The Great Debate Redux: Political Correctness

Agreed. It used to be OK to be openly racist...thanks to the "political correctness" that everyone is so quick to vilify, it's no longer as OK as it used to be. Like most things, political correctness in moderation is not necessarily all that bad.

That being said, I personally refuse to use the term "African-American". As Tiger mentioned, the vast majority of black people have never set foot in Africa, so it seems a silly misnomer to me. I'm white, they're black...wth is so wrong with saying that?

As for the "gay" thing...I can see where some ultra-sensitive homosexuals can be rather offended by it's use, however, the fact is that "gay" used to mean, "happy and carefree"...then it meant, "homosexual"...now it means, "lame and stupid"...so the cultural meaning changed, big deal. Fifty years from now, it might mean "totally cool"...build a bridge, and get over it. 8)

some homo's get offended by the word gay being mentioned, others are proud and call themselves ***...
Had a friend who I called a ***, love like yeah.
another guy i met was a cry baby about anything involving the 'gay' subject mentioned, and once actually flipped out on me because he didnt like a comment I said and made a big *** drama about it.

I was too drunk to care told him to gtfo.

If gay were typically used in the context of something being strange or unusual then that would be understandable, since a typical synonym with gay is *** meaning exactly that: something strange or unusual. Unfortunately more often than not it's associated with something bad or undesirable.

The only thing I'll nitpick is that the actual definition of the term "***" is a female dog, the other is just slang which is widely accepted. If only dogs could talk so that they could share their opinion on the slang definition of *** ;) Kidding aside, I do see your point, but I feel in the case of "gay" and "HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE", it is generally used in such a way that a person shouldn't take offense to it. There will always be people who use those terms (and others) in a malicious manner, but those people are an exception to this.

I'd like to think most people in this thread understand that political correctness isn't a horrible thing. When people go overboard on it (i.e. red pens hurting the feelings of the wee children), then it becomes an issue.

Being, or at least trying to be politically correct isn't a bad thing. It's the people who get all worked up over everything that *** it all up. Like that news article someone had around here the other day about the graduation card that said "showing those black holes who's boss" or something along those lines. Some group of retards got all offended because they thought it said *** instead of holes, kicked up a stink and got the card recalled. In my opinion, the whole red/purple pen mentality is doing nothing but teaching our children to be overly sensitive to stupid crap.

On the topic of saying "that's gay". I'm guilty of that, my best friend is gay and I have no issue with it, but it's a habit I picked up somewhere along the line, and is just slang. I try not to say it, but occasionally I say it to him, and he doesn't care because he knows I'm not trying to say that all gay people are shitty/HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE/whatever.

However, that's also attributed to the company I'm with. If I used the same term around someone I didn't know was gay, or that didn't know me very well or something like that, I could perfectly understand how it could be taken not as I intended. Just because using certain words/terms in whatever context is acceptable around your friends, doesn't make it any better though. You and your friends might all say ***/***/retard/asian/***/***/***/*** and many other things to each other and it's fine, but you really shouldn't be shocked if someone takes offense to that kinda language.

As stupid as it may seem to someone like Tiger saying African-American instead of just saying black, I can't really see him getting offended by it (maybe I'm wrong). And the people that ARE offended by that are what's *** up with society. These are the people that need to chill the *** out, and not get offended by comments that clearly weren't intended to offend.

Martin Luther King Jr. referred to himself as a negro. If I were to call a black man a negro today, I'd get my *** kicked. What was once a perfectly acceptable term quickly becomes derogatory. It's already difficult to tell if we should say African American or black. In a few years, I imagine neither will be acceptable.

It's even more confusing in the instance with appropriate terms for homosexual where the acceptability of a word seems cyclical. *** was a perfectly appropriate way of referring to a homosexual years ago, but then it fell out of favor and became a crude slur. Now it seems the term has been "reclaimed" and is once again acceptable.

The words we use are a symptom. As long as there is unreasonable animosity towards blacks, gays, or any other minorities, any term which is acceptable will eventually become unacceptable. Political correctness addresses a symptom without ever attempting to engage in a solution to the actual problem. In all honesty, I'd say it does more harm than good.