I'm just sayin'...

[eumelia]

I don't understand the concept of political correctness.

I understand the concept of non-prejudicial language.

I understand the concept of respecting other people.

I don't understand why people don't get either of those two concepts and accuse me of being "Politically Correct" as though I'm trying to censor what they say and what they think.

Is it seriously so difficult for people not to say something that is offensive to another person?

And in any event, why is it called Political Correctness when in reality it is basic politeness?

There seems to be this notion that people, as a general rule, do in fact spout whatever they like and are completely filter-less when it comes to language.

My mother, who is a teacher, threw a kid out of her class the other day because he said that there was an "Arab Smell" in the classroom.
I mean, for fuck's sake.
Would you say that my mother was wrong for punishing a child for saying something like that?
And if he had said there was a "Fucking Smell"? (which could happen, Mummy teaches English the language to 14-15 year old kids).
She's probably throw the kid out all the same.
Disrespectful language in a public forum.

Is what she did censorship?

Well you could say that in the hierarchical set-up of a school, the kids really do have no say when it comes to freedom of speech and all that.
So yeah, that's my mother's prerogative to discipline the class room.

But when you're talking with people in the aforementioned public forum.
How does that work then?
I don't really have the prerogative of discipline the masses.
I do think it is everyone's duty, as social people, to be aware of the effect and affect of language on other people's lives.

Is that difficult?

I know that in Israel it is, there is a culture of "telling it straight", "what you see is what you get" and very frank discussion on race (and in some circles sex of various kinds).
The other day I was at my regular falafel place which is run by a family of Mizrahi Jews (specifically of Yemeni heritage) and I was saying that I love the spices they've added to the falafel and [Proprietor] smiled at me and said "Thanks, most people from Africa like the hot stuff".
I laughed because he knows my family is South African and I said "Yeah, well you wouldn't know with the way my family eats... they don't all go for the hot stuff... You know us Europeans"
"Yeah, well you don't count you were born here"
"I guess so" I replied.
"Where's your family originally from?" he asked.
I said we were Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, generic Eastern-European.
And he said "Yeah, I though you guys were Russian when I first met you".

Only in Israel.

Oy my point drifted away.
Ah yes.
Language.
And how Political Correctness is a myth.
You're either respectful (which isn't synonymous with polite) or you're not.
As a general rule we don't say everything we think right at that moment, it goes through a filter and is arranged to make sense in our mouths, or on a page, or on a website.

As a result, if someone accuses you of "Political Correctness" ask them if they find it difficult to not say "You mouther-fucking bitch cunt!"?.
When you could have easily said "You fucking moron!".
If you're going to insult my intellect, don't make it about my "female brain".
Seems harsh, don't it?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_yggdrasil/]

See this post (http://community.livejournal.com/debunkingwhite/781388.html) in debunkingwhite?

Whenever someone talks about political correctness, now I hear "waaaaaaaaah, why must you call me on my privilege?"

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Haha!
Yeah I rad it at the time.
Bust last night I was talking to a guy friend and he was saying that he just didn't find dark skin attractive and I said "have you tried wondering why*?" and he was like "oh, don't go all PC on a personal preference!"

*Apropos your recent post.

[imfallingup.livejournal.com]

I love Zuky's post on PC (I just looked and I guess it was linked in that DBW post but here it is just in case, <ahref="http://www.kaichang.net/2006/11/the_sloppy_prop.html">here)

Thing is it's not just about respect--some of it is learning that what you'd grown up thinking was respectful is in fact not (such as the history of disability and its use as a delegitimizer of other people, whereby we learn that someone is considered less of a person, not able to vote or give consent for sex or ever grow up for being mentally disabled, ie a moron, and therefore it's more okay to insult someone by calling them a "moron" than a "mother fucking bitch cunt" because the latter is insulting to women and we wouldn't want to compare the two ;) )

While for many people it's specifically about not being respectful--people think they're getting straight to the point of what they're trying to say without hiding it in sensitive language, which I think is a way for many of proving "toughness"--being able to talk "frankly". I think there's often other oppression issues built in, where oppressed folks have different sensitivities to pollitical correctness concepts initiated from their own communities than those from outside, as language of many oppressed groups becomes one of the greatest focuses of difference and disruption.

But of course you can talk frankly without using oppressive language, or more accurately using oppression-conscious language--I think that's really relevant in acknowledging that different people experience different language differently. I use "queer" frequently as a preferred term to LGBTQIQ or other terms to suggest that whole community, but there is no term that many in these communities do not find insulting. When talking about someone who is fat, many people argue that the word is offensive and you should use a "nicer" word, and as many say that "fat" is offensive and that's why you *should* use that word, and as many again say it's not offensive and/or should be reclaimed.

Respectful nothing--it's conscious language, which allows it to be dynamic and constantly developing, rather than based on a static and culturally-biased concept of respect.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're going to insult my intellect I's rather not have it connoted to my genitalia... was my point.
Should I clarify?

See, calling someone who is fat, "fat", amounts to the same as calling someone who is black, "black".
If you're going to be insulting, then in both cases it's going to come down to tone - though "fat" is less a descriptive now a days and more a signifier of a morbid body.
If you call someone "black" in Israel then you are most likely being offensive because historically it refers to Mizrahi Jews' racial and cultural inferiority. For actual people of sub-Saharan heritage one usually says from which country they're from, generally Ethiopia.
However, both are descriptive and in context and tone there should be no reason for them to be insulting.

Queer, much like cunt, is an "okay" word only if used by people are reclaiming it. Outside Queer and/or Feminist circles those words are still big no-no's as far as I'm aware and concerned.
Is some called me a Queer or a Cunt in a "tone", I'd take full responsibility for the verbal and maybe even physical violence visited upon those people who insulted me in a way that reduced me like that.

[imfallingup.livejournal.com]

I definitely understand and appreciate your desire to not have your intellectual ability reduced to your anatomy. However, the argument I'm seeing you make here (and it's a very common argument that is too often left unexamined) is that it's okay to minimize you as a person based on your intelligence and use language with a history of categorizing people based on that intellectual ability; just don't make it about you being a woman.

I call upon Stanton: "In our Southern States even, before the war, women were not degraded below the working population. They were not humiliated in seeing their coachmen, gardeners, and waiters go to the polls to legislate for them; but here, in this boasted Northern civilization, women of wealth and education, who pay taxes and obey the laws, who in morals and intellect are the peers of our proudest rulers, are thrust outside the pale of political consideration with minors, paupers, lunatics, traitors, idiots..." (Jan. 19, 1869, address to the National Women Suffrage Convention in DC)

Disability (particularly mental) is a comparison many people make in defending rights and humanity of other oppressed groups--in fact nearly all if not all movements based on challenging oppression (other than disability) are frequently argued on the basis of: these people are not physically or mentally inferior or disabled. Which reinforces the idea that disabled folks do in fact merit being treated as lesser, and makes it rather hard for those of us with disabilities to support activism in favor of other parts of ourselves. (See: me nearly walking out of a "Talking to the Media" presentation by NCTE, the Transgender puppet organization of the HRC which is the US assimilation-focused gay/lesbian group but I didn't know NCTE's background at the time. They said it's good to talk about transfolks in positive ways instead of negative: replace "Transpeople are not mentally ill" with "Transpeople are healthy." I said "What about those of us with mental illness compounded by experiencing transphobia, or the high rate of HIV and AIDS among transfolks?" They said "This is about getting the most important message now. Those are issues we can address later.")

Does this make sense?

Douglas Baynton has an excellent essay on this BTW: "Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History" in Longmore and Umansky's "The New Disability History". Strongly recommended, and it's obviously US-centric but I recommend it anyway.


As to words and context: it is amazing the hurdles most people will make in the US (or at least on the West Coast) to avoid calling someone they don't want to offend "fat"--it has very negative connotations. Folks in fat-positive activism are making efforts to reclaim the word. This is an example of where who can use a reclaimed word gets complicated, as they encourage everyone regardless of size to use the word as a descriptor and without negative connotation. Meanwhile in Portland, where there's a whole lot of queer folks, although homophobia is certainly plenty present it's more common to see people use "queer" than "GLBT" in reference to the relevant community and organizations--and by people I mean of any sexuality, in official general-public publications, and in a way that is generally not taken as offensive; just as descriptive. Which isn't to say no one who might be targeted by the term in a pejorative manner is bothered by it. At the same time, "dyke", "faggot" and "tranny" are terms that generally aren't used by straight/cisgendered people or official non-queer-specific publications that don't intend to offend.

So on that point, in short, I don't think all reclaimed words can be considered equal, and I agree that context is relevant--in fact I argue that context is relevant to the point of which words can be reclaimed how, when, and by whom.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's okay to reduce a person in any way. I was using the conflation of female anatomy with reduced intelligence as an example.
Your argument can be applied onto any offensive language that takes the essentialist route.

Two quotes: "The unexamined life is not worth living" and "There is nothing but text and in it context"
I'm pretty sure I'm paraphrasing Aristotle and Derrida, but I'm bad with citations :P

[wanky-punjabi.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to see this laid out, and I love finding people with this opinion.

I get so angry when people use 'free speech' as defense for being awful to other human beings, and, under the banner of 'telling it like it is' or 'just having my opinion' spout racist or homophobic or sexist and all other forms of ignorant rubbish.
What's worse is how now, more than anything, these attitudes seem to be celebrated.
The notion of 'free speech' has, like so many others, been twisted into something that is used as a vehicle for hatred.

'Arab smell'? That makes me very sad.

(I know I added you without a word, but I find your journal very interesting, hello!)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Hello!
I'm interested, where did you find me?!

My mother countered the kid saying "What's wrong with saying that?" regarding 'Arab Smell' and she said "And how do you like 'Jewish Smell'.
It's beyond me how people do not get it!

[wanky-punjabi.livejournal.com]

Im actually not entirely sure where I found you if I'm honest!
I know I added a few politically minded journals recently, from doing an interest search, so I think it was from that.
Either by typing in 'socialism' or 'anarchism' or just 'politics'.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Hehe, fair enough :)

[corvus.livejournal.com]

Fuck yeah Lithuania. Two of my great grandmothers were from right outside Vilnius. When I went there a year and a half ago we visited the last surviving synagogue. It was an interesting experience.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Litvak Jooz FTW Dude! \m/

;)

I've only been to Poland (where the fam was exterminated, not lived), but I'd like to visit the places my roots are and not just another immigration stop (though permanent for a huge portion of my family).

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

But that's just the thing: there is a whole lot of difference between "impolite" and "not PC"- "impolite" is inherently a matter of perception, while "not PC" is inherently a matter of absolute value, usually driven by identity: i.e. I can say the same things and just by the tone of my voice make one utterance "impolite", I can't do that with political correctness.More then that, a white man saying "nigger" is automatically assumed to be prejudiced, while a black man saying the same is not(this in and of itself is prejudice).

As to the dream of non-prejudiced language:If it will ever happen, and human nature being what it is I'm very much doubtful of that, it will happen as organic part of the growth of non-prejudiced society.It simply doesn't work in the other direction.So trying to deal with the offending words without dealing with the attitude is at best problematic- see my post at http://antongarou.livejournal.com/23549.html and most of the debate from about a year ago at http://blogdebate.org/threads.php?thread=327 (warning:Hebrew links).

At day's end the problem is very simple- something you think of as offensive/prejudiced isn't necessarily thought of in that way by the people who say it- a good example is a friend of mine who calls her fiance "creature", very very lovingly:).Language is meant to describe people, and as long as people will be imperfect we will have words for imperfection in our language, and as long as people may choose to be offensive(and everybody does it, even if only to "let off steam") there will be offensive language, and as long as people will be prejudiced, language will be prejudiced as well.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I don't even know where to begin.

To use your example, there is no way, no way, that using the word "nigger" as a descriptive isn't prejudicial, because the word has a long, very long, history of causing harm.
Admittedly, black people will also use "nigger" in order to disparage and insult another black person, but usually the word is used in a reclamation fashion when used by black people. That is something that cannot be done by white people.
Same with "queer", "bitch", "cunt" and other words with a history of degradation.

Obviously words spoken by different people in different contexts and in different relational frames are different.
Thus your friend calling her fiance "creature" is very sweet. Dehumanizing someone in order to insult them is very much not.
And that's the point.
By not being concious of the history and context of what words mean to different people and not just what they mean in your head, you do yourself and the people around you a disservice.

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

Agreed on dehumanization, but what I'm trying to show you is that the package doesn't much matter- anybody who's half proficient in the use of language can dehumanize people just fine without going into slurs at any point.

Yes, there are specific words that will tend to be more offensive due to history, but reclamation should try to erase that history- thus the usage shouldn't be examined on the identity of the user but on the context it happened.To do otherwise will be to preserve the original meaning in the general population, rather then shift it.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

But reclamation doesn't erase history. It is due to the history that those words need to be and are reclaimed.

One can tell it straight and be honest in their language without using words that have the ability to cut into you.
To cry out Politically Correct on, say, me, is to say that I've challenged ones ideas or the way one has presented the idea.

You and I dislike "political correctness" for different reasons. PC has come to mean to be dishonest and try to "beautify" language - this is what you find reprehensible and I agree, it's BS.
However, when someone accuses you of being the PC police because you've said something that I or others would find offensive is just you being a narrow-minded ass unwilling to hear other people's points of view.
Language isn't experienced the same by everyone.

And I don't think it's too much to ask that you not call a gay person a "faggot" or a person of colour a "nigger" - even if you think it in your head.

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

OK, then we're in basic agreement. Looking back, what I found problematic with your post was the implication inherent in the way you wrote it that the problem of political correctness doesn't exist. It exists, because there are shallow and extreme(as well as thoughtful and moderate) people on both sides of most arguments.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

Language has historical baggage, all that's being asked is that you don't be a jerk about running someone over with your suitcase. Between two people in a deep, ongoing relationship (like your friend and her fiance), obviously the context of words can be deliberately shifted, but for the most part the connotation of words is pretty uniform.
And yes, language is only one manifestation of racism (sexism, classism, homophobia, etc.) and just shifting language isn't enough to eliminate the problems of society, but, to continue the earlier analogy, at least it means someone isn't having their feet run over while they're already trying to carry their own weight in cultural baggage.

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

obviously the context of words can be deliberately shifted, but for the most part the connotation of words is pretty uniform.

Sorry, but that's patently untrue- the meaning shift of word is an ongoing process, that never really stops and can be quite abrupt: look into the shift in the meaning of "canadian" in the more racist parts of South USA in the last year or two, for example.Another good source is Guy Deutscher's great book "The Unfolding of Language".Among the most important parts in the inference of meaning are pragmatic and nonverbal cues- thus, for example, "brilliant" can act as both praise and scathing ironic putdown, with context and some nonverbal cues being the only changes.

And people who want to run other folks' feet over will be doing it no matter what.I prefer to hear that plainly rather then being blindsided by it- I hate poisoned honey.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

People whining about political correctness always seem to be saying "I don't care about anyone's viewpoint except mine."

You asked a very good question above - has your friend ever thought about *why* he doesn't like dark skin - and his defensive answer shows that no, he hasn't. He's just going along with cultural prejudice. This is a question asked a lot in body acceptance circles - are you really not attracted to a particular fat person, or are you just having kneejerk prejudice? It's quite possible that "thin" or "muscular" are really important to someone, but when your prejudices neatly line up with those of the dominant culture, it's worth thinking harder.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I was saying to my friend.
I was dismissed of course.
It's a bit sad when critical thought becomes a mood killer.

let me reply to this with a song.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lux_aeterna_1/]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9CSnlb-ymA

Re: let me reply to this with a song.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Haha!
I love AQ!
Thanks.