4 replies to this topic

[Ragamuffin]

In the day of political correctness, "enlightenment", and hurt feelings, how do you feel about the ism and ist labels? By this I mean being called racist if you don't like rap music, being sexist if you say that men generally have more upper body strength than women, or ageist (yes, ageist) because you think that seniors aren't as productive as younger people?One thing I've noticed about people who love to throw these labels around is that they often do so with blatant hypocrisy. A femnazi will claim that "men are sexist", or "women can do anything a man can do, and better" which is sexist in itself, while others say that hating rap music is a sign of racism against blacks, yet equating an entire race of people to a genre of music is prejudice. Another example, taken from my personal experience, was that a gay man told me I was a "homophobe" because I didn't like him. I brought up to him that it wasn't the fact that he was gay, it was the fact he was a self-important douche who felt that ANY personal criticism was "hate speech" towards all gays. Yes, because I don't like YOU or YOUR personality, I must hate all gays. :doom:Many of these words seem to have lost all meaning, and are now used as insults when a person or group expresses a dissenting opinion about another group or particularly sensitive individual. Why is it okay to make fun of certain groups with impunity, while others can (and sometimes will) earn you jail time? How can true equal rights be achieved when there are people who demand to be above criticism?Yeah, most rational people know the difference between true race/sex/whateverism and someone throwing labels around as an offensive/defensive mechanism, but in a world where calling people on their bulls­hit usually just causes more pointless division and debate, what is there do to?

[skulhedface]

I personally think that using an "ism" or "ist" retort is an attempt to fight fire with fire, because to the community at large, it's just as undesirable to be seen as racist, sexist, ageist, etc. People are racist and such in their private lives but put up a tolerant front. I don't really have much to add to this topic, but I can add this-- do you view political correctness as racist? I do. Political correctness, in fact, seems to encourage racism. So-called "african americans" are technically just as American as the next white guy (and would his equivalent be European American?). In fact, not all black people came from Africa. What about Jamaicans? Caribbeans? Haitians? And white people... wouldn't eastern Russians be "Asian American?" Which is implied for people of Oriental descent? And you never, EVER hear of, say, Australian Americans.I don't really see why there's even a distinction. True political correctness would be to call white OR black people, "people".

[Ragamuffin]

Haha, yeah, I said in some other thread that calling Caribbean people African-American didn't make since, and was just lumping all black people into a single group. Not that I have a huge problem with lumping people into groups for the sake of statistics, but at least be accurate about it, or lay the cards on the table and go by skin color rather than making a petty attempt at sounding P.C.Do I feel that political Correctness is racist? Well, yes and no, but I definitely feel that it's pandering. I mean, things such as Affirmative Action really were started with the best of intentions, but look at how it works today, especially with college entry. Black and brown people can get lower scores on their SATs and still receive academic scholarships, or get acceptance to a prestigious school because they live in a "rough neighborhood" and need a leg up. (as if nobody else does). To me, that's like saying "you tried your best, and even though you're not as good as us, we're still going to help you get ahead, because you need our help." I believe this sort of pandering is a slap in the face to all involved; it's like saying that if you're not a (straight) white male, then you don't need to try as hard, and if you are, well, I hope you come from money.I've used this example before, but the strength test to enter a fire department around my area has been reduced for women applicants, because requiring that the person lift 150lbs was considered "sexist". How? If I'm in a burning building, and a female firefighter is trying to rescue me, but can't because she can only lift the lowered requirement of 75lbs, then she's killing both of us. So what if there aren't any women in a given fire department? If they can't lift as much as the males, then too bad for them, it's not "chauvinist" to assume that women have physically weaker upper bodies, it's a simple fact of sexual dimorphism.On the other hand, I'm not going to pretend that SWMs don't have certain advantages, either. In New England, there are a lot of WASPs here who come from old money, and they get EVERYTHING handed to them, but I believe that's more about their last name and bank account than their skin color...or lack of as the case would be.Another thing is racial profiling. Yeah, pulling over a black guy because he's driving a nice car is messed up, screening those of Arab descent at airports with a little extra care, yeah...too bad. If it were Irish nuns who were the ones who attacked us then they'd get singled out too. Your typical serial killer profile lists that the killer is very likely to be white. Is that racist? I don't think so, because most of them are white. Try tacking another skin color to any other crime though...I know that in Poland, you're Polish and that's that. Doesn't matter if you arrived yesterday from Hungary, if you're grandparants moved from Zimbabwe 50 years ago or anything else; you're Polish, end of story.

[Ragamuffin]

My first though when I saw this was that some of the most racist people I've met were blacks. There was an almost underlying assumption that if you were white, you just HAD to hate them. I also can't help but cringe a bit when I see something like BET (Black Entertainment Television for those who don't know). While it's okay for them, if there were a WET (heh, white that is) channel, then you know that there'd be trouble.

Haha yeah, I bring this point up with a lot of people, and their response is usually "that's what the rest of the channels are for."

As an aside, I've heard one issue with the racisim debate is that a minority demographic can't technically be racist. The argument was that prejudice alone isn't enough to be considered racist. For someone to be considered truely racist, it had to be a combination of prejudice plus power. Therefore, since in the US anyway, caucasians traditionally held power, only caucasians could ever be truly racist. My side question to this was whether or not this held true in areas where minority demographics were the majority.

Well, I will agree that it takes more than prejudice to be racist, but power has nothing to do with racism; it is the belief that your ethnicity/skin color is inherently superior to another or all others.Also, many Americans (and Europeans for that matter) tend to forget that whites aren't the global majority, the Chinese are, and they hold a massive amount of power over many countries, including America in certain respects. So, if you really wanted to get technical, by the opposition's logic, whites can't be racist either.

Can't agree with you enough on this. In some ways it's a slap in the face to both parties. You're telling those who make the initial requirments that there's no reason for them to be as good as they are, other than because of reverse discrimination. For those who require the lower requirments, it's almost as if you're telling them that we know you could never be good enough anyway, but we need to make our quota.

There's been a lot of that going on around here the past few years. Boston is trying to become the east coast version of San Fransisco, so like them they're passing over higher qualified people (of all colors, but mostly white) and hiring unqualified people. Let's say someone gets a 95 on the fireman's exam, and another, probably a foreigner, gets a 65. Guess which one is will get hired?

Honestly, I don't think they can be. (I'm having trouble thinking how exactly I want to phrase this next part, so please bear with me). I think people are too concerned with giving the same opportunities to everyone, regardless or not they have actually earned it/can afford it/could succed in it/etc. We're so concerned with making all opportunities available to everyone that we forget that we should play to our strengths and not our weaknesses. People have to learn that just because someone may be better than them at something, that they themselves aren't better at something else. Instead, they try to force themselves into a path that, as much as they may desire it, they're not suited for. Until you can get people to realize that there's no shame in doing what you're good at/living in a place you can afford/attending a college that you've made the grade for, even if it's not a prestigious as what you would like, I don't think you will ever generate true equal rights.Equal rights to me doesn't mean equal opportunities to me. It means equal respect because you're a fellow human being, even if you are different than me.

The last line sums it up perfectly. You can't be equal if you're having things handed to you or taken away based on a statistic or guilt. I love the logic people use to justify some things, such as illegal immigration. "Well, we're all immigrants, so why should we turn them away?" Well, how about the fact that the natives weren't a superpower, or had 320 million legal citizens, unemployment, class division and health care to worry about? I'm not saying that the colonists had a right to do what they did to the natives, but at the same time, it's apples and oranges.But, the old slavery chestnut gets me the most. "YOU should feel guilty because of what your ancestors did." Umm, why? First, most white families today weren't even here at the time of slavery. Second, what of the whites back then who were against it? Third, only a small percentage of people had slaves. Fourth, and I've mentioned this before, there were also white and Chinese slaves (railroads, anyone?), and black slave masters. Fifth, there's nothing I can do about what happened 130 years before I was born. Finally, acting as if you suffered through slavery or pretending to understand it only cheapens what happened back when.

Completly random story time. I've got some Polish ancestry and a Polish surname to go with it. My grandpa (same surname) visited Poland with a group of scientists back during the cold war. He almost didn't get to leave the country because the border guards were convinced that he was trying to escape with all the American scientists. Oops.