And that’s exactly why I prefer “Jew”. Downplaying my identity won’t save me, so why not own it?
I always assumed that political correctness was most important to politicians. Like, I cannot promise the public that my party is going to double your taxes; I need to phrase it differently. Nor can I become a party wheel in the first place if my professed position or loyalty are not correct.
I suspect it’s pretty arbitrary. Like saying ‘an American’ or ‘a South African’ is perfectly fine, but saying ‘a Japanese’ is frowned upon. Saying ‘so-and-so is an Asian’ also sounds okay to me. Ditto ‘so-and-so is an African American’, ‘so-and-so is a Caucasian’. We’re probably just used to turning geographical-type names into nouns, but it would be unusual to do it with a colour.
@BigT has been busy telling me on another thread that it doesn’t mean ‘don’t be a jerk’. And anyway that’s not specific enough; there are plenty of ways to be a jerk without being politically incorrect. If progressives really object to using the words I’m kind of at a loss how I could have phrased the OP, since I’ve never heard of any other term for the phenomenon. (Do we need a politically correct term for ‘politically correct’. 
)
Little changes like this help to convince people that political correctness is pointless virtue signaling. Mostly they roll their eyes and move on, but next time they are asked to make a change for a good reason, like LHOD’s example, they’re less likely to take it seriously.
The only people you’re talking about are white people who don’t give a shit about black people and how being reminded of slavery can hurt them.
The point is, it’s easy to do, and helps make things better. You keep on making it out like it accomplishes nothing because you are not part of the group that is helps. But none of us should be thinking only about how things affect us.
Because it’s no big deal to us, but a big deal to others, there’s no reason for us not to do it. What isn’t good is saying “it’s not big deal to me, so who cares about the others?”
Were any black people hurt by it? Or is it like the Jew/Jewish example where many of the people concerned either don’t care or preferred the old name?
I know that renaming manholes and stuff like that makes me roll my eyes and wish the people concerned would get a real job.
This incident is widely misunderstood, often deliberately. Here are the facts about Birmingham City Council’s Winterval. It was intended to be inclusive, not remove Christmas but include Christmas and every other kind of festival of all people in a very wide period of time over the winter season, such as Diwali, Ramadan, Hanukkah, and Chinese New Year.
Political Correctness is basic human decency. It’s consideration of others’ differences and respect for other cultures. It can go “too far” but usually either exaggerated by grumpy haters, or over-eager well-meaning softies. It should have balanced out by now into just being respectful, but even now it gets singled out and railed against by horrible selfish people. So disappointing.
They were the ones who first talked about how fucked up it is that we still use that language. I remember first hearing about it from black comedians myself.
And the only Jew/Jewish distinction I know about that was about being PC was actually something that actual Jewish people mentioned–as in Jewish people on this board were the ones to first tell me. It’s why I say Jewish person and not Jews. Granted, I already also say “black people” not “blacks,” and “gay people,” not “gays,” so it was an easy change to make.
Being PC, if it has any real meaning, is listening to what the actual groups say they find offensive. It’s why I say Native instead of either Native American or American Indian. Different groups of that ethnicity hate both of those terms.
Are there people who sometimes think they’re helping and go too far? Of course. But that’s stuff that gets fixed pretty quickly when the groups say “You know, we actually don’t care about that.” The most obvious is that small window of time in the 1990s when we white people all (conservatives and liberals, as I was the former back then) thought that you were supposed to only say “African American” and never “black.” Notice how this has been corrected now?
For example, you mention changing the word “manholes.” But, as far as I know, that hasn’t actually caught on outside of very specific contexts–contexts where specific language tends to be preferred, like planning documents and the like. Point is, people still say “manhole” all the time, and no one cares. If the idea goes too far, it doesn’t stick around.
Picking things like that is picking the 0.1% of silly stuff to try and refute the important stuff, like not wearing Native headdresses, not touching a black person’s hair, not telling a black person they look like some completely different black person, not calling women “sweetie” or “sexy” or mansplaining to them because you assume they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Most of what is actually accepted PC is stuff people do actually care about. Or it wouldn’t have caught on.
The “joke” was that it would be changed to “personholes”. But in fact the term more likely to be used is “maintenance hatches” or similar. Eventually these kinds of terms will be forgotten and nobody will question the change except in an “interesting fact” look back.
I’ve seen this notion a few times recently: “The best time to change was years ago, but the next best time to change is now.” I like this idea.
I’m not trying to refute the important stuff. I’m saying we should listen to people when they say there’s a problem with political correctness and not just ignore or insult them because we think we know better.
(At least, that’s what I was trying to say in the other thread. This one was just supposed to clarify the intent behind the idea.)
As long as they don’t blame the changes on feminists. I want to keep our political capital for something that’s actually useful.
I’m unconvinced that anyone actually cares about changing tiny things like this, except as an opportunity to “stick it to the libs” or whatever.
So what is this problem? It’s not that changing “master” actually affected anyone or anything. If it’s that some people might get their head bitten off if they screw something up, that’s a “tone” issue, not a substantive issue. If it’s something else, then what?
This “political correctness” that you refuse to define…
If “people say” there’s a problem with it… How does this problem manifest? I mean, a problem causes harm, no? What specific harm is being caused by it?
Unfortunately the SDMB isn’t very representative, but 30% of Dopers did say political correctness is a problem in the poll. I could start another thread asking what they think the problem is. There have been some examples posted already, though.
I think a lot of people who rail against PCness (as well as people who make language policing their personal hobby) mistakenly think language updates are all about minimizing offense. Which of course would be eye-rolly to most people, since we all know there’s always going to be someone who is butthurt about something innocuous.
Language can be updated for other reasons. For instance, lots of people have adopted “partner” rather than “husband” or “wife”. “Husband” or “wife” are not offensive at all, but widespread usage of “partner” allows sexual minorities to talk about their significant others without outing themselves. It also allows those who are in long-term committed relationships talk about their significant others without using the juvenile-sounding “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”. A lot of people roll their eyes when they hear people use “partner”, but it’s not like anyone is forcing them to use this convention.
“Negro” and “colored” were dropped in the US not because they were offensive. They were dropped because black Americans had finally gained enough political power to label themselves. A native-born American who still uses these words is broadcasting that they are mentally from an era when black people didn’t have power, which of course is a red flag. But only a jerk would condemn, say, a 85-year-old for using “colored”.
I am a fan of people adopting language changes organically as much as possible, with no tongue-clucking. Go on and tongue-cluck once a change has become widespread (like “mentally challenged” instead of “mentally retarded”). But in the early days of a change, people need to let shit go if they aren’t prepared to give others a proper education. Just saying “because it’s offensive!” is not a proper education. It’s being a mindless virtue signaler.
To wit, a few months ago I explained to someone why “ethnic hair” wasn’t a cool description anymore. The newfangled term for what she was trying to communicate is “afro-textured hair”, since everyone–not just people of color–have an ethnicity and only a couple of groups of humanity (African Diasporans and Melanasians) have truly kinky hair. She got defensive at me for policing her like this, but I wasn’t policing-policing. I didn’t scream at her “THAT’S SUPER OFFENSIVE!!” I just let her know that she was using an out-of-date term. But even more important, I explained to her why it had gone out of favor and had been replaced with someone else. Is the new term perfect? No. But it communicates more effectively than “ethnic” does.
Again, what is the problem? If you think it’s a problem, please be specific. Why is it a problem? “Others think it’s a problem” isn’t an answer for this.
It’s a classic appeal to popularity. Our president relies on them so extensively (“People are saying”) that they’ve become even more mainstreamed; but I’d gently suggest that just because our president uses a rhetorical strategy, that doesn’t mean it’s a wise one to use.
This is a great example. Why on earth should someone’s feelings get hurt over getting an education like this? Her defensiveness is the sort of fragility that I have a hard time respecting. If you’d said, “Listen, you piece of trash MAGAbot, how bout you try not showing your racist ass all the time and shut your fucking mouth, that hair isn’t ethnic, it’s afro-textured?” I could certainly see why her feelings would be hurt. But getting defensive because someone points out a way your language could be more accurate and respectful? The problem is with the person getting defensive.
And that brings me to the interesting question: what’s a better name for “politically correct”? The term is really vague and is mostly a slur, so obviously it’s not a good term. It covers a few different phenomena, and if you want to be accurate and respectful and kind in your language use, maybe name the phenomena discretely: linguistic accuracy. Linguistic respect. Linguistic kindness.
They overlap imperfectly. Some changes might lead to greater accuracy without really changing respect. Others might be kind, but not really improve accuracy. But naming what phenomenon you’re actually talking about will only lead to greater linguistic accuracy and greater linguistic respect. And possibly even greater linguistic kindness.