Post by Sneltrekker on May 18, 2006 20:31:03 GMT
Do you believe in political correctness, do you follow it, what are your opinions on it?
I'll give an example.
18th century, the standard word for a black guy in America was negro.
Then it became a black.
Then a black person.
Then a colored person.
Then an afro-american.
An African American.
And now some people want to turn it into a pigmentally challenged person. All of those changes happened, after the previously politically correct word became 'dirty' by being used in a certain way.
In the Netherlands, a kind of candy, like a marshmallow covered in chocolate has been called literally translated, a black person's kiss (negerzoenen for the dutchspeakers if you're not sure what I'm talking about), like, for a few hundred years. A few months ago, some black guy stood up in parliament and was like: That name is insulting to all black people. And so they had to change the name.
The same happened here really. Immigrants were called Guest workers first, then immigrants, now we need them "allochtonen" and now they are looking for yet another term, because the term allochtonen which was politically correct 10 years ago turned into a "dirty" word by now.
So that's why I'm just wondering, what use does all this crap have? If they need to change their wording every 10 years to make some people NOT feel offended, doesn't that mean the language is NOT the problem but in fact the belief behind the words is?
Of course, this isn't just worse.
In the UK apparently a few towns outlawed christmas and gave it some more neutral name: Wintermas. Because religious minorities would feel offended.
In Belgium and Netherlands, an old religion is Sinterklaas, the precedent for Santa Claus. He's supposed to be an old Bishop from Turkey and rides his magic horse from roof to roof on 5th of December. Problem is that instead of elves he uses black slaves. Now people want to abolish this tradition. Note that for as long as I remember I never recall any black person actually being used for it. Usually it's white people, with pure black shoe polish on their face, wearing colorful puffy medieval costumes ... even a 5 year old doesn't mistake those for real black people.
Yet it seems those holidays are not politically correct and thus can't be celebrated?
I'll give an example.
18th century, the standard word for a black guy in America was negro.
Then it became a black.
Then a black person.
Then a colored person.
Then an afro-american.
An African American.
And now some people want to turn it into a pigmentally challenged person. All of those changes happened, after the previously politically correct word became 'dirty' by being used in a certain way.
In the Netherlands, a kind of candy, like a marshmallow covered in chocolate has been called literally translated, a black person's kiss (negerzoenen for the dutchspeakers if you're not sure what I'm talking about), like, for a few hundred years. A few months ago, some black guy stood up in parliament and was like: That name is insulting to all black people. And so they had to change the name.
The same happened here really. Immigrants were called Guest workers first, then immigrants, now we need them "allochtonen" and now they are looking for yet another term, because the term allochtonen which was politically correct 10 years ago turned into a "dirty" word by now.
So that's why I'm just wondering, what use does all this crap have? If they need to change their wording every 10 years to make some people NOT feel offended, doesn't that mean the language is NOT the problem but in fact the belief behind the words is?
Of course, this isn't just worse.
In the UK apparently a few towns outlawed christmas and gave it some more neutral name: Wintermas. Because religious minorities would feel offended.
In Belgium and Netherlands, an old religion is Sinterklaas, the precedent for Santa Claus. He's supposed to be an old Bishop from Turkey and rides his magic horse from roof to roof on 5th of December. Problem is that instead of elves he uses black slaves. Now people want to abolish this tradition. Note that for as long as I remember I never recall any black person actually being used for it. Usually it's white people, with pure black shoe polish on their face, wearing colorful puffy medieval costumes ... even a 5 year old doesn't mistake those for real black people.
Yet it seems those holidays are not politically correct and thus can't be celebrated?