5 ms·

You are not alone. I blame PC, overprotective upbringing and "I am offended by that" trend. As soon as some subject becomes taboo to discuss people lose the und

You are not alone. I blame PC, overprotective upbringing and "I am offended by that" trend. As soon as some subject becomes taboo to discuss people lose the understanding why something is bad and start to treat everything related as bad and unacceptable. Reminds me of this: http://i.snag.gy/kdu77.jpg http://i.snag.gy/kdu77.jpg (doesn't matter if experiment was real or not). This is very prominent with sexism and racism—these words are losing the meaning really fast. Now merely acknowledging someones race is called racism. Same goes for gender. And god forbid you find someone attractive. I really don't get what kind of society these people want. The one where everybody walks covered in burqas? You are not allowed to look at attractive person—you will offend them. I wonder how soon a simple glance will accepted as a kind of sexual assault. You are not allowed to approach the person you like—it will be "unwanted advances". It's "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If woman will say that it makes her feel good when she senses attention she will be explained, that's just because patriarchal society made her to feel this way. More often than not those explaining will be males, ironically. What a terrible society to live, luckily it will die out soon for the lack of reproduction. As for this story: it has nothing to do with sexism. Nothing at all. Actually the real sexists are the ones who think all this happened because of the sexism. Guys (and girls): these issues are much much more complex and deserve to be treated with much more respect instead of rubber stamping like it is common now. Women and non-white people can be assholes too and I would like to retain the right call them as such without being accused of sexism or racism. Though this right might be long gone. Quite often it is a fun mental experiment to reverse the genders or races and think how vastly different reactions would be (if there would be any). Imagine that black person says: "I am proud to be black!". Now imagine that the white person says "I am proud to be white". Now throw away you knee-jercky reaction and think about it.

gphilip 13y ago
>Imagine that black person says: "I am proud to be black!". >Now imagine that the white person says "I am proud to be white". >Now throw away you knee-jercky reaction and think about it. I thought about it, and here's what I found: The different reactions which those two assertions may elicit depend crucially on different shades of meaning of the word "proud" which come into play, depending on the colour of the person who says it. These different meanings come into play because of the history of oppression associated with these colours; we don't (usually) think in a vacuum. To make this clearer, consider the following, slightly modified thought experiment: Imagine that a black person says: "I am not ashamed to be black!". Now imagine that a white person says "I am not ashamed to be white!". How strong is the knee-jercky reaction now? Think about it.
- tomp 13y ago
  But that's exactly what the parent was saying - if you perceive the meaning of the words slightly differently based on the skin color of the speaker, it's textbook racism. Some people might call it positive racism/discrimination, but it's still racism.
  - gphilip 13y ago
    > if you perceive the meaning of the words slightly differently based on the skin color of the speaker, it's textbook racism. What textbook would that be? My dictionary defines racism as: 1. the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. 2. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. This does not suggest to me that it is racist to acknowledge that a shared history (of oppression, in this case) may have an influence on the language of a people.
  - acjohnson55 13y ago
    (in reply to gphillip) There's a whole bunch of literature on the topic beyond what's contained in a dictionary definition.
alxjrvs 13y ago
"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions survive. When a black person says that they are proud to be black, they are expressing that they feel a certain pride in their race, which exists in this country thus far as a marginalized and underprivileged set of humanity. Saying you are "Proud to be white" kind of makes you sound like an asshole, because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage. True, any given white person might not be some sort of evil society architect, but white people are clearly those who most benefit from this society. Blaming this on political correctness is a cowardly and conservative move that stems from a false sense of equality between people. As progressive and bottom-up our community can be, we are not a meritocracy, and everyone is not equal.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Judging by your comment history, you do appear to have internalized your ideology very thoroughly. But, no. First of all, your example is biased towards Western society. Expressing white pride in an Eastern Asian society would be absolutely fine, according to your logic. Here's the issue, however. Even though black people have been historically marginalized in the USA (as I'm implicitly assuming this is US-centric) and still face disadvantages, despite being largely equal in most facets, this does not make their racial pride any less "asshole"-ish. Pride is reserved for things once has accomplished, not ones that you're inherently born with. Just by that alone, racial pride is frivolous. Even further, by setting up this double standard, you are actually contributing to the extension of racism. Why? You're giving people carte blanche to keep focusing more and more on racial characteristics as being essential to them as people. "It's bad to be racist, but we still must be preoccupied with race and being inoffensive at all costs." That is only slowing progress down. You go from a society that is maddeningly obsessed with race as a way to persecute people they don't understand to a society that is maddeningly obsessed with a race as a way to kiss ass, idolize and never question those majestic black people who can clearly do no wrong and deserve to have double standards because they have suffered injustices throughout their history. Yet so have all races and cultures, honestly. Black people do not hold a monopoly on persecution.

gphilip 13y ago

>Imagine that black person says: "I am proud to be black!". >Now imagine that the white person says "I am proud to be white". >Now throw away you knee-jercky reaction and think about it. I thought about it, and here's what I found: The different reactions which those two assertions may elicit depend crucially on different shades of meaning of the word "proud" which come into play, depending on the colour of the person who says it. These different meanings come into play because of the history of oppression associated with these colours; we don't (usually) think in a vacuum. To make this clearer, consider the following, slightly modified thought experiment: Imagine that a black person says: "I am not ashamed to be black!". Now imagine that a white person says "I am not ashamed to be white!". How strong is the knee-jercky reaction now? Think about it.

tomp 13y ago
But that's exactly what the parent was saying - if you perceive the meaning of the words slightly differently based on the skin color of the speaker, it's textbook racism. Some people might call it positive racism/discrimination, but it's still racism.
- gphilip 13y ago
  > if you perceive the meaning of the words slightly differently based on the skin color of the speaker, it's textbook racism. What textbook would that be? My dictionary defines racism as: 1. the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. 2. prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. This does not suggest to me that it is racist to acknowledge that a shared history (of oppression, in this case) may have an influence on the language of a people.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  (in reply to gphillip) There's a whole bunch of literature on the topic beyond what's contained in a dictionary definition.

alxjrvs 13y ago

"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions survive. When a black person says that they are proud to be black, they are expressing that they feel a certain pride in their race, which exists in this country thus far as a marginalized and underprivileged set of humanity. Saying you are "Proud to be white" kind of makes you sound like an asshole, because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage. True, any given white person might not be some sort of evil society architect, but white people are clearly those who most benefit from this society. Blaming this on political correctness is a cowardly and conservative move that stems from a false sense of equality between people. As progressive and bottom-up our community can be, we are not a meritocracy, and everyone is not equal.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Judging by your comment history, you do appear to have internalized your ideology very thoroughly. But, no. First of all, your example is biased towards Western society. Expressing white pride in an Eastern Asian society would be absolutely fine, according to your logic. Here's the issue, however. Even though black people have been historically marginalized in the USA (as I'm implicitly assuming this is US-centric) and still face disadvantages, despite being largely equal in most facets, this does not make their racial pride any less "asshole"-ish. Pride is reserved for things once has accomplished, not ones that you're inherently born with. Just by that alone, racial pride is frivolous. Even further, by setting up this double standard, you are actually contributing to the extension of racism. Why? You're giving people carte blanche to keep focusing more and more on racial characteristics as being essential to them as people. "It's bad to be racist, but we still must be preoccupied with race and being inoffensive at all costs." That is only slowing progress down. You go from a society that is maddeningly obsessed with race as a way to persecute people they don't understand to a society that is maddeningly obsessed with a race as a way to kiss ass, idolize and never question those majestic black people who can clearly do no wrong and deserve to have double standards because they have suffered injustices throughout their history. Yet so have all races and cultures, honestly. Black people do not hold a monopoly on persecution.