Political Crossfire Forums

[ubikk]

mathurin wrote:
if i had to pick the most accurate
negro
negroid
colored

but those are not PC now are they




No they aren't. When I was very young, my older relatives taught me to say "colored" and never use the "N" word. Because at first, I guess "colored" was considered a polite term and even preferred because really, everyone is colored to some extent or another. I think it was probably all the "Colored" signs in the segregated south that made the term impolite and perjorative over time.

"Negro" and "Negroid" are still scientific terms like "Caucasoid" and "Mongoloid", but they're only used correctly in limited academic circles and are to be avoided otherwise.

[thintheherd]

The adoption of political correctness labels is nothing more than the guilt of those people who may have hurled the antithesis as insults in the past.

No one has the right not to be offended. This must stop.

[ubikk]

thintheherd wrote: The adoption of political correctness labels is nothing more than the guilt of those people who may have hurled the antithesis as insults in the past.

No one has the right not to be offended. This must stop.

I basically agree. Ideally, people should just be "men" and "women" and things like skin color ignored.

The one problem is that when you still have some arbitrary group of people being systematically discriminated against because of their outward appearance or different culture, you need some way to refer to them in order to identify and solve the problem.

I remember a while ago when some big time NFL football coach or owner or someone was asked why there were so few black coaches. He replied that he didn't think there was discrimination in the NFL, but that they "weren't getting enough qualified black candidates". He got raked over the coals pretty well and may even have lost his job, but later when asked about it he explained that he was just trying to explain that the NFL was not getting enough black candidates because of discrimination at the highschool and college levels where they recruit a lot of coaches from. You have to be really, really careful how you say things.

[thintheherd]

ubikk wrote: thintheherd wrote: The adoption of political correctness labels is nothing more than the guilt of those people who may have hurled the antithesis as insults in the past.

No one has the right not to be offended. This must stop.

I basically agree. Ideally, people should just be "men" and "women" and things like skin color ignored.

The one problem is that when you still have some arbitrary group of people being systematically discriminated against because of their outward appearance or different culture, you need some way to refer to them in order to identify and solve the problem.

I remember a while ago when some big time NFL football coach or owner or someone was asked why there were so few black coaches. He replied that he didn't think there was discrimination in the NFL, but that they "weren't getting enough qualified black candidates". He got raked over the coals pretty well and may even have lost his job, but later when asked about it he explained that he was just trying to explain that the NFL was not getting enough black candidates because of discrimination at the highschool and college levels where they recruit a lot of coaches from. You have to be really, really careful how you say things.

And that's one of the biggest problems facing our country today. People have been taught that a mere descriptive term is discrimination.

Pathetic sheep, voluntarily infringing on their own first amendment rights. When will they learn...

[ieatfood]

for some reason, saying that someone is retarded is kinda funny
i dunno why, but it just is
its a funny word to use

[emerald]

i am very PC, i dont know why, but some things just make cringe, like this one. If a word makes someone upset of it is seen as insulting than i would rather just not use it, there are plenty of other words in the english language to use.

when i worked for a brief time with disabled adults, we would always refer to the students as having special needs. it's a nice term, it maybe very PC but it certainly goes down a lot better with students and their families than the word retarded, which sounds offensive and negative. and it is the children and adults with special needs and their families who are most important, in my opinion than whether a word is PC and whether everyone just happens to be sick of political correctness.

[perdidochas]

ubikk wrote: I notice the term "Retarded" has become more fashionable to use in casual conversation, particularly. For many years it was taboo to use this term because it related to "developmentally disabled" people and was thought to be offensive for that reason. Since "developmentally disabled" persons have not been called "retarded" in many years (a couple decades at least), the stigma or taboo seems to be wearing off.

In fact, if you remove the stigma, people are using it correctly a lot of the time. Calling something "retarded" literally means that it has been "slowed down", is "behind" or "set back" or is "hindering advancement" or "lacking advancement". When you "retard the timing" on a car, for example, you make the spark plug fire earlier in the cycle. The term "Ritardundo" in music means to slow down the tempo of the music and comes from the same Latin root.

I'm still schooled in the older method of avoiding the term, so it still makes me wince sometimes. Although I will admit that it is useful at times. Thoughts?

I avoid the term myself. However, in the special ed community, this term has gone away. It's now just like idiot or moron, just another insult.

[perdidochas]

The Comrade wrote: people aren't short they're vertically challenged. people aren't jerks they have intermitent explosive disorder.


being PC is like having the plague.

Being PC is simply politeness gone astray. Most of PC is just common sense. The extremes (like your example above) are of course ridiculous.

[perdidochas]

thintheherd wrote: The adoption of political correctness labels is nothing more than the guilt of those people who may have hurled the antithesis as insults in the past.

No one has the right not to be offended. This must stop.

True, but everybody does have the right to be offended.

[perdidochas]

emerald wrote: i am very PC, i dont know why, but some things just make cringe, like this one. If a word makes someone upset of it is seen as insulting than i would rather just not use it, there are plenty of other words in the english language to use.

when i worked for a brief time with disabled adults, we would always refer to the students as having special needs. it's a nice term, it maybe very PC but it certainly goes down a lot better with students and their families than the word retarded, which sounds offensive and negative. and it is the children and adults with special needs and their families who are most important, in my opinion than whether a word is PC and whether everyone just happens to be sick of political correctness.

I agree with you in general, the problem is that after a few years, the "nice" terms become offensive. For example, crippled was replaced with handicapped which was replaced with disabled which was replaced with physically challenged which is being replaced by differently abled. How much further can we go?

[gemma]

I am in emerald's camp, and even in perdidochas' camp. Again, I won't tell you you must use such-and-such word. Just offering an opinion to the OP, like he asked for. You'll never catch me say "Your retarded child is very sweet." It is simply used too nastily in most other contexts to make it acceptable to me in its accurate context.

[The Grandmaster]

The Comrade wrote: The Grandmaster wrote:

Yes, it's getting ridiculous, isn't it? Did you know you're not even supposed to call them mentally disabled anymore?? No, you are supposed to call them "consumers." How the f**k does that make sense? That word means something completely different already! It is getting to the point where we can't even communicate anymore. We've had to replace so many words with ridiculous sugar coated bulls**t that our words cease to have meaning.

we agree for once!

tis a miracle!

Indeed. This does not happen often.

[00timh]

The Grandmaster wrote: The Comrade wrote: people aren't short they're vertically challenged. people aren't jerks they have intermitent explosive disorder.

being PC is like having the plague.

Yes, it's getting ridiculous, isn't it? Did you know you're not even supposed to call them mentally disabled anymore?? No, you are supposed to call them "consumers." How the f**k does that make sense? That word means something completely different already! It is getting to the point where we can't even communicate anymore. We've had to replace so many words with ridiculous sugar coated bulls**t that our words cease to have meaning. Get with the times man, consumers is so last year.

In my line of work (the retarded) consumers was an applicable name when writing progress notes. Now they are moving away from that. At this point they are trying to move away from any term whatsoever. In terms of diagnosis that is still the term used for anyone with an I.Q. of less than 70.

[emerald]

Quote: I agree with you in general, the problem is that after a few years, the "nice" terms become offensive. For example, crippled was replaced with handicapped which was replaced with disabled which was replaced with physically challenged which is being replaced by differently abled. How much further can we go?

whether someone chooses to use the politically correct versions that come out every so often is a personal choice. for me, like i said previously, i just wouldnt use a word i thought would in any offend another individual, under any circumstances. i'm PC i cant help it!

[LostSoul3412]

People have a right to say whatever they want, and people have the right to be pissed off about it; but those pissed off people do not have the right to bar others from offending them.

[The Grandmaster]

LostSoul3412 wrote: People have a right to say whatever they want, and people have the right to be pissed off about it; but those pissed off people do not have the right to bar others from offending them.

That's pretty much dead on, yeah. There is no such thing as a "Right to not be offended."

"The freedom of spech is not to protect what we want to hear. It is to protect what we don't want to hear. It is not to protect the 50 people who agree. It is to protect the one man who does not." - Philosopher, Anonymous.

[micfranklin]

Political Correctness is essentially being robbed of common sense, and is pretty much because of overly sensitive people.

[TwinkieDP]

ieatfood wrote: for some reason, saying that someone is retarded is kinda funny
i dunno why, but it just is
its a funny word to use
So is Cracker A$$, thats a funny term... :lol:

[slitedeviance]

Wait... some clarification is needed...

Are we talking about Retarded in terms of actually hurling abuse at guys with diagnosed medical problems, or just as a general descriptor?

I would probably never use it to describe someone who has something like Downs Syndrome or Spinabifida, because we actually have proper names for the problems now, whereas retard was coined before medicine had caught up and could accurately catalogue and describe theses conditions.

BUT... it is probably on the top 5 words I use to describe stuff I don't like. The new computer system in work is retarded because it does everything a$$ backward. My unit leader is retarded because she can read a page of information I email her, come across to my desk, and ask me to translate it into English (which is weird because I don't really speak or type any other language!).

Retarded is an awesome word, and I'd much rather use it than "Spas" which was a cheerful playgound insullt, as that actually relates to a specific ailment.

[ieatfood]

TwinkieDP wrote: ieatfood wrote: for some reason, saying that someone is retarded is kinda funny
i dunno why, but it just is
its a funny word to use
So is Cracker A$$, thats a funny term... :lol:

hehe werd

also the term motherf*cker, especially when blacks use it
I love that term.