The concept of political correctness.

[monkspider]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
Therefore, I do not find saying BC or AD politically incorrect, nor will I change it.

You speak much sense this evening Fab.

[notyoueither]

I think it offends non christians who care.

They do not want to live in a 'year of our Lord'. I don't think they mind using the christinisation of the Empire as a marker, they just would like to remove the overt christian labels.

[chequita guevara]

My biggest problem with focusing on words is that it takes focus away from real problems, like income disparity or patronizing behavior or outright discrimination. Words don't cause problem, they reflect problems. Changing the words only does nothing to change underlying power structures, and with insults only creates a new set of pajoritives (metally challenged is now an insult, when it was trying to get away from the negative conitations of retarded).

In other ways, like reclaiming lost history, political correctness does a good service, as long as it doesn't go to the opposite extreme (which does rarely happen) and goes from, for example, euro-centrism to afrocentrism. Neither is correct, and the vast majority of pc'ism is about reclaiming what was lost, not denying the contributions of straight white men.

[Capt Dizle]

Its really amazing how things change. Many of the folks here being much younger than I would think themselves on an alien planet if they could go back in history. I grew up in the South in the sixties and things were different.

Everyone smoked and wore white shirts (men) or skirts (women). Everyone referred to blacks as ******s, even in their face and I never heard a complaint till about '69. Most folks went to church and if you didn't you were considered "bad". We did a-bomb drills in classrooms (you got under your desks). No one locked their doors and tv was black and white. Many of the roads were dirt even in the city limits. There were no Mexicans, Arabs, and only rumors of Asians.

I grew up cruising the main drag. Everyone had a beer in their hand while we were driving. If the cops rode by they would stare at you till you dropped the beer out of sight and then tell you to take it easy.

Everyone spanked their children. There were no day care centers but every other "housewife" kept kids during the day. The rest had beauty shops built on their houses.

There were no fast food restaurants. Then maybe McDonalds or Hardees came to town. Seemed that everyone was a Democrat, called southern democrat. (mostly republican now)

We had door to door salesmen and ice cream vendors in little vans and everyone just walked around on Halloween without any fear.

We had a city pool and the city had another pool for blacks. Most of the BBQ restaurants had a separate section for blacks but those were mainly used for carry out waiting by the late sixties.

Anyone on a motorcycle was considered a criminal. Homosexuals were known as queers but no one knew any actual homosexuals because people didn't tell.

Communists were the bogey men.

The lake nearby had only a few cabins then. Now every inch is developed. The highways were concrete with those little dividers that went clump, clump, clump when you drove over them. And air conditioning was the new thing (only the rich people had it).

Cigarettes in vending machines and there was an actual milkman who would come to your house.

Everyone's phone was the same and you had to dial it.

You had to be there.

[monkspider]

Sounds mortifying Jimmy.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Imran Siddiqui wrote:

But the 'Washington Whities' wouldn't

There is a high school team called the "Fightin' Whities" and their mascot is a white man wearing a suit and tie, smiling. The caption beneath the picture is "Everythang's gonna be all white".

This was done in protest at another school's refusal to do away with a caricature of an American Indian. It made headline news.

I'm getting this information from J302, a college course that I'm teaching part time at Missouri. It's pretty fascinating stuff.

[chequita guevara]

Capitalism changes things, very quickly. The town I lived in for ten years has changed beyond recongition for me. I can never go home, it doesn't exist anymore. Even Chicago, that big annoymous city with housing dating back almost a hundred years has changed in the last decade. There used to be used bookstores all over the city, not just a Borders and a Barnes & Noble. There were a variety of coffee shops, now it's all Starbucks and Seatle's Best. That's the way things are.

I'm not sure that this is a good thing for people. Change is good, but at such a pace? It leaves of feeling disconnected from the world, and messes with our sense of place. But that is the nature of the system.

[notyoueither]

Maybe it would be better that we all still lived in hovels and tended the livestock...

[Dis]

arghh!!


not Mr. Fun again

why can blacks do things whites can't? I fail to see adequate justification for this.

on this thread

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Maybe it would be better that we all still lived in hovels and tended the livestock...

No one here has suggested that is prefered alternative. Contrary to what you may believe, communists prefer industrialized society to agricultural society.

I'm just pointing out to supporters of the system that it is there system that produces the things they do not like.

[notyoueither]

Diss, imagine you call your sis a beatch. It has a context and a meaning.

What would you do if a stranger did that?

[Capt Dizle]

My mother's family moved here to get work at the local textile mill. They had eight kids. The mill owned the housing that the employees lived in. Rent was deducted from the paycheck. There was a company store and it took "script" which was basically company money. Employees were paid in script and had to exchange that for US coin if they needed it. Of course that was a little before my time but I still have some of the script that was passed down. All eight of the kids worked at the mill. Most of the grandchildren, including me, worked at the mill. I went to work at the mill when I was sixteen. Made $1.60 an hour. My junior year of high school they let me out of school a bit early to go to work. Worked 2nd shift 3pm till 11 pm, six days a week.

Thats 48 hours a week plus school and I still cut the lawn. Now my son *****es at having to work at the grocery 16 hours a week. And I still cut the lawn.

[KrazyHorse]

Congratulate him on his astuteness.

[chequita guevara]

You don't think that's progress?

[Capt Dizle]

Anyway I just said all that to say this. I think I have lived long enough and absorbed enough change to be entitled to resent having political correctness shoved down my throat. And I haven't even mentioned my Dad who lives with me and was born before the automobile. Change has a way of overruning folks sometimes.