Is "political correctness" valuable to some profes

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Okay, I was sitting in a Waffle House, chattering with the security guard for a couple of minutes during the slow hours. The subjects of "crazy" and "marriage" came up, and I happened to mention, "Yeah, I've seen it first-hand. My room-mate's live-in fiance. You know what they say about 'latin tempers,' right? She's the epitome of it!" Well, I didn't think anything of it as I was saying it, mainly because everything I'd ever heard on the subject had come from people of that self-same ethnicity, none of whom (except for the one I was referring to) seemed to have an angry bone in their bodies. However, the security guard seemed to reject that statement straight-out, saying, "that's racial profiling. Stereotyping," and he pretty much cut the conversation right there. I was a little put-off for a minute or two because I'd never gotten such a rapid shut-off before on that kind of remark. I'd meant it partially in jest, anyway. I thought about it for a while, though, and something occurred to me: it actually would be valuable for a security guard or police officer to be evasive of that kind of speech. Late at night, a Waffle House can get pretty rough, which is probably why about half the people who work there look like either mental patients or whipped dogs, and if a fight were to break out there, the security guard would have to be able to remember the events exactly as they happened, NOT as he would expect for them to happen. That is, even though that "profiling" statement I made might have seemed harmless in everyday discussion, you have to remember that, when recalling a scene, we don't recall it in its exactitude. We reconstruct it based upon similar experiences, sometimes substuting for details based on what we EXPECT to be there. For example, if you take someone into your typical office, give them ten seconds to look around, and then ask them to describe everything they saw in it, odds are pretty high they'd put a few things on the list that were not actually there. Here's a scene: say a Latvian man were trying to throw a punch at a Lithuanian, and the Lithuanian were to throw out his arm to block so forcefully as to break the Latvian man's wrist. If the security guard had always heard talk of Lithuanians tending to "lash out irrationally," this is how he would form his reconstruction of the events when describing them to a police officer. When the police officer asked, "did the Lithuanian intend to put up a block or to lash out in anger," the security guard is going to reconstruct his recollection of the event based at least partially upon what he expects a Lithuanian to do in any given situation.

As such, is so-called "political correctness" somewhat justified in some cases?

And, for your information, I don't have anything against latinos or latinas. I was just parroting what I've heard, ironically, from a particular latina friend. Another such irony is that I didn't even know anti-semitism still existed until I'd hung out with some of my boyfriend's family, all Reform Jews, and I would never have BELIEVED there could be such a rich vocabulary for denoting such a small group of people. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. Wait...I'm not Dorothy, am I? Oh, yeah, she was the one who had that Hawaiian Island tan, right? The one you had to kinda squint at kinda funny to see her internal organs? Anyway, I really wish this stuff made more sense.

For that matter, I learned more about gay stereotypes by attending PRIDE meetings than I have in any other setting I've ever been in...and I think I'm seeing a bit of a pattern, here...

IMO the Gay Pride stuff actually does a disservice to gays because it helps to perpetuate stereotypes of some supposed "gay lifestyle." This is a big reason I hate identity politics, it results in the reinforcement of stereotypes because those stereotypes become internalized as part of one's "identity."

PC BS is exactly that.

In the name of political correctness, police in the UK have ended up doing such foolish things as stopping and searching 90yr old grandmothers in "random checks", whilst allowing cars full of suspicious asian youths to sail by. Despite the fact that every terrorist event that has occurred in the UK recently has been perpetrated by suspicious looking asian men, and never ever by 90yr old grandmothers.

Not making assumptions about someone is one thing. Completely disregarding common sense is another entirely.

Ah, but if the police never check the 90-year-olds, then terrorists might figure out the pattern and start strapping bombs onto grannies...

The point is that politically-correct regulations prevent the police using their discretion in implementing a system optimised to the current risk. That, for example, could mean stopping a sample of, say, 80% young asian males, and 20% from the general population. The answer you trotted-out is a perfect example of the simplistic liberal crap we're currently fed by those on the left in order to justify their insane policies.

It's called a joke. Yeesh, lighten up.

In other words racial profiling can actually be very helpful, in some cases.

The original post had some very interesting questions, but you did not learn from your own insights, grasshopper. By labeling this post with the words 'political correctness', you triggered a set of conditioned responses from other readers. They were unable to see your post as it really was; instead, many were compelled to start muttering how stupid PC is, like that time when they read about the student who wanted to

Conditioned response is the issue. Its true that not suffering from pre-conceptions about certain people/places would be advantageous, and in fact much fairer to everyone. Its the creation of laws and stiff-necked "thats wrong you cant say that" responses to everything that makes life such a pain in the ass, and makes jobsworths a pain in the ass too.

As part of my job, our premises are linked by radio to other premises around town, and in turn to the police CCTV headquarters. Several times I have heard descriptions of dangerous a***holes stymied because a) you arent meant to swear and b) people have a dread fear of using certain terms for fear of getting s**t on. So when some raging thug is ejected from somewhere, and wanders off to start a fight somewhere else, you can hear the chaps on the radio trying to be PC.

"Yeah, the guy is wearing x and y clothes and hes .. er.. bla.. coloured like.. and..."

Hes black. Black. Its not a bad word or an insult, its just a description. Black. Say it. Stop dragging your feet.

By far the most efficient calls are those that ignore all the conventions.

"Huge black geezer with x and y on, thinks hes a bit if a mister, hanging out with some smackhead slapper."

Instantly everyone knows what he looks like. Racist? No. Rude? Yes. Accurate: you bet.

IMO there needs to be a balance. It's pretty darn obvious that of most of your issues comes from a certain group you should concentrate on that group. The flip side is that there needs to be regulations in place to keep cops from abusing that totally proper discretion to harass minorities (here in the US we have issues of harassing African-Americans, hence the praise "I got pulled over for driving while Black."). We also need to remember that not all Islamists are Middle-Eastern. You could have white converts, Bosnians, South Asians, Indonesians, and people from the Caucasus.

I.e. "PC" ain't PC.

If PC ain't PC, do we know what was PC in the first place? Talk to me.

I cannot stand 'political correctness'. I'm a journalist and I find it so limiting. I mean, you can't say anything these days! "Cow pulled out of ditch using manpower" - oh, wait, manpower? Can't have that. It has to be 'manual strength' or 'people power'. policemen no longer exist, nor do any 'tradesmen'. Christmas is now 'Winter Holidays', and you no longer 'brainstorm' things in case epileptics get offended!

Sheesh.

It drives me mad.

The best, though, is when people say 'chairperson' or 'chairwoman', and you can throw back at them that actually, the 'man' in 'chairman' is not a gender-specific term as it comes from the latin 'manus'... if only it were all so easy.

Tell that to the grandmother who blew up herself to kill an IDF soldier.

Liberal my ass.

^ It's not "PC" to spam the thread with posts of pics so big
that they stretch the other posts to an unreadable width!

Edit, please!

Last edited by CityAsylum on 12 May 2008, 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.