Actually, “Hispanic” has literally nothing to do with appearance, but people don’t seem to realize this. There are Hispanics who are white, black, asian, native american, etc. Of course, my husband thinks of himself as Hispanic, for all the reasons you mentioned. (And, incidentally, I count myself as a person who considers him Hispanic.) But the topic of the thread is political correctness. To me, this is all about classifications & labels, as they are perceived by the general public. You could go on all day about what you are referring to when you use the words “black,” “African-American,” “Indian,” “Hispanic,” etc., but all that really matters is what people think you are when they see you. Considering the general makeup of the U.S., there are always going to be people who don’t quite fit in the labels (white Americans whose background is from Africa, Hispanic Americans who look like my husband, black Americans who have skin as light as any white person, etc.), but we have to try to fit them in nonetheless. It is inherently a contradiction to try to find ways to categorize individuals so no one is left out of the equation.
For Og’s sake: there is no such thing as a pure race. What we consider to be races have more differences within them than amongst them. What Sarahfeena is talking about, and I believe would be discussed better, is ethnicity. Race is biological differences, which we now know don’t exist and the only race is the human race. Ethnicity is cultural. A-A culture is different from African culture. If your family is Hispanic but you look white, you identify as Hispanic because that is your culture and your ethnicity.
[straying a bit off topic]
I’m not sure about that last point. There is a social relations and investments committee composed of students and faculty that advise the president on such matters, though. I have a mate who served on it… never mentioned extreme weirdness from Summers.
From what I observe of the faculty culture around here, there is great regard in how one deals with faculty according to rank and profile. You might recall that one of his big early run-ins was with Cornel West - a University professor. That’s the highest rank that any professor at Harvard can hold. But for some reason he had it in for ol’ Cornel. He made public statements questioning his research record of late and accused him of inflating grades. (If you’ve ever read any of West’s academic work on the philosophy side, trust me, you’ll be happy to read Race Matters or listen to the CD he was involved with - the man is deep and dense.) Why he chose West to publicly castigate - who knows? There are several profs, University and otherwise, who might be accused of the same things.
Furthermore, it does seem interesting that when Harvard’s most illustrious academic is an African-American man (how many professors at Harvard can most people name?) that a newly-appointed White president would go after him. I mean, professors Derschowitz and Tribe were accused of ethical turpitude - plagiarism - but they weren’t publicly pilloried as West was. It also probably didn’t help that Princeton’s president, a friend of West’s, made an very attractive offer to West to lead the Afro-Am program down there, or that he was battling prostate cancer at the time.
One of my profs said that Summers’ problem was that he approached the leadership of Harvard as if he was Professor Summers rather than President Summers. It’s a sport to take down your peers at Harvard, but presidents are supposed to be more diplomatic in that regard.
No, I don’t disagree. It’s a tactic that I find deeply distasteful myself; it’s inherently not helpful to shut down political debate entirely; it seems like campus lefty groups have a history of doing that kind of thing.
I’ve personally witnessed some unpleasant behavior from right-wing protesters at democratic events; neither side is necessarily entirely blameless when it comes to obstructing political events. But it does seem like it’s more frequently lefties who try to shout down speakers.
I’m sorry. I was just attempting to abbreviate. It’s a common argument, at least, that racism is essentially yesterday’s problem; if that’s not what you think, I’m sorry. I was just trying to sum up the discussion in fewer words.
I would disagree that conservatives, at worst, feel that liberals are “misguided and wrong”. You only need to read the Ann Coulter threads that appear in the pit to see an easy counterexample. That kind of rhetoric is not at all uncommon; perhaps it’s not as obvious if you’re not on the receiving end of it, but I’m pretty used to a lot of conservatives treating liberals with contempt or worse. Hell, it was only a couple years ago that those of us who opposed the war were routinely being branded traitors. Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist ane one of the people at Language Log, just wrote a book whose subtitle summarizes a lot of what the right has been saying about the left: Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show. I’m pretty used to this kind of thing - at any rate, righties often go way beyond saying that those of us on the left are wrong; it often gets personal.
I dunno. I guess I see that as basically just partisanship; it’s something I’ve come to find on the right as well. It’s easy to find yourself thinking that if someone doesn’t share your politics, they must not share principles you hold particularly dear.
PC is just another brand of censorship, an attempt to control people by limiting their freedom of expression. It deserves no more respect than any other brand of censorship (i.e., none).
Thanks for this nuanced, persuasive contribution to the discussion.
I just don’t see it that way, I guess. If a person knows me well, knows from interacting with me in everyday life, and would never conclude (I certainly hope), that I am a bigot or a racist, then why should finding out I am conservative politically change their mind about this? I think that is basic bigotry itself.
None whatsoever.
Normally, I find George Carlin’s word games moderately amusing. In this case, he’s not only totally off the mark, but substantially misleading.
“In Dios” is not Spanish (it would be “en Dios”) and is not the origin of the term, I believe. It comes from “Indio” (meaning native), which was derived from, yes, “India.” Indians were natives to India and the term came to mean savages in general.
“Hindustan” and “India” have always been interchangeable. It is idiotic to state that when “Hindustan” was in use, the country was not known as “India.” The former is the Persian term and the latter is the Greek/Latin term.
Why do you say “in the name of PC” when yBeayf clearly states that the reason has nothing to do with PC but everything to do with avoiding ambiguity?
It has nothing to do with P.C. I am an Indian-American. I am not going to use the term “Indian” for North American natives.
Because they’re a partisan asshole.
Now why would someone write a best-selling book calling me a traitor to my country?
See, that’s just the problem…these people aren’t assholes. They just are incredibly PC…at least, that’s how I see it.
No
If you are talking about Ann Coutler, I can’t answer that, because I have no idea where she gets half the stuff she says.
Sorry about the bad quote tag…the “No” is part of your post, Excalibre.
I should clarify what I say about the people I know who I feel would judge me poorly for being a conservative. They are good people, and they think I am a good person. They ASSUME that our mutual beliefs as far as values are concerned would have naturally led me to be liberal. It would never occur to them that this is not the case. I believe this stems from 2 things: 1) Lack of exposure to people different from themselves (hard to believe in the 21st century, but it is true), and 2) The assumption, as I stated before, that possessing a certain set of values automatically leads to liberalism. (This is the part I think stems from political correctness.)
I think that some of this may come from a general misunderstanding/mischaracterization of what “conservativism” means these days. Personally, I prefer the term “classical liberal,” which I think better describes my POV. Tammy Bruce wrote a great book about this, because she insists on calling herself a liberal, although she identifies herself more with what people call conservativism these days.
People have the political views that they think are right; for most of us on both sides of the aisle, our politics are based on fundamental moral principles. It’s hard to make the leap to be able to view politics through a more dispassionate lens. It’s the same as conservative Christians who have negative opinions of those of us who favor abortion rights.
I’m not trying to pull a tu quoque here; it’s just that most of the things you’re alluding to here strike me as basically human nature; if you think that a lot of liberals tend to think “We’re right, they’re wrong”, it’s true - but the same is true on the other side. Coming up with a label for this and pretending it’s some particularly liberal trait is one of the major PR successes of the right.
In this case, yes, I’m talking about Ann Coulter - but that’s not really all that unusual. She’s the woman everybody loves to hate, but what she says isn’t all that different from a lot of what you hear on talk radio.
I like this idea that we just call people what they prefer and not try to apply one term and say that everyone likes it.
In the spirit of this, I prefer to be called Your royal grace, ruler of all and grand high lord of the universe. If you must abbreviate, Your Highness will do just fine.
Carry on with the discussion at hand. 
Censorship has been applied by the right to suppress “subversive” expression; that is, supposedly to preserve order. Political correctness is applied, supposedly, to protect feelings. Both, to me, are equally appalling.
(If you’re going to object that this is a simplistic analysis, please provide the complex alternative instead of claiming that one exists.)
So, it makes no difference to you that this is the preferred term among Indians (North American natives, as you have termed them).
That’s pretty arrogant.
In my opinion, “political correctness” is a bugaboo. Usually it consists of a hazy set of ‘phrases I just don’t like having to say!’. Poll the American public and I would be very surprised if more than a handful claimed to adhere to ‘PC’. I find it most unmeaningful to have a phrase that basically means any change in social discourse loosely tied to liberals. I say, let’s treat cases on a one-by-one basis, and leave the strawman of PC behind.
Incidentally, cite for this. “American Indian” beat out “Native American” 50% to 37% among those that self-identified as Indians. (By the way, “black” beat out “African American” as well)
My guess is that it would be an even greater discrepancy if they polled people who actually were Indian. I would venture to guess that many among that 37% are the famous white people who claim to be a great-great-great granddaughter of a Cherokee princess that you run into at every pow-wow.
Do you count keeping people out of a speech altogether as “shouting them down”? That’s what Bush did during the 2004 Presidential campaign. You had to be a supporter to get in. I believe that I recall two people being arrested for sneaking in wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. Even demonstrators at the Republican Convention were kept in “Free Speech Zones” – away from the Republicans.
Is there really anyone in your life forcing you to use “politically correct” terms? In my own life I generally try to use whatever word or description the person that I’m talking with would prefer – if I know it. If I don’t know it, I generally go with what is currently considered polite. Notice that I didn’t say “correct.” I choose to do this. Why is it appalling for me to be sensitive of someone’s feelings?
(That can end very quickly when I’m pissed!)
Using an appropriate word is not something that I dwell on or stumble over. It’s not difficult. I don’t even talk about what’s “politically correct” except in these threads where we talk about how horrible being “politically correct” is. No one I know uses the term.
I’m fuzzy on what I remember about this. Do you have a cite? What kinds of speeches were protesters not allowed into?