Look, I enjoy a joke. However, I am personally SICK of having to accept sexist jokes especially all day at work (I work within a male dominated industry and this PC backlash thing is making life hell for women like me in the work place). Personally I can take the odd sexist jibe off you guys I know off the forums, cos I know (well I think ) that you don't mean it. I even take the mick out of myself. Unfortunately when the same jokes are used by other people (ie the guys at work) I KNOW that behind the laughing they actually DO mean it, because in reality they don't think I am as good as them becuase I am a woman. I feel like we have fought to get equality, yet now we are subjected to ridicule yet not allowed to say anything against it incase we come across as not having a sense of humour. The point here is that although there are open minded individuals that use non-pc jokes as a kind of irony.... there are 5 to each one of them that use non pc jokes as a way of putting people down. Let's make this point clear: We are not at a point in our evolution where sexism, racisim or homophobia has ended. Because of this I think we should be careful what we say and to whom. It's easy to get complacent but real fights for equality are still being faught as we speak. Another point I'd like to make is specifically about racism. The times the white guys (99% of the men at work) take "the mick" out of the only asian guy in the office to his face is only half the story. I have to hear the rest of the stuff they say about him when he's not there, the real overt racism comes out then. They really do think he is beneath them. Some times these micky take "harmless" jokes are a cover for a much nastier monster underneath.
PC puts a lot of people off the idea of equality though, because it tries to give the impression that equality has been achieved already. Thus, whenever a minority comes closer to having the same rights as "norms", they feel as if they're getting special treatment. PC is a facade put up to conceal the intolerant underbelly of Western society. OK, so people can't use bad words, but they still think the same, they still view minorities as inferior. So at best PC does little/nothing, at worst it makes these people harder to spot.
I agree that PC just covers up the rot. But the anti PC lacklash does exactly the same, whilst expecting us to be a good sport about racist / sexist / homophobic crap. You can't change bigots be just censoring them, I agree. That is why the fight is still going on. That's why we still need laws to protect us in the workplace. That's why we need to be careful what we say and to whom.
I agree entirely. There's a difference between taking the piss out of someone and using humour to denigrate them though. If I say to my girlfriend "shut up and get back in the kitchen, whore", she knows I'm taking the piss. If I say to a black guy at work "wouldn't you be better off picking bananas for a living, ******?", that's in a different league. Despite the two comments being superficially similar, the context and intent change their meaning entirely.
It's the same with any form of humour, there is a line between being playful or 'tongue in cheek' and being abusive. Being part of a minority group is irrelevant. If I'm with a group of people and they take the piss out of something I do it usually means that I'm accepted as part of that group.
The difference with minority groups though is that 'humour' is often used to encourage a culture of intolerance and prejudice towards that particular minority. And there's a difference between you or I being the victim of abusive humour, and someone who has to suffer it day in and day out.
That's because you aren't in a hostile group at that time. If you are in a hostile group and people start making un-pc jokes it can be very upsetting, sometimes frightening. Did you see the footage in BNP under the skin? It showed the racisit jokes they told at after dinner speaches at BNP events. Some were similar to ones that could be told tongue in cheek with a group of mates and be seen riske but funny.
Yep, absolutely. No arguments from me on that one. When I said being part of a minority group is irrelevant I meant that abuse can come in many forms and attack many weaknesses.
This. But at least the anti-PC thing asks those questions, shows you how bad people can be, rather than trying to sweep it under the carpet and pretend that only the smallest minority are racist or whatever. You'd be amazed how many people hold appauling views, people you'd never expect.
To be of any use, Political Correctness has to be practical. In the workplace, it is no good just marching up to your boss and saying I've got rights - I can't think of anything more likely to bring out the subversive in people. And in the home, if you have to tell your partner that legally they must respect you - well it doesn't sound like a healthy relationship. I can remember our middle son, (now 10) hearing a news broadcast when laws were being introduced to ban corporal punishment. With a smug grin, he announced that we couldn't smack him anymore. As we'd never smacked him up until that point in time it was wtf - and he came within a whisker of getting what the state was proposing to ban! When I joined the Civil Service it was just moving from a system of promotion based on "Buggins turn" - whoever had been there longest got the next promotion regardless of ability or suitability - into a system full of monitoring, with every promotion list produced as an example of how women and members of ethnic communities got on. As various bosses told me unofficially - being white,male and de facto middle class because of a University education,I was virtually unpromotable - if they let people like me through it would skew the results. Suddenly I was a persecuted minority.At first it didn't matter - there were always plenty who fell by the wayside and I got paid to take a temporary promotion to fill their space until the next promotion board. But then I started seeing good guys leaving because they faced the same hurdles. And talking to the staff I was responsible for, many of them were embarassed by the quality of some of the staff promoted from their own particular gender or racial group. Morale began to slip within the office. Even the individuals who got promoted on merit began to doubt their own ability. I began to read about experiences with positive discrimination in America, and saw that what I was experiencing wasn't unique. My long-winded point is that with all social movements, things inevitably go too far one way, provoking a back-lash, before eventually a new consensus evolves. History is littered with the old thesis\antithesis\synthesis pattern. I think several people have used words like evolution\evolving in this thread - PC could turn out to be an evolutionary dead-end, or the social equivalent of coming down from the tree's - and a lot of it will be down to how people make it work on the ground rather than on the statute book.
The idea of PC being a mask that covers the ugly face of intolerance is one that interests me (and also interests my invisible ((but by no means imaginary)) friend, Shufti Na Na). Asian academic Kenan Malik is actually an opponent of 'multiculturalism' (in its current incarnation), as he views it as an attempt to smooth over and hide the gaping cracks of intolerance without actually addressing the problem. We are all writing from certain perspectives based on our own individual experiences. I write from the perspective of someone who has been the target of rascist jokes, someone else writes as a woman who has experienced sexual harassment in the work place. The question for me is what lies beneath? 'PC', 'Multiculturalism' are as much ways of speaking as they are ideals to believe in and strive for. Even Nick Griffin (leader of the British National Party) sometimes speaks of 'multiculturalism', and the importance of retaining and celebrating our own (distinct) national, religious and cultural identities. If you hear Nick Griffin address an audience (and you're not familiar with his party's history, fascist affiliations, and numerous, often unpublicised, hateful policies) then he really sounds quite eloquent and reasonable. Although he may feel and (often) act like a giant motorised nazi, that can breathe fire, stomp upon and destroy all those who oppose him with one great, jackbooted goosestep, he has learnt to speak like a reasonable liberal. Sometimes you will hear jokes and think 'hmmm... is that funny or offensive?' Perhaps a more helpful set of questions might be 'who is the teller and who is the audience, what is the context and what is the intention?' Shufti tends to ask herself these questions, in sequence, after every joke she hears. Consequently Shufti doesn't laugh much... which I think is sad.
I can aknowledge the existence of positive discrimination. I'd say it does exist but it is nowhere near as severe as negative discrimination was/is. I get the impression some of the people behind the so called PC brigade (at least those who are part of a group which has been discriminated against for a long time) and their behaviour is perhaps reactionary to being the discrimnated for some time, and maybe want some sort of limited payback. I am not condoning this if is the case I'm just saying with some people it could well be a possibility. I personally don't like discrimination be it negative or positive. Because either way, to me it is still a sign of people being unable to simply regard me as an individual. I can think of plenty of instances where I've been favoured socially or though of as 'cool' because of the fact that I happen to be this colour or that race and that kind of thing sometimes makes me want to shout 'LISTEN YOU MORONS! JUST AKNOWLEDGE ME AS A HUMAN BEING! NOTHING MORE! NOTHING LESS! IS THAT SO FUCKING HARD?!!' I'm hopefult about the future though on this issue. Whilst the discrimination is currently swinging in an unorthodox direction and favouring those who were opnce the discriminated, it's still a limited movement and I have little doubt that the balance will soon be achieved. What is a greater concern in my mind is sub-conciousness discrimination, which is very hard to detect and/or to prove and something which somebody could have but not know or acknowledge to have it yet it could be apparent to many others. One example of this is a recent US scientific study. Groups of white students were shown images of various faces, gradually and constantly changing from white to blak nd vice versa. The students were instructed to press a key at the very moment they percieved the face to express unhapiness or negative emotion. The study showed that nearly all of the students pressed the ka=ey when the image was depicting the predominantly black face and the students in the experiment were I think all self-confessed non-racists. Pretty scary stuff I think. I myself have picked up on examples of this kind of discrimination on many occasions and it is something which could take a very long time to conquer I fear. One major advantage of so called political correctness is that it can be useful in spotting these subconcious forms of discrimination which not surprisingly many of the conservative minded people who are responsible for it are reluctant to shed their ways and even to simply acknowledge it. I think if 'PC' was non-existent, we'd only ever be aware of the more coherent and psychologically more detectable forms of discrimination.
Well said - as far as I'm concerned there are enough people in the world who "hate" me without knowing who I am - because I'm male, because I'm white, because I'm middle-aged, because I live in the supposedly rich part of the world, because I come from a country with a Christian background and deep ties to America, etc, etc - why should I add any more hate. I try to treat each person as an individual, and ignore the herd instinct to pigeon-hole people with broad-brush prejudices and racial stereo-types - not easy but very rewarding. But that's the herd instinct - reject that which doesn't conform. I avoid the mental confusion by just accepting that human beings are no better than animals, so I can be pleasantly surprised when life proves me wrong. Political Correctness\Morality\Religion etc are all to me symbolic of the human races desperate desire to prove we are somehow better than animals, in part to justify the way we treat the animal kingdom and the planet. Look at some of the arguments that were trotted out by pro-slavers in Europe and America during the 18th and 19th Centuries - the negro slaves were animals, with no souls - arguments that were vehemently believed because it provided a thin veneer of justification. Trouble is, those beliefs were formulated at a time when the worlds media was just beginning - cheap books and newspapers, and as that spread round the world, more and more individuals were exposed to such prejudices until they became a common theme in societies around the globe. It's odd, but when you dig into it, many of the worlds socieities may have been less prejudiced 400 years ago than they are today.
We did a little experiment at Uni today (I'm doing a social work BA for anyone who doesn't know) Anyway we had this list of choices to tick on how we felt about ourselves: black or white male or female rich or poor working or managerial gay or hetero student or teacher meat eater or vegetarian able bodied or physically restricted Then we were asked to define which of these things would present us with an strengths in society and which would present us with weakness. I said that all trhese things could be strengths and weaknesses depending on how you saw yourself but generally I felt that I was in a stronger position because I am white, male and straight and therefore less likely to encounter prejudice. This seemed a reasonable asumption to me. I said this in front of 8 female students (only one was white) and our seminar leader, who then told me that even if I saw myself this way the chances are that it would not be a true reflection on the way people saw me. All the other students agreed with her and said they felt in positions of strength for varying opposite reasons. I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.
>>>>>It's odd, but when you dig into it, many of the worlds socieities may have been less prejudiced 400 years ago than they are today.<<<< Yeah that seems an incredible irony. In fact there is evidence to suggest that there was little prejudice towards homosexuals in ancient Greece and Rome. I think it's not something which can definitely be ruled out. The only explanation I can come up with for that is that maybe, the progress of human conciousness has three stages: unconciousness, conciousness, higher conciosness. The unconciousness stage represtents a time when people have very little capacity in terms of their perception of things, and are therefore quite oblivious of gender divisions, sexual orientational divisions, etc. The conciousness stage represents the point where people are just becoming aware of their 'differences', and so therefore prejudice becomes widespread (I'm of the opinion that society in general is in the latter part of this stage). And finally, higher conciousness, where peopl are able to percieve each other objectively and have transcended their concious and sub-concious prejudices. This is just a fairly far fetched theory of mine. Don't quote me on it. This has inspired me a bit. I'm going to start a new thread now based on the question of wether or not we're really improving as a society. Well, it'll be somewhere in that field!!
I like that Although oblivious isn't the word I'd use... I'd maybe say "aware and happy / accepting of the differences we have" Differences aren't the problem, it's the way we perceieve difference that is the problem i think? Looking inside / beyond might be the key? But I think that might be what you kinda meant, i dunno Much Love, Clairexxxx
No, because the bit where people are oblivious is where society is very, very young, and not really aware of issues too complex for the people of the time, in this case, prejudice. I see what you mean about perceiving differences though. I think that's definitely a major factor, but according to my crazy theory, the higher concousness stage represents an enhanced perception of ones differences, to the point where the differences aren't really considered as being relevant or significant. Yeah, it's definitely looking inside. Yeah. Erm, okay, I've lost the plot now! :&
Political correctness gives the left a bad name! They are really shooting themselves in the foot with their obbsession with political correctness. I remember left wing run councils in the 1980s like Brent really turned the public against them with their stupid rules such as forcing all teachers in the borough to call blackboards chalkboards. The name of the left has unfortuntly been dragged through the mud by political correct loonies.
