Political Correctness: Make a Judgment

Yes. And worse than that. I believe snood called Condi Aunt Jemima and Colin, Uncle Tom. It was the longest string of personally directed racial slurs on A2K if I'm not mistaken.

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The N Word: Usual Suspects Gather for Cameras. Just Say No to Seinfeld...

I just keep wishing they'd marshall their resources to actually do something worthwhile.

Do you know one day in my Eng 3000 class (intro to the Eng major--a class of 200 people), there was only one black student?

Hold a press conference about THAT. Do something about that!

<broils>

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hey lash...how are ya doin? And how's it going in your studies? I am tickled pink you're still grinding away. What degree are you heading towards? What's turning your crank?

Whatever else one believes these folks ought to be doing, this public and publicized gathering seems necessary to me. We aren't yet at equality (see the discussion on Obama...can a black man have a chance?) and the problem reaches far past one comic's huge miscalculation.

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I've seen the Obama discussion (hi!) and I think he has a quite good chance.

I just get pissed when black people (or white people) in positions to make substantive improvements in the lives of black Americans stand around fussing about words. If they would harness their power and, say, research the actual reasons black students are so poorly equipped for college--I'd applaud them--and work with them.

I wish someone would get started on identifying the barriers, so we could get busy knocking them down.

I think the press conference was stupid.

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Lash, I appreciate your frustration. But I'm afraid that political leaders must attend to the "expressive" needs of their constituents as much as to their "instrumental" needs. One would think that enlightened people would want, as you do, to focus on matters of substance and ignore the "fluff." But if one did that he would soon be out of political office.

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Lash, I appreciate your frustration. But I'm afraid that political leaders must attend to the "expressive" needs of their constituents as much as to their "instrumental" needs. One would think that enlightened people would want, as you do, to focus on matters of substance and ignore the "fluff." But if one did that he would soon be out of political office.

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I appreciate your comment, JLN. I wouldn't mind them holding press conferences about fluff if I thought they were in any way actually addressing substance.

I say they aren't.

That's why the frustration. There is so much to do--and the time is ripe for moving forward.

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I never saw this thread before so I'm a little late to the whole tarbaby thing. I think cases like the DC official who used the word niggardly, and the tarbaby thing (when Tony Snow said it, and again when Mitt said it) are just a little bit over the top. The poor DC guy, as I remember, was actually really good at his job and it was a huge loss to the the local government to lose him, all because he dared to assume that everyone in the room with him knew how to use a dictionary, or perhaps had as large a vocabulary as he had. Everyone must know that tarbaby, even if it has an offensive meaning, has an unoffensive meaning, and that using context you can decide whether or not to be offended. And that's just it, we all get to decide whether or not to be offended, and some of us have a hard time backing down from knee jerk sensitivities. As I recall, that's what happened in the DC case. The guy used the word in the perfectly correct context, there was an uproar, then he had to explain, no niggardly actually means something else, and then those who reacted had to react to basically being called stupid (even though that wasn't the intent) and so the uproar became louder because the only thing worse than being caught in ignorance is being caught in ignorance publicly, and on and on until the poor guy resigned.

So in essence, I pretty much agree with Lash for the most part. I do think there reaches a point where a word's effective meaning can overcome its actual meaning, and when that happens we really have no choice but to accept the new meaning and come up with new ways to express ourselves without it.

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Lash

But how much do you or I know about what the people in that press conference have been doing quite out of sight from us? Church groups, community groups, etc? I don't think we can assume an absence of other activities and it seems probable to me these folks are among those who have spent much of their time in such activities. I don't know for sure, of course.

I understand your impatience with concentration on words. This was a popular (even faddish) preoccupation within feminist theory/activism when I was at university and I thought it simplistic and greatly overweighted when attributed as cause for social problems and forwarded as effective solution.

But what happened with Richards in his performance permits an opportunity for the black community to focus our attention on the racism which still attends our society. As such, I don't mind it and would very likely do exactly the same thing in their position.

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FreeDuck wrote:

I never saw this thread before so I'm a little late to the whole tarbaby thing. I think cases like the DC official who used the word niggardly, and the tarbaby thing (when Tony Snow said it, and again when Mitt said it) are just a little bit over the top. The poor DC guy, as I remember, was actually really good at his job and it was a huge loss to the the local government to lose him, all because he dared to assume that everyone in the room with him knew how to use a dictionary, or perhaps had as large a vocabulary as he had. Everyone must know that tarbaby, even if it has an offensive meaning, has an unoffensive meaning, and that using context you can decide whether or not to be offended. And that's just it, we all get to decide whether or not to be offended, and some of us have a hard time backing down from knee jerk sensitivities. As I recall, that's what happened in the DC case. The guy used the word in the perfectly correct context, there was an uproar, then he had to explain, no niggardly actually means something else, and then those who reacted had to react to basically being called stupid (even though that wasn't the intent) and so the uproar became louder because the only thing worse than being caught in ignorance is being caught in ignorance publicly, and on and on until the poor guy resigned.

So in essence, I pretty much agree with Lash for the most part. I do think there reaches a point where a word's effective meaning can overcome its actual meaning, and when that happens we really have no choice but to accept the new meaning and come up with new ways to express ourselves without it.

Well said FD.

But the problem of 'having to come up with new ways to express ourselves' is okay in moderation. But at some point where do we say enough? How much can we allow the 'offensive' and the 'offended' to hijack the language and force us to forego the traditional definition of words and accept the new racially et al charged ones?

I don't understand why more people aren't rejecting the attempt to use words, phrases, imagery, etc. to separate us by race, ethnicity, etc. and rather demand that we all celebrate our individual contributions to the human race, but that we are all part of it.

I get really really tired of the huge chips some people carry on their shoulder regarding all sorts of things. Sometimes I think it is better to resist that instead of capitulating to it.

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Frankly, i'm surprised this thread has gotten this much mileage. We had this "tarbaby" discussion quite a while ago.

I also strongly suspect that Lash gets a thrill from discussions such as this. I think i'll not encourage her and bow out with this comment.

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What a bunch of gabachos.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I don't understand why more people aren't rejecting the attempt to use words, phrases, imagery, etc. to separate us by race, ethnicity, etc. and rather demand that we all celebrate our individual contributions to the human race, but that we are all part of it.

I get really really tired of the huge chips some people carry on their shoulder regarding all sorts of things. Sometimes I think it is better to resist that instead of capitulating to it.

This is the legacy left to us by our forefathers. We just have to work through it and let enough time pass to where we can get past the sensitivity. As it is, it was just 50 years ago that it would have been perfectly acceptable to hang a black man from a tree for whistling at a white woman. There's just no way you can go from that to brotherly love in the span of less than half a century. We just need to breath and keep talking.

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Instead of 'tar' use 'gum'. It is just as sticky I assure you and it is grey but Singaporeans may be mad as discarded chewing gums are not welcome other than the garbage can. Gumbaby!

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FreeDuck wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

I don't understand why more people aren't rejecting the attempt to use words, phrases, imagery, etc. to separate us by race, ethnicity, etc. and rather demand that we all celebrate our individual contributions to the human race, but that we are all part of it.

I get really really tired of the huge chips some people carry on their shoulder regarding all sorts of things. Sometimes I think it is better to resist that instead of capitulating to it.

This is the legacy left to us by our forefathers. We just have to work through it and let enough time pass to where we can get past the sensitivity. As it is, it was just 50 years ago that it would have been perfectly acceptable to hang a black man from a tree for whistling at a white woman. There's just no way you can go from that to brotherly love in the span of less than half a century. We just need to breath and keep talking.

I can appreciate that, but it isn't just in the area of racism that makes this phenomena a problem. "Tarbaby", for instance, isn't a biggie for me or part of my every day vocabulary by any means, but it was a particularly poignant graphic illustration, coined by a black man whom I was raised to regard quite fondly. It was in no way intended to be racist in any way. I don't personally 'need' the word to express myself, but I resent the ignorant making it into something that it never was and heaping condemnation on those who use the term correctly.

Those with the chips on their shoulders, no matter what race, ethnic group, gender, etc. etc. etc. they are, are a large component of the ones who keep prejudice and all the ugly 'isms alive and well and in the front of everybody's mind. And I think that's what is preventing us from working through it.

The battle for equality has been won on almost all fronts. Of course racism, sexism, etc. etc. etc. still exists but it is no longer acceptable in general society. Yes we should be ever vigilant to recognize and correct pockets of injustice and/or inequality that still exist. Of course there are words that are intended to be offensive and these should not be condoned by anybody when used in ways that can hurt or maliciously demean others.

But we need to be celebrating the equality and justice achieved and talking about that and stop re-creating the climate of 'us' and 'them' by getting offended and/or irate at innocuous use of words that we personally don't like. That's the way to keep soothing the sensitivities and making the inequalities and negative -isms an interesting component of negative history left behind instead of being billed as the present reality. Let's focus on that for awhile.

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The fact is, though, that even if racism were dead now (which it isn't in a great many areas of the country) the legacy of it remains. The memory of it remains. The thing is, it's not like something you can just turn off and everything suddenly is made right. Freeing the slaves didn't make them equal. Freeing them didn't turn them into people who had never been slaves. Restoring civil rights to blacks didn't all of a sudden make their lives just like white people's lives. Restoring their rights didn't turn them into people who had never been terrorized or treated like dogs. And it didn't turn whites into people who didn't think they were naturally superior to blacks. I'm just saying that these problems stem from our history and we have to keep working, person by person. It's easy to say, well, they just shouldn't be offended in the first place, they shouldn't have a chip on their shoulder. Maybe not, but they do, and so we have to work forward from there and not use that as an excuse to think of it as someone else's problem. You can't just say, well, racism's over now so what's your problem? (Well, you can, but it's not very useful.) And the fact is that it's not over. The effects of racism still linger.

Look, one of the good things to come of that Kramer rant was that black leaders started pressuring the entertainment industry about the n-word. The n-word is actually very similar to "tarbaby" in the sense that it has an offensive use and a non-offensive use. All I'm saying is that these little spats that we don't like -- and I'm agreeing that it's absurd to expect people not to use words just because some people take offensive at the word over and above its intended meaning -- these little spats give us opportunity for conversation, and that's just part of the process. It's not comfortable where we are, for sure, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was 40 or 50 years ago.

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Good post, FreeDuck.

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blatham wrote:

Lash

But how much do you or I know about what the people in that press conference have been doing quite out of sight from us? Church groups, community groups, etc? I don't think we can assume an absence of other activities and it seems probable to me these folks are among those who have spent much of their time in such activities. I don't know for sure, of course.

Hi. I only see what they focus on and the results--or lack of--in areas that matter. I wish they'd put together a press conference on research into what is contributing to the real problems in the black community.
I understand your impatience with concentration on words. This was a popular (even faddish) preoccupation within feminist theory/activism when I was at university and I thought it simplistic and greatly overweighted when attributed as cause for social problems and forwarded as effective solution.
I don't miss your intention here Things needed to be said by feminist activists and black activists. There was a time for kicking up dust and fighting over words when they have proven to be deleterious--and that is still appropriate--hand in hand with real, substantial work to improve life.

But what happened with Richards in his performance permits an opportunity for the black community to focus our attention on the racism which still attends our society. As such, I don't mind it and would very likely do exactly the same thing in their position.

Yes. We seem to agree. This focus in addition to focus on substantive problems would be fine with me, as well.

FD--

Two great posts! Glad you showed up.

Setanta--

The thread was based on reaction to Mitt Romney's use of tarbaby--and the odd difference in reaction to dlowan's use of the same word. I did get a thrill out of some of the discussion--as it broke new ground among members and exposed some truth regarding the use of words to bash people whose political views we don't like.

I didn't rehash the tarbaby issue. I wanted to discuss the recent uproar about Richards and it fit the title of the thread. I imagine when things like Richards' "N word" fiasco and other public figures saying things deemed offensive hit the news, I'll bring them up on this thread, as well.

I can't understand why you chose to make your post about me. It should be easy to follow the progression of events. I am unrepentently interested in what I refer to as political correctness--words--usage--evolution of meaning.

I really appreciate everyone who has shared their opinion. Very Happy

Political Correctness: Make a Judgment

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