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The Mad Monk
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of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
The way I see it (and I will say right now that I am generally supportive of political correctness) is that the danger of PC taken to extremes is that it becomes victim-defined.
In a nightmare scenario, this can then lead to action taken against somebody for a slur that they did not intend.
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Orange - I think you might be referring to an incident where an aide to the Mayor of Washington DC used the word "niggardly" correctly (to mean, well, mean and tightfisted) and had to resign. I haven't heard of a teacher getting into the argument.
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Unfortunately, Orange is correct:
quote:
Posted on Sat, Aug. 31, 2002
Teacher who taught synonym of stingy ordered to apologize
WILMINGTON, N.C. - A fourth-grade teacher was ordered to send apology letters home with her students after a vocabulary lesson that included a word that means stingy but sounds like a racial slur.
Stephanie Bell taught the word "niggardly" to her class last week in an effort to improve her students' vocabularies.
Now a counselor will meet with Bell's students at Williams Elementary School. One parent wants Bell fired.
Norm Shearin, deputy superintendent for the New Hanover County Schools, said Friday the school's principal is dealing with the situation.
"Our position is that it was an inappropriate action in terms of using that word at that grade level, in that context," he said. "It was a bad choice."
Dictionaries and other language references trace the word's origins to Scandinavia and attribute no offensive meaning to it.
Bell, who is white, defended her choice of the word and said she didn't mean to offend anyone.
"If these children read it, they are going to need to know what they are reading," she said. "My concern is that we are treading a fine line here. ... What word do we take out next?"
The word was inappropriate for fourth-graders because it sounds similar to a racial slur and 9-year-olds can't distinguish between them, parent Akwana Walker said
"My daughter told me what that word was, and I told her not to complete that part of her homework," said Walker, who is black. "Common sense tells you not to put a word like that on the board."
The word came up Aug. 20 during a comparison of two characters from different stories. One character was a Hispanic girl; the other was a white boy.
Bell's class talked briefly about the proper words to use when describing a person's race. Then, the class discussed other ways to describe people. One child described the boy as stingy. Bell said she thought this would be a good chance to find a word for the day, a practice she has used this year.
"The idea for the word of the day is to pick part of the curriculum or something you can extend from it," she said. She began looking for a synonym for "stingy." The children's dictionary offered "self-centered." But Bell said most of her students already knew that word. That's when she landed on the word "niggard." She added the "-ly" because the class was studying adverbs.
Bell explained the meaning of the word and told the students how to use it in a sentence, something they would have to do on their spelling tests to gain extra points.
A few days later, Bell received a letter from Walker saying the word was not allowed in her house, no matter what it means.
Walker met Thursday with Bell and the school's principal, Susan Hahn. Walker's daughter was moved to another class. Walker also wants Bell removed from her teaching position.
The flap is similar to a 1999 incident in Washington, D.C., when an aide to Mayor Anthony Williams resigned under fire after using the word "niggardly" to describe how he must manage office money. Williams later rehired the aide.
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http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestat...cal/3974978.htm
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Capt Dizle
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No, I do not wish I still lived in 1969. I am quite aware that any trip down memory lane includes potholes and loose gravel.
I also know quite a bit about the changes in the black communities in the south from the early seventies to now. I have worked much of that time in such communities. I have seen many neighborhoods changed through federal programs that the average person is not aware of.
Typical of southern towns in my state at that time was "niggertown", areas literally often on the other side of the railroad tracks, no paved streets, no municipal water or sewer, most of the homes just shacks with no plumbing. I worked in these communities daily, swinging a hammer and doing the construction grunt work. Later, I graduated to working as a project administrator, housing technican, grant writer. I have seen tremendous progress on some fronts and horrible developments on others. Black families were in a sense stronger back before drugs devastation set in. Now what I see is that the typical black family is a grandmother raising her grandchildren on a social security check, husband dead, sons in prison, daughter is a crack head and the grandchildren's daddys are in prison or just AWOL. Its worse than it was before in the poorest of neighborhoods, but thats because so very many of the stable black families have escaped by moving up the economic ladder. This is good.
Now we are seeing an incredible influx of hispanics moving into these neighborhoods.
I ramble on. Sorry.
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Capt Dizle
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I'll tell you a true story that might illustrate why I find political correctness so lame. Once in a small town called Peachland I was tasked to renovate about 25 homes in an all black area. I came upon a small four room house that had eight residents, four of which were mentally retarded.
As I was surveying the property I noted that there was no porch or steps at the rear exit. I walked over there and stood on a small mound under the rear door, the sill of which was about five feet above the ground. The mound was slippery and wet, despite the hot dry weather.
As I went into the house I realized of course that there was no bathroom when I saw the slop buckets near the beds. The raised mound I had been standing on was the result of the emptying of the human excrement out the rear door over the past 40 or so years.
Yes, it stank in the backyard, but no, that was not unusual. Most of the homes that had bathrooms had no septic systems, the waste was just piped out into the back yard or into buried fifty gallon drums.
This was in the early eighties.
So, when I hear someone harping on one of these PC themes and I know they have never known such conditions I just want to tell them to shut up. There are more substantive issues still out there.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:22
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quote:
Originally posted by jimmytrick
Oh if it were only that simple.
Its like the case of the teacher using the word niggardly and getting fired. Its not a matter of be offensive, political correctness is a way the newly empowered take revenge on the dastardly white anglo saxon protestant (males). Sad but true. |
As the post from The Mad Monk shows, the woman did not get fired.
This is one of the problems in talking about political correctness. The anti-PC crowd believe in a false mythology tha PC is a weapon to control their thoughts.
The vast majority of us will never be punished for using anti-PC terms. So if you don't like using firefighter, then go ahead and say fireman. But if you insist on calling blacks niggers then you can expect people to get upset.
What bugs me about the anti-PC crowd is that they feel they have the right to say whatever they want, but no one should have the right to criticize their choice of words.
Freedom of speech works both ways. We have the right to say what we want, within reason, and people have the right to comment on what we say.
Political correctness is about treating people with respect and eliminating potential barriers. It is one tiny part of a large-scale effort to create equality.
Some people say there are more important issues. That's true, but it is also true that we can do many things at the same time.
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Capt Dizle
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I can't fathom how anyone could defend the use of political correctness as I have seen it. It must be a disconnect of perspective.
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27-09-2002 10:16
. and yes they called my girlfriends *****es. Although in most cases they were *****es 
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