Political Correctness.
 

I know I may starting something here that could see my reputation slide faster than greased sledge in a very high ice mountain but here goes.

There have been a lot of threads on here on that have had people attacking "the PC Brigade" or saying The PC lot won't like this but...

Personally I do not believe the PC brigade exist, neither does Political Correctness. In my viewpoint what you are saying is Political Correctness in most forms is respecting the wishes of others and not insulting them.

If for example we find something insulting we mention it and complain and we say "didn't they even think before doing it?" Well what is the problem of us thinking first before acting and insulting someone.

I'm not talking about rewriting history, I think it is fantastic the way we have developed as a nation and been able to absorb so many cultures. These have mainly enriched our lives and enable a wide and more varied viewpoint to be taken over a lot of aspects of our daily lives.

If you start a statement with "The PC Brigade won't like this but...." Just takes me back to the seventies/eighties when people used to say "I'm not a racist but.." or "I don't hate gays but...".

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Well said... but your right this post will get you hated by many.

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surprised me that stan, are you on the same planet?:p

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I don't hate you for having a view...everyone is entitled to their opinion......and there are many differing opinions.
I agree to some of the things you say, but I do think that political correctness stilts some relationships and prevents people from sometimes saying what they really mean. Calling a spade a spade. If you say exactly what you mean then no-one is in any doubt about what you have said....pussyfooting about, and trying not to cause offence to anyone gets in the way of some messages.
We have to be able to put our point across eloquently, sometimes this will cause offence because people have become more sensitised to what they perceive as slights...when in actual fact they are not at all.
Personally I prefer people who tell it like it is. The truth is the truth...and sometimes the truth is painful.

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Oh and before someone shoots me down in flames, I would like to say that my maxim in life is to 'Treat people how you would want to be treated yourself'......I try always to be courteous and respectful. That is how we were brought up

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I do believe it exists and that people are a brigade for it. I have no objection to curtousy good manners and respect to others but hate it rammed down my throught. Some may feel it protects them but others hate it when they are in the same boat but its ok for them to take the crud that is usually prevented by PC because they are not of a certain "label" and I have copped a load of it while up here.

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I too hate the term 'the Poitically Correct Brigade'. Referring to it as if it is an actual body, something you can sign up and join like the Boy's Brigade.

Political correctness was started by a few American academics, at east coast universities in the late seventies/early eighties. It's primary concern was to change the way some words, and names, were used prejudicially, with the intent to hurt. Initally a noble cause.

Now it's just a term used by lazy journalists, to report breathlessy about anything which signifies a perceived change for the worse, and to my mind is a fairly meaningless term.

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It is not surprising that political correctness grew up in the US. One could argue that it is a wider application of euphemism. The perception that some common words are inapproriate in themselves, that they are somehow impolite or insulting regardless of how they are used is an aspect of a country which grew up conservative and more than a little puritanical. The idea of correctness is ousting some harmless and useful words; "second hand" is now no longer appropriate. "Previously owned" is Ok, and so is "Previously enjoyed" (unless it is applied to a divorced woman). I'm sure everyone can think of more. But it is not words which are offensive, but people and contexts.

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All in all its bonkers. When will they realise that as G has comented before that all people are individuals and therefore we are capable of not insulting insinuating propigating trouble by our actions.

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Oh yes they do, they are people who dress in funny clothes and the last thing they respect is the wishes of others!;)

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Spot on.. no such or organisation as the "PC brigade" exists and there is no need for such an organisation.
If a section of our society take offence to being called/labelled in a particular way e.g "pakis" or "nigger" or even "yankee"?... unless you are intent in causing offence why would anyone persist in discribing people in these terms? it boils down to basic manners.

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of coarse there is no such organisation,its a term used by media etc to describe odiuos pricks in society, who also happen to think they are such,as far as bad manners using those terms cant see it mancie,worked for 23 years with mainly asian men (many are still mates) who in the main addressed each other as "that "pak1" over there,n i used to call most em "stan" its not bad manners to me,its just mates making light of the daft crap that some people make it.;)

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OK Cashy.. how long ago was that?.. I'm saying that if you knew people did not liked to be called a **** or nignog would you persist in calling them by that name?...manners cost nowt my son.. PC brigade or not

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Yes, but if one loony (non-PC, appologies to all loonies) on a council comes up with an idea to call Christmas 'Winterfest', the press jump on it, and conjure up this big massive conspiracy theory, that there is an organised attempt to undermine the very fabric of society.

There have always been a few people with a few mad ideas, all this PC brigade nonesense just whips up hysteria, like there is some sinister plot. There isn't, just a few nutters who are being given a wider audience because of all this.

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only 8 years n they still do it know, n no obviously if someone didnt like it i'd just take the mick for being a tart.:D

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As I said earlier, the inital idea was noble, and to help stop discrimination.

Instead of nigger/coloured/darkie/coon read black. Instead of queer/faggot/puff/bender read gay. Instead of spaz/biff/freak/cripple read less able bodied.

The concept was initally good, it just went too far, and the press love whipping up their readers with the notion that soon they'll be unable to call a spade a spade, which is rubbish.

I'm not politcally correct by the way. I'm happy being a shaking, honky, old ginger.:D

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oh n just another point, which i'm sure either "spinner" or "mani" will verify, the pakistanis n the bangladeshis slag each other off far more than stuff like that,the only thing i dont know is why? one was East Pakistan n the other West Pakistan not that many decades ago, its always puzzeled me as to why they are so vitriolic to each other.:confused:

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It's a cultural, religious thing about their nearest, and not so dearest neighbours. A bit like a lot of people are on this forum, about the French.;)

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It was all India before 1947 cashy, Pakistan was invented by Jinna who split and caused all the trouble.:confused:
As for Yorkshire willow, us Yorkshiremen were sent over here to breed some sense into you Lancastrians.:D

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us yorkshire women too ianto :D:Banane23:

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Nice to know i'm in good company.:D

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All Yorkist are welcome here... may have been different but we won the war .. and so you are welcome as we respect "losers"

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If your referring to the war of the roses youv'e got your sums wrong.:confused:

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yeh i know ian, but it was east/west for 20 odd yrs after,it was all india, n they are worse than the east/west for slagging off em, the politically correct folk would "top therselves" over there trying to preach to them.:D;)

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Tell you what Cashy, I wish one of them PC people would come out of the 'closet', I'd love a good argument with them.;)

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No sums wrong Ianto.. the battle of Bosworth decided it.. the victor was Henry Tudor the Lancastrian.... who defeated Richard the turd..yorkist

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Henry Tudor was as Lancastrian as the Queen of Tonga's t**s. The Duke of Buckingham had a better claim than he had.:eek:

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Not much P C going on in Congo/ Brazzaville

BBC NEWS | Africa | Pygmy artists housed in Congo zoo

:eek: :eek:

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Get over it Eric.. you got done in the end..and Henry married some york slut to create the RED and white rose of the Tudors.. Yorkshire got done good "n" proper

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'funny' how she made such a deep impression on a whole generation, ask a question ....."what do you remember of the Coronation ?" and invariably the answer is Queen Salote (sp?) ;) ;)

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No she wasn't spanish:D:D:D But: just because Henry V's widow decided to try some time in the sack with Owen Glendower does not produce a legitimate Lancastrian line. (Henry V's claim to the thro' John of Gaunt is pretty shakey too. If Edward III had kept it in his pants a little more the problem would not have arisen.:D)

The only successful politically correct position in the late middle ages was to support the meanest son of a bitch with the biggest sword.

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You can..........I'ts called the Labour Party.

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By the 'Labour Party' I take it you mean the 'hug-a-hoodie' New Conservative Party, rather than New Labour?

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Labour/New Labour, still a bunch of dollopers.
I hug nobody's hoodie.

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Political correctness is more of a concept than anything else.

Of course, it's just general niceness to be polite to everyone and if we all did that there would be no such thing as PC. Unfortunately, not everyone is as polite as we would hope - think back to the 70s and 80s when no one thought there was anything wrong with Irish jokes and the Black and White Minstrel show - sometimes we're inconsiderate without meaning to be rude but surely most people can see now how these could cause offence.

I work quite often with BME groups and there are a couple of people who I call my 'cultural ambassadors' as they don't mind if I ask them daft questions - they do the same in return. I was once told by a friend that there was no way that I could offend her because she knew that the question that I was asking was out of ignorance and not a desire to offend.

I think we've got to a point where we're so afraid to ask or cause offence that we actually do it unintentionally.

As for Winterfest - devout Muslims I know were just as horrified as Christians were by that because devout religious people, on the whole, accept other religious people as kindred spirits even if it's a different religion.

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The point I was trying to make was that political correctness is really just manners. Statements like "play the white man" "I didn't come over on the last banana boat" and "mind your backs boys".

Not funny not clever and just insulting.

Things like not calling Christmas, Easter et al by their correct names is just plain stupid and not political correctness but just some numpties taking one idea a lot too far.

Multiculturalism is accepting everybodies culture as well as your own not at the expense of your own.

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Stanaccy...I like your last sentence and I think it is very relevant...but as far as saying that some of the phrases you have quoted are insulting and harmful......they are just cliches that are the currency of everyday speech and we should not be taking offence at them, unless of course they are used
pointedly (I'm not sure if you get what I mean by that....but if you were to say to a group of non-white people 'play the white man'...then they might take offence....but then again they might not...it all depends on the situation and the circumstances). I think it is so easy to cause offence by pussy footing around so that the people you are trying NOT to offend, realise that YOU see them as different. Differences should be accepted and celebrated. Multiculturalism has done more to harm relationships within communities than anything else, because some of the methods employed have meant that other cultures have been celebrated at the expense of our own

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And I don't think that I should have to accept someone else's culture......the fact that they are allowed to celebrate their culture says a lot about us in this country.
I have no wish to celebrate Eid/Yom Kippur/Ramadan/Diwali or any other religions festivals, but I have no qualms about those who do want to celebrate them, to do so.

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I think it is both patronising, and divisive, that we apparently have three salaried posts on Hyndburn Borough Council, whose primary concern is the welfare of ethnic minorities, and it drives me insane to have a language other than English on both their website and all other offical documents.

Community Advice Centre

I would also levy the same criticism if HBC employed a designated women's/gay and lesbian/elderly or young person's officer. Community should be about being all inclusive, and not as stated earlier, divisive.

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Language does not have to be divisive. Altho' there are still murmurings about separatism in Quebec, it seems like the issue has cooled off significantly. It is possible to be all inclusive and still recognize a large highly populated region of one's country as a "distinct society." Not easy, but possible ...

However, I do have to admit that the French were here before the English. And the First Nations people predate the French. Because we Canadians are constantly in the process of reinventing our country, it makes for a healthy committed society. If being Canadian were as easy as breathing, it would be boring.

By the way, it might be an idea if your municipal govt. offered services in dialect:)

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Like I said before Mancie we Yorkshiremen were sent over here to breed some common sense into you Lancastrians, but we can't be expected to get it right all of the time, there are those that slip through the net:D.

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Ha ha, I recall someone asking who was the funny looking little indian chap sitting in the carriage with the Queen of Tonga on the way to Westminster Abbey, to which someone replied "Her lunch!"

Not very PC, but very funny, or at least it was at the time. Context is everything. And , moreover, I am sure that the Queen of Tonga would have seen the joke too.

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I disagree Margaret with regards statements, you may mean one thing when you say it but whether it is insulting or not depends on the recipient and how the statement is perceived. Which is why I am saying Political Correctness in its purest form is down to basic respect and manners.

If you said something to somebody and they found it insulting I am sure you and most people on this site would apologise beginning the apology with "Sorry I didn't mean it like that" and then in furure be a bit more careful about how it was phrased. In some areas this is seen as "being PC". Hogwash it's basic good manners.

Multiculturalism is not an evil. It's about acceptingdifferences and finding out more about them. FFS If we hadn't embraced parts of other cultures in the past we wouldn't be eating Sweet and sour dishes or curries, wearing jeans or moccassins.

The main problem with councils and goverment agencies is that due to the fear of offending they have pushed it too far and are dismantling our culture at the expense of others, rther than embracing them all and celebrating the diverse communities we have.

I agree the pendulum has swung too far and it needs redressing however we have to be careful when it comes to rebalancing and not push it too far the other way.

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Stanaccy - isn't that what I said...maybe not in the same words, but essentially.....I said it depends on circumstances and situations....and also your own relationships with the people to whom the cliche was used.
Multiculturalism is like the Emperor's new clothes.....we have been bamboozled into thinking it was good for us and for the ethnic minorities(and I don't just mean the Asian population here) when in actual fact it has done harm to communities by singling them out as different.
And I don't agree that we would never have tried the different culinary delights of other nations - the advent of global travel has meant that people are more exposed to different foods and cultures....though personally I do not have any kind of longing for foreign food, be that Pizza or curry...give me the stuff I can identify.
I agree that there has been much dismantling of our own culture, and I think it is seen with suspicion - this cannot be good for the ethnic minoities it was supposed to help....you see when most people in this region mention ethnic minority, Asian is the only ethnic minority that is recognised....and there are many other minorities that need to be accepted.

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Margaret I speak from experience living in an area of London close to Lunar House (Then Main calling point for immigrants in this caountry).

In the area I lived 147 different languages were spoken.I said it depends on the recipient as to what you say wheter it be offensive or not.

Benefits of Multiculturism include (in no particular order) discovering how people celebrate different festivals (take Mardis Gras for instance, what we know as Shrove Tuesday) Notting Hill Carnival, The Mela, music, foods, clothing, generally everything we do, eat and wear has come from other cultures.

There is no such thing as Englishness we are an amalgam of different cultures following different invasions, be it Roman, Anglo Saxons, Norse, French etc. Unless there aare people on here who can trace their origins back beyond the Celts. The great thing about British and English culture is it picks the best of others and amalgamates it.

It is part of our heritage that we accept differences and celebrate them and include them,e.g. Christmas trees, Easter Eggs, pancakes, fireworks etc.

I love my country as well but we have to accept our culture has always been fluid and it is not wrong to accept new aspects but as I said earlier not at the expense of our old ones.

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Terribly, terribly "Un-PC" quote from Noel Coward.

Queen Salote, who was a very large lady indeed, rode through London in an open carriage. Beside her was a very small man. Someone asked Coward who the little man was, to which Coward replied,
"That's her lunch."

;)

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I don't really think it needed multiculturalism to teach us about the difference between races...and I think I mentioned that I have no qualms about people celebrating their heritage and their culture.......and I also accept that there is no pure English/British nation. I worked in the NHS along side people of different culture and creeds, it never presented a problem because we are tolerant.......and to be honest I don't think you can legislate for tolerance.......when you do legislate to such an end, it drives the intolerant underground where they make mischief.

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These are two very pertinent statements.

We accept all sorts of things into our culture without even thinking about it - coffee houses, trick or treat, french fries, soccer, etc. But I think the reason they are accepted so easily is because of TV - American TV programmes come over here and use these references to a point where we just accept them. Ask any kid which number they should call in an emergency and I'll bet a fair share of them say 911. But this isn't a criticism, it's a good thing that we absorb and evolve. Perhaps, the more simple reason why asian based things aren't absorbed so easily is because we are always going to have that language barrier - for instance, I'm not going to sit down and watch a Bollywood film because I wouldn't understand it.

Multicultural things can easily be absorbed without losing the current culture. Traditions are traditions and should be maintained.

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yes, Willow, and I think I alluded to that fact in a previous post......i suppose it could even be called pussy footing:)

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You can do that with no problem.......It's when it is shortened it causes offence.

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I think we have it because it encompasses the many differing people and cultures from the Asian sub-continent......although as you say, when we say Asian we usually are referring to Pakistanis/Bangladeshi'/Indians

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I would assume that that is PC. Crackers is'nt it?

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beats me think its stupid n errodes peoples identity. which i am sure the differant races are very proud of.

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Asian is just a general term - in the same way as European.
South Asian is often used to denote Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Indian. Again, that's like calling Polish people Eastern Europeans.

It's just location, not religion! No one is offended by being called Asian, just as we aren't offended by being called European.

Although, they sometimes should be, in my opinion - as it's used to describe ethnic origin, which is defining people by their skin colour and their parents heritage and not always the place that they were born. For example, why should my friend be described as Asian when he's rarely been there and was born in Lancashire?

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I'm very proud to be called Europ'Ian';)

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dont think its about offence more preferance, i prefer to be known as "English" not European or British, neither offend me but its what i prefer.

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your friend should be described as either, what he/she prefers- has preferance been eroded by all these "buzz" words? it seems so to me.

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i watched some of the show - found it funny

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What show was that mrjdallen:confused:

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there was a Political Correctness comedy show on the other night think it might have been friday on freeview as i was flicking through

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Thank's no doubt it will be on again.

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Clive Anderson presents a countdown of the 50 most outrageous moments from the TV archives. He looks back at a series of clips of questionable taste and potentially offensive material from the last five decades, which have seen Britain grow increasingly politically correct. Featuring clips from Benny Hill, Borat and the Carry On films

50 Questions of Political Correctness
Tonight - SKY THREE 10PM to 12AM

i was worth a watch - think i will tape it tonight and watch the bits i missed. Hope thats helped.

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Benny Hill and Carry On offensive? Wow, things must have changed. Whenever I think of British humor, I think of Benny Hill and Sid James ... and Tony Hancock.

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you wouldnt realise whats deemed offensive here, nowadays Eric, its got so petty its unreal, crime to have a good sense of humour.:( if memory serves me well,Benny Hill,was ended because it was to risque.

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I second that Cashy..........I have had so many Red Cards (Annon) in the past few days I realise now it must be a crime.

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The simple solution to all ths politically correct nonsense is to do what I do and insult everyone. No one can then accuse you of being prejudiced or partial to anyone or anything.

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Tealeaf yer a star,great phylosophy.;)

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:eek: and to think that I once fancied you :eek:
(many many years ago -- when you had hair and I had teeth :D)

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Sits with mouth tightly clamped, so I don't blurt out the reason Margaret told me why she thought Teabag resisted her ample charms.:o:D

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LOL - your lips had better stay sealed or you might be missing teeth too at the next meet :D

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Surely some of you are missing the point
Being careful not to offend someone with what you say is just using common sense and good manners.
Political Correctness is slightly different in that it describes the way in which a minority of do-gooders dictate to everybody else what they think we should or shouldn't be allowed to say and because they claim to be representing a minority and use a big voice they get their own way.
So not calling someone a derogatory, racist name is common sense and good manners whereas stopping the use of the word blackboard is Political Correctness.

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