.

@bump

As to the “live and let live” vs “celebrating the LGBT community” thing that Marley23 doesn’t understand, it basically came down to this: At the time, I didn’t have any LGBT friends, and no links to that community, and wasn’t particularly interested in forging any or marching in any pride parades, etc… However, I didn’t have any truck with them either- they were welcome to do their thing however they liked, and I wasn’t going to stand in their way, persecute them or even be rude.

Pedantic nitpick: I think you mean that you “didn’t have any beef with them” or something like that, not that you “didn’t have any truck with them”. To “have no truck” with somebody means to remain aloof from them, not to want anything to do with them, etc., which sounds like the exact opposite of what you’re trying to say. [/pn]

[Marley23]

@bump

As to the “live and let live” vs “celebrating the LGBT community” thing that Marley23 doesn’t understand, it basically came down to this: At the time, I didn’t have any LGBT friends, and no links to that community, and wasn’t particularly interested in forging any or marching in any pride parades, etc… However, I didn’t have any truck with them either- they were welcome to do their thing however they liked, and I wasn’t going to stand in their way, persecute them or even be rude. I just wasn’t interested in learning more about them at the time was basically it, and the indoctrinational attitude was that since I wasn’t willing to be overtly supportive, that I wasn’t far enough along this continuum and needed to try harder. I resented that.

I have to say that learning about the LGBT community and having links to it might’ve helped you do your job.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@bump

Look at it this way… if you have an employee who is part of some fringe group that has an 18th century view toward women, do you really care what he believes, so long as he treats your female customers and co-workers in an appropriate way as described by your employee handbook and any training he received? Should you go out of your way to try and change how he thinks if there’s no issue?

In theory your theory is fine. In practice I doubt it would work.

Look, we all act the way we do because of our beliefs, our values, etc. What you’re proposing is that someone has values that point to conflicting actions: they might be motivated by financial self-interest, or even job loyalty, to act in the way that the boss wants, even though they’re motivated by personal beliefs to act in a way contrary to the boss’s interests. And sure, they might act in the way the boss wants due to the first set of values. However, a person who also holds the same personal values as the boss is likelier to act in the way the boss wants, don’t you agree?

Sometimes, a boss ought to want employees with those conflicting values: independent thinkers can spur innovation. However, for a housing RA, there’s not really much advantage to hiring employees who are secretly homophobes. Innovation is unlikely to be the result.

I’m not saying you were a homophobe, and it’s quite possible that your boss went too far. But in principle, wanting employees to buy into your vision, while it can be annoying, is a rational goal.

Edit: Shagnasty is a great example of someone who believes they’re perfectly enlightened and who would be a terrible RA for a transgender student, for example. It’s reasonable for the head of the RA program to want to weed out folks with his brand of enlightenment, as a means of protecting students.

[BrainGlutton]

“Short of walking into a conversation, sandblasting the brick and installing track lighting, there is no surer way to announce one is from the 1980s than to mount an assault on ‘political correctness,’ the contemporary phrase for which is ‘not being a jackass.’”

– Tabatha Southey

The [del]cliché[/del] term political correctness or “PC” usually refers to upholding a social taboo against language and attitudes that might be considered offensive and/or stupid. This loaded term has become a boogey-man for the right-wing, who use it to tar anything that runs contrary to their own policies, such as letting women out of the kitchen or gays out of the closet.

Ruth Perry wrote in an essay entitled A Short History of the Term “Politically Correct”[1] that the term was first coined by Mao Zedong,[2] but was later hijacked by conservative eclectics who proceeded to overuse it in exactly the manner above described, hence taking all the juice out of it.[3] (Defending oneself with it might be the most popular handwave to dismiss social criticism.) More recently, advocates of political correctness have therefore substituted the term “civilized speech” for “politically correct” in order to boost its image in light of the PC backlash.

In full irony, conservatives have also adopted political correctness widely; trying to justify censorship on the grounds that something is “offensive to Christians,” for example, or Conservapedia’s insistence on BC/AD to the total exclusion of BCE/CE.

As above, passive-aggressive people who defend racism and but don’t want to be labeled that way attack dissenters as “politically correct.”

[sqweels]

@Kimstu

Consider the tone of such stock phrases as “the Oriental mind”, intrinsically insulting in its fundamental ignorant implication that all varieties of “Orientals” can be considered essentially the same psychologically. And that’s not even to mention cliched outright insults such as “Oriental cowardice”, “Oriental despotism”, “Oriental effeminacy”, “mere Orientals”, etc.

Asians didn’t just decide to “regard [the word ‘Oriental’] as a slur” because they were feeling resentful about prejudice: it was routinely used as a slur to express prejudice. “Standard and non-perjorative [sic]”? Nonsense.

I’m not buying it. If I wanted to slur a group, why would I use the standard term? The usages you cite don’t strike me as all that familiar and it goes along with my point that the group and its allies are the ones who cling to any negative baggage it may have picked up while those who were using the term in an everyday sense.

Any name for a group, like “Black” or “African” or “Southern” or “Jew” or “Native” can be used in a negative context and thus begin to pick up baggage. It’s the nature of political correctness to think we can exorcise any negativity by attaching it all to a word and then banning the word.

[sqweels]

@Miller

No, I’m not.

Then why did you regard it as bigoted to claim that Christianity is superior to Islam?

[bump]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Sometimes, a boss ought to want employees with those conflicting values: independent thinkers can spur innovation. However, for a housing RA, there’s not really much advantage to hiring employees who are secretly homophobes. Innovation is unlikely to be the result.

I’m not saying you were a homophobe, and it’s quite possible that your boss went too far. But in principle, wanting employees to buy into your vision, while it can be annoying, is a rational goal.

I think a lot of it came from the fact that A&M at the time was known for not being particularly diverse or tolerant. As a result, I think they went overboard in trying to impress upon us RAs that we needed to be tolerant and pro-diversity, and it ended up being rather overbearing and very much on the forced indoctrination side. That’s the thing- it wasn’t the message that I didn’t appreciate, it was the way they went about it.

(and I’m not a homophobe; you don’t fly 5200 miles to the Netherlands to attend a friend’s gay wedding if you’re a homophobe!)

[Marley23]

@sqweels

I’m not buying it. If I wanted to slur a group, why would I use the standard term?

What a bizarre question. People use slurs and insult people in all kinds of ways.

The usages you cite don’t strike me as all that familiar

Not surprising, since the whole idea was that they’re offensive and outdated.

It’s the nature of political correctness to think we can exorcise any negativity by attaching it all to a word and then banning the word.

I think very few people believe this- possibly none.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@sqweels

I’m not buying it. If I wanted to slur a group, why would I use the standard term?

That doesn’t make sense. At the time that “Oriental” was standard usage in England and the US, the “standard” attitude toward its referents was stereotyping and prejudice. The standard term carried a crapload of baggage with it. You’re correct that it was not used as a specific pejorative, any more than “Negro” was used as a specific pejorative at the time; but as time goes on, folks have wanted to use different terms for a variety of reasons. “Oriental” defines folks from Asia primarily as a direction from Europe, which is kind of weird; folks want to be discussed as who they inherently are, not who they are in relationship to Europeans and Americans.

here’s an article that goes into a little bit of detail about “Oriental.”

Again, not a pejorative, not nearly as offensive as using a racial epithet, but there are pretty decent reasons to use a word like “Asian” or “Korean” instead.

It’s the nature of political correctness to think we can exorcise any negativity by attaching it all to a word and then banning the word.

That’s a relief–it means political correctness doesn’t exist, since nobody thinks that!

[common_good]

Would the OP prefer a return to the days of political in-correctness ? This sort of nostalgia is often held for a past which was either worse than the present or never really existed at all. We all tend to remember the good and forget the bad. We should try to remember both.

[BrainGlutton]

@common_good

Would the OP prefer a return to the days of political in-correctness ?

You really need to ask?

Doesn’t matter, the OP will never answer.

[common_good]

I see. Not too surprising. I’ve never thought those who complained about political correctness had anything much to complain about. Some always resist change; in society, attitudes, terminology. It’s a stubborn refusal to adapt, vocalized.