Shaq, Yao and Race

Nimh,
...Your post was right on point. I realized the esscence of what you're saying, about 30 years ago. I read and article about a mayor of a small town in Florida, who the official name of manhole covers, changed to "personhole" covers. I was disgusted to think an allegedly intelligent person could take the focus off the real issue of womens rights.

Excellent post, nimh. "Political Correctness" masks symptoms, doing nothing to acknowledge, let alone combat, the underlying disease.



timber

There's another thread about PC around here someplace, good stuff there -- can hunt it down if you'd like.

I totally agree that there's problems with PC. Of course. But I don't accept the either/or equation -- address expression or address root causes. I think it's a matter of what can be controlled, for one, and the relative simplicity, for another. One can certainly push for social programs, publish thoughtful essays, etc., and one should. But what kind of effects does that have, and how quickly?

I think that being careful about using hurtful words is a simple, short-term action that can be taken, and that that is not necessarily a bad thing. Again, of course there's the "personhole" ridiculousness, the taking away a perfectly reasonable book ridiculousness. (Can anyone name any general social trend which is entirely free of ridiculousness? But I digress.)

But I think it is too dismissive to say it is an American obsession with the surface, or that we think that "by hiding the word, the problem will dissapear," or "a cover-up." There is a fairly straightforward issue -- that word has a long, horrible history. Use it and many people will feel hurt. Why use it?

Failing to use the word does not mean that one need not think about or take action to rectify the many other wrongs there are in terms of race in America. Failing to use the word does not mean that (other) racist behavior and structures are not attacked. You make lots of good points, to be sure, but I don't see why it has to be one or the other.

Sozobe,
...It's just a matter of going too far. Intelligent people have to know how seriously to regard nomenclature before you lose sight of the esscence. Of course I wouldn't stand for "the big N", but I would feel silly worrying about, colored, or negro. In certain contexts I can even accept "Boy". (But that's cutting it close, it helps if you're old and southern, and use a friendly tone. )

Yup. Agreed. I think nimh was talking about even the big "N", though. And I still think the either/ or thing is spurious.

But don't want to be too negative -- lotsa good stuff in his post.

Nimh - I see the sense in opposing the kind of PC that would stifle the kind of expression necessary for free exchange of though, i.e. your example of the teacher getting called on the carpet for exposing her students to the book with the 'n' word in the title.

But I hesitate to chime in alongside all those bewailing all PC as some foul tool of repression. I think sometimes the word PC is overused in contexts where 'common courtesy' would have fit better. Some of those on the right would then be heard moaning "Those idiots on the left and all their constant yammering about practicing common courtesy", and things would appear in perspective again.

That should have read. "...free exchange of thought..."

There ya go again. (Expect me to shamelessly steal the "common courtesy" line sometime soon... )

But c'mon folks,just think about it. A term like politically correct, had to be doomed from the start. Political has been a dirty word for a long time.

Ditto what soz said. Snood, I've long had a bone to pick with the anti-PC crowd. I swore I was going to start a topic on that but never got around to it.

PC is supposed to be about consideration, sure some cheesy or awkward terminology or situations arise but it's prefferable to the alternative.

Craven,...the intentions may be noble, but as soon as someone goes too far, that particular term makes it an easy target for ridicule.

I was talking about the N* word but in the context of that article I linked to, about the teacher. That is also where I brought in the notion of "cover up". It was the ultimate example of how PC can backfire, after all. The word itself becomes a bigger taboo than the issue it stands for, so that in the end a teacher, who wants to teach her students about the history of their country's racism as symbolised by the word "nigger", can not use a book written by a black professor on the history of that word in the same context, because the word itself has become taboo.

There's the cover-up, and also where the either/or thing comes in. I would have both: tackle the question of common courtesy in communication, of course, but simply for what it is - not as the political grail that has somewhere along the line taken the place of what once was a thriving civil rights and anti-racism movement. And at the same time keep on undertaking the fundamental (self-)analysis no matter what nasty news it might bring up. Because if it does - for example in that Boston play that apparently set out to highlight (the legacy of) "No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs" - that's because it's there and needs to be dealt with. Hushing it up in a near-Victorian insistence that nothing improper should ever be mentioned just makes it worse.

To my mind, the example shows how in two steps it is the PC movement itself that - largely unintentionally, I'm sure - created the either/or. First, by channeling all the anger and analysis on racism into the debate about its forms of expression and how to combat those - shifting the emphasis from structure to surface, from systemic criticism to questions of common courtesy - in a way, "verharmlosen" (making harmless) potentially confronting questions on the nation's history and society. (It's like turning a discussion on how much of the Dutch wealth has been acquired through its exploitation of colonised peoples and territories into a discussion on how, therefore, you're not allowed to speak about "Our Indies" anymore.) Then, by making the expression of racism itself a taboo subject, as the examples in the article showed - the taboo on the words illustrating racism eventually make it impossible to freely discuss racism itself.

Of course, I think that picking on PC should never be an excuse for anyone to just feel free to insult and put down. But I hope that will have been clear. Still, myself (talking about Holland), I'd rather have a List Fortuyn-supporter saying the most awful things and using bad words to talk about foreigners, but turning like a leaf on the tree when it's about his Turkish neighbour, or when he's confronted with a story of an individual asylum-seeker - than a conservative VVD-voter who will always be most civilised and will never say anything improper when "people of color" come up, but who'll be consistently strict (or merciless, if you will) on asylum-seekers, and who'd rather join with his neighbours in buying that villa than let it become some multicultural centre or refugee home.

Booman,

I agree and it's a pity. Because going too far to be polite is not nearly as bad as the opposite.

True Craven,
...And years ago, I decided I had to break myself of using certain words, and terms in closed conversations, so as not to slip-up, and hurt someone's feelings....I decided this one night when I was watching a boxing match on TV, with a homosexual neighbor, who's friendship I valued. At one point in the fight, I disgustedly exclaimed to (at?) one of the fighters on TV, "You Faggot!"....I was so....embarrassed. I knew then, there were some things I shouldn't even say, if I'm alone, if I don't want to hurt people.... You have to purge yourself, of the habit

You can't even say "retarded" anymore. It's "challenged". People aren't bald, they're "follically challenged".

And many of the folks that join me on my commute drive like they are retarded.

Same here, in High School I picked up the use of the word "gay" to denote "lame". I have since been trying to rid myself of this use of the word.

By the way, I don't think anyone uses "politically correct" as a GOOD thing -- I've been accused of being politically correct, but I wouldn't call myself that. Tried to find the origin of the phrase, and found this. Interesting! Excerpt:

Hmmmm - over here, it was much more a term used by the left - initially denoting actual POLITICAL lines - but became used to denote
speech which consciously or unconsciously was exclusive or derogatory.

But c'mon, don't some people make you want to strangle them?

I've actually seen this happen:

...Person A: "So I was talking to this chinese guy and-"
...Person B: "No,no,...Now it's Asian, you say Asian guy."