[QUOTE=velomont;19244475[…]
Basically an African-American student made a big scene about a white guy’s dreadlocks because of the cultural appropriation.[…]
[/QUOTE]
Bigotry in fancy-dress.
There’s nothing particularly “black” about dreads. Anybody who has hair can have them. Girl clearly wants to get all righteously indignant on some skinny white boy about something. This wasn’t a good choice.
So what?
Liberalism, perhaps, but not leftism. PC has nothing to do with wealth inequality, etc.
I’m in communications and PC speech is a monumental fucking pain in the ass to deal with, becase almost everything seems to be offensive to some tiny (but vocal) minority group these days.
One of my huge issues with Political Correctness is that it only seems to apply to “approved” entities - which almost never includes heterosexual white males.
More importantly, not only are non-approved entities not entitled to the “courtesies” PC affords to the approved, they will find themselves on the wrong end of vehement and often extremely unpleasant vitriol, abuse, or worse (people have lost their jobs after the social justice crowd hounded them and their employer on social media for having the “wrong” opinions, for example) for failing to adhere closely enough to the standards of the approved.
Worse, there is now a trend for berating people for not being progressive enough - so you might think racism is abhorrent, homophobia is not OK and women are people too with the same rights as everyone else - but the fact you don’t think the wage gap exists (or is part of some evil patriachal plot), or that “safe spaces” at university for a group that makes up more than 50% of the xampus are unnecessary, makes you a horrible, misogynist monster.
As others have said, many - including myself - view PC not as some way to help treat people with courtesy, but as a form of censorship, self-righteousness and weapon to be used against the non-approved.
Sorry Scumpup but for clarification are you saying that the dreadlock example wasn’t a good choice or that the girl’s actions weren’t a good choice?
Either. Both. Girl wanted to be mad about something.
In isolation, probably not the best example, but in concert with other cultural appropriation examples, it is representative of yet another stupid PC trend.
So you say. I suspect an ulterior motive, and I believe Dennis Prager does too.
Exactly. So you can go around shrieking “merry christmas” at anyone you want to even if they find it offensive. However, does this not prohibit the government from making December 25th a holiday? And yet it is.
Isn’t saying, “If you complain about political correctness, you’re a bigot,” essentially a Poisoning the Well tactic?
You may be interested to know that there are no national holidays in the United States. Not Independence Day, not New Year’s Day, not Labor Day, not Christmas. The federal government may designate holidays only for federal employees and the District of Columbia.
I remember hearing “Season’s Greetings” and “Happy Holiday(s)” as far back as the late 1950s. Of course, at that time there was no connotation of recognized or unrecognized status of other religions.
In Santa Monica, California, there had been nativity-scene displays at Christmastime in a public park along a city street close to the cliffs near the beach. They were apparently removed recently; some odious signs were put up about “Flying Spaghetti” or something. The only purpose of that, of course, is to heckle religion; this sort of thing had no tradition behind it and was just there to irritate people. A gratuitous nuisance and nothing more.
Shrieking? I’ve lived in this country a pretty long time and not even once have I ever heard anyone shriek a Merry Christmas.
But apart from that, can you explain to me why the hell anyone would be ‘offended’ by being wished a “Merry Christmas”? I mean, I realize that many of the country’s lefties want Christianity disappeared to the greatest degree possible and this therefore is much of the motivation for ‘Happy Holidays’ and ‘Holiday trees’ :rolleyes:…but offended? Give me a break.
Yeah, “Happy Holidays” has been around since long before the “culture wars”. It’s not new and it did not originate with some organized anti-Christmas movement.
The phrase itself, though, originally came from the Political Hard Left. But it was hardly heard outside those small circles until it was appropriated by the Right in its current sense since 1980ish or so.
The irony of course is that there has ALWAYS been a societal/political pressure that certain things you “must not say in polite company” and some that even in private will have consequences. Use a Time Machine to the 1950s and try producing a movie about an interracial gay couple, or about a priest who diddles 10-year-olds. Or travel to the 1910s and mention over dinner at the club that you believe labor should organize unions and that if your daughter wanted to marry a Polish Jew what’s the problem.
I agree, Starving. Ulterior motive, pure and simple. Reminds me of a quote from the heading of Chapter 15 of Pudd’nhead Wilson. :mad:
Someone says this every time the subject comes up. The difference is that nowadays it’s virtually mandated, and the reason is to attempt to get people thinking of a ‘holiday season’ rather than a ‘religious season’. Employees in the 50s and 60s weren’t told by their employers not to say ‘Merry Christmas’ but to use ‘Happy Holidays’ instead, and people weren’t looked at askance by brain-washed youngsters for having committed the faux-pas of wishing them a Merry Christmas like happens now.
Thanks.
(My Bold.)
Has this ever happened to you personally in real life? Have you ever wished someone a Merry Christmas and had them look at you askance* and say “Sir, I believe the correct term is ‘Happy Holidays’”?
- I do understand your concern at being looked at askance. I know someone who was looked at askance once. Counseling has helped them overcome most of the damage, but they’ll never be the same carefree person they once were.
Yes, I’ve actually been looked at askance, both by people who obviously felt I was out of it and so old I couldn’t be expected to abide by proper social norms, and by the employees of at least two retail stores whose discomfit came about because they’d been told not to say Merry Christmas to people while on the clock and my saying it to them made things awkward. And yes, they told me this themselves after I’d noticed their averted eyes and suppressed demeanor and asked them about it.
Since I never said that anyone curtly corrected me for saying Merry Christmas, I’ll pass on answering that part of your question.
In one of his “The Lighter Side…” articles, Berg probably said it all. The scene was three basically identical houses in a row. Houses One and Three are overdecorated for the holiday season with Santa, reindeer, cartoon characters, “NOEL,” and so on, on the roof, in the front yard… Almost all the lights in those two houses are on, and Berg has drawn people cavorting drunkenly at a wild party. House Two has no decorations; just a sign reading SEASONS GREETINGS glowing on the front door. The house is dark except in the living room. The family is gathered there, on the couch, apparently viewing a family photo album or something like that. The owners of houses One and Three stand together–you can tell where they come from by their footprints in the snow. They stand and scowl at House Two, and one of them says “I guess they’re not very religious.”
'Nuff sed.
It may, just possibly, depend on where you are and where you shop. I live in the Bay Area, which most people would describe as a bastion of Liberal Sensitivities*. In shopping here for over 25 years I’ve never had anyone look at me askance for saying “Merry Christmas” and plenty of store employees wish me the same. Of course, people, including me, also say “Happy Holidays” and other things, and it’s all ok.
*Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Got’em myself.