Tired of Political Correctness

obirano wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

On a somewhat related note:
Associated Press Stylebook Drops ‘Illegal Immigrant’

The Associated Press announced on Tuesday they will no longer recommend journalists use the term illegal immigrant when referring to immigrants in the United States without legal permission.

The announcement comes more than three years after Colorlines.com launched The Drop the I-Word campaign that called on media outlets to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” because it is a racially charged slur that confuses the immigration debate and fuels violence.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally,” wrote AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on the organization’s blog.

I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel on that. I understand that when you say it, people tend to think of a certain ethnicity. At the same time though, if you are discussing someone who entered the country illegally, regardless of race, it describes the action and person to me.

Eh, I'm going to have to agree. I understand this has been used to label certain groups more than others, but isn't that only because it seems to be more of an issue with those groups? Not stereotypically, but factually? I mean if you are guilty of illegal immigration wouldn't that by definition make you an illegal immigrant? If I'm found guilty of a crime am I not technically a criminal as well?

The Conformist wrote:
obirano wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

On a somewhat related note:
Associated Press Stylebook Drops ‘Illegal Immigrant’

The Associated Press announced on Tuesday they will no longer recommend journalists use the term illegal immigrant when referring to immigrants in the United States without legal permission.

The announcement comes more than three years after Colorlines.com launched The Drop the I-Word campaign that called on media outlets to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” because it is a racially charged slur that confuses the immigration debate and fuels violence.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally,” wrote AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on the organization’s blog.

I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel on that. I understand that when you say it, people tend to think of a certain ethnicity. At the same time though, if you are discussing someone who entered the country illegally, regardless of race, it describes the action and person to me.

Eh, I'm going to have to agree. I understand this has been used to label certain groups more than others, but isn't that only because it seems to be more of an issue with those groups? Not stereotypically, but factually? I mean if you are guilty of illegal immigration wouldn't that by definition make you an illegal immigrant? If I'm found guilty of a crime am I not technically a criminal as well?

The general issue, as Tanglebones pointed out, is "illegal immigrant" is a term that seems to be invariably reserved for Hispanic illegal immigrants. IIRC, there's a pretty large population of Irish illegals in this country, but nobody ever seems to bother pursuing that particular ethnic group. So, yes, "illegal immigrant" is absolutely factually correct, but terms aren't used in a purely factual sense--"illegal immigrant" has become a perjorative term that is used to talk about people coming over the Southern border.

Fact or no, the terminology has lots of baggage with it, so I have no problem with it being pushed to the side.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
The Conformist wrote:
obirano wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

On a somewhat related note:
Associated Press Stylebook Drops ‘Illegal Immigrant’

The Associated Press announced on Tuesday they will no longer recommend journalists use the term illegal immigrant when referring to immigrants in the United States without legal permission.

The announcement comes more than three years after Colorlines.com launched The Drop the I-Word campaign that called on media outlets to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” because it is a racially charged slur that confuses the immigration debate and fuels violence.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally,” wrote AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on the organization’s blog.

I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel on that. I understand that when you say it, people tend to think of a certain ethnicity. At the same time though, if you are discussing someone who entered the country illegally, regardless of race, it describes the action and person to me.

Eh, I'm going to have to agree. I understand this has been used to label certain groups more than others, but isn't that only because it seems to be more of an issue with those groups? Not stereotypically, but factually? I mean if you are guilty of illegal immigration wouldn't that by definition make you an illegal immigrant? If I'm found guilty of a crime am I not technically a criminal as well?

The general issue, as Tanglebones pointed out, is "illegal immigrant" is a term that seems to be invariably reserved for Hispanic illegal immigrants. IIRC, there's a pretty large population of Irish illegals in this country, but nobody ever seems to bother pursuing that particular ethnic group. So, yes, "illegal immigrant" is absolutely factually correct, but terms aren't used in a purely factual sense--"illegal immigrant" has become a perjorative term that is used to talk about people coming over the Southern border.

Fact or no, the terminology has lots of baggage with it, so I have no problem with it being pushed to the side.

It's a very similar conversation, and I end up in a very similar place. Why is it so hard to use "undocumented resident" instead? Those words don't include the stigma, and they're even more accurate. Thanks to my church work, I know of several children who are born in the US of undocumented parents who, for various reasons, don't want to sign up and use them for anchor babies. They didn't immigrate, but they fall under the undocumented category. Not all of them are Hispanic, either.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Fact or no, the terminology has lots of baggage with it, so I have no problem with it being pushed to the side.

But couldn't that also be said with the actual word that defines the race itself as well? I've heard a lot of baggage that is applied to the following words:

White = People think or say - Redneck/Trailer Trash/Racist
Black = People think or say- Criminal/Untrustworthy/Gang Member
Mexican/Hispanic = People think or say - Fieldworker/Gang Member/Illegal Immigrant
Chinese = People think or say - Bad drivers/"ching chong"/Kung Foo Masters
Irish/White = People think or say - Violent/Pale/Drunks (or all those in one sentence. I've been told "Oh you're Irish, you must be a pasty violent drunk then eh?")

And the list can go on but those are just off the top of my head. These are all things I've heard from peoples mouths simply by saying "that Hispanic/Black/White/Chinese/Irish, gentlemen/woman" using only the word to describe their ethnicity. I don't think it matters what word you use to define a group, someones going to take offense, and someones going to spin it negatively.

Specifically as it shifts to a discussion on immigration language, I've missed the opportunity to really chime in constructively but have having just caught up on the thread I'd really like to thank Certis and Lara and the many of others of you who framed the discussion so well in terms of identifying more clearly how the specific language can be so hurtful.

One of the points Certis made was that often the use of these terms is frankly just lazy. Beyond the real impact the words can have, it's one of the things that has always bothered me that because they are lazy, casually used terms they are often used by the speaker with no intent anyway and the fact that they still hurt people is such a loss.

Racially-coded language and gendered insults may have the same root cause -- an inability by those in privileged positions to recognize that context matters, that communication differs depending on the speaker, and that words can hurt despite one's intent -- but I really hesitate to equate the two. Racism and anti-feminism, while both examples of oppression, are not a one-to-one match, and oftentimes an attempt to equate the two only ends up oversimplifying both.

Racism is also often brought up as a distraction tactic, to divert attention away from a discussion about feminism (or vice versa) -- a purpose which it is serving in this very thread.

momgamer wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
The Conformist wrote:
obirano wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

On a somewhat related note:
Associated Press Stylebook Drops ‘Illegal Immigrant’

The Associated Press announced on Tuesday they will no longer recommend journalists use the term illegal immigrant when referring to immigrants in the United States without legal permission.

The announcement comes more than three years after Colorlines.com launched The Drop the I-Word campaign that called on media outlets to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” because it is a racially charged slur that confuses the immigration debate and fuels violence.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally,” wrote AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on the organization’s blog.

I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel on that. I understand that when you say it, people tend to think of a certain ethnicity. At the same time though, if you are discussing someone who entered the country illegally, regardless of race, it describes the action and person to me.

Eh, I'm going to have to agree. I understand this has been used to label certain groups more than others, but isn't that only because it seems to be more of an issue with those groups? Not stereotypically, but factually? I mean if you are guilty of illegal immigration wouldn't that by definition make you an illegal immigrant? If I'm found guilty of a crime am I not technically a criminal as well?

The general issue, as Tanglebones pointed out, is "illegal immigrant" is a term that seems to be invariably reserved for Hispanic illegal immigrants. IIRC, there's a pretty large population of Irish illegals in this country, but nobody ever seems to bother pursuing that particular ethnic group. So, yes, "illegal immigrant" is absolutely factually correct, but terms aren't used in a purely factual sense--"illegal immigrant" has become a perjorative term that is used to talk about people coming over the Southern border.

Fact or no, the terminology has lots of baggage with it, so I have no problem with it being pushed to the side.

It's a very similar conversation, and I end up in a very similar place. Why is it so hard to use "undocumented resident" instead? Those words don't include the stigma, and they're even more accurate. Thanks to my church work, I know of several children who are born in the US of undocumented parents who, for various reasons, don't want to sign up and use them for anchor babies. They didn't immigrate, but they fall under the undocumented category. Not all of them are Hispanic, either.

"Undocumented Resident" I think, could still be spun and used in a negative matter as well. It would only take people a little bit of time to apply that to a specific group of people (race more specifically) as well. I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter what word or term you use. As long as it is used to identify someone or some groups act of "wrong or Illegal act", it can be spun and used as a derogatory term for that group. Society is full of ass-hats that will jump at any chance they will get.

The Conformist wrote:
momgamer wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
The Conformist wrote:
obirano wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

On a somewhat related note:
Associated Press Stylebook Drops ‘Illegal Immigrant’

The Associated Press announced on Tuesday they will no longer recommend journalists use the term illegal immigrant when referring to immigrants in the United States without legal permission.

The announcement comes more than three years after Colorlines.com launched The Drop the I-Word campaign that called on media outlets to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” because it is a racially charged slur that confuses the immigration debate and fuels violence.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally,” wrote AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on the organization’s blog.

I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel on that. I understand that when you say it, people tend to think of a certain ethnicity. At the same time though, if you are discussing someone who entered the country illegally, regardless of race, it describes the action and person to me.

Eh, I'm going to have to agree. I understand this has been used to label certain groups more than others, but isn't that only because it seems to be more of an issue with those groups? Not stereotypically, but factually? I mean if you are guilty of illegal immigration wouldn't that by definition make you an illegal immigrant? If I'm found guilty of a crime am I not technically a criminal as well?

The general issue, as Tanglebones pointed out, is "illegal immigrant" is a term that seems to be invariably reserved for Hispanic illegal immigrants. IIRC, there's a pretty large population of Irish illegals in this country, but nobody ever seems to bother pursuing that particular ethnic group. So, yes, "illegal immigrant" is absolutely factually correct, but terms aren't used in a purely factual sense--"illegal immigrant" has become a perjorative term that is used to talk about people coming over the Southern border.

Fact or no, the terminology has lots of baggage with it, so I have no problem with it being pushed to the side.

It's a very similar conversation, and I end up in a very similar place. Why is it so hard to use "undocumented resident" instead? Those words don't include the stigma, and they're even more accurate. Thanks to my church work, I know of several children who are born in the US of undocumented parents who, for various reasons, don't want to sign up and use them for anchor babies. They didn't immigrate, but they fall under the undocumented category. Not all of them are Hispanic, either.

"Undocumented Resident" I think, could still be spun and used in a negative matter as well. It would only take people a little bit of time to apply that to a specific group of people (race more specifically) as well. I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter what word or term you use. As long as it is used to identify someone or some groups act of "wrong or Illegal act", it can be spun and used as a derogatory term for that group. Society is full of ass-hats that will jump at any chance they will get.

You are quite right; people can turn anything into a slur or innuendo. But I don't underestimate the impact of making them make the effort. It sends a message, and it strengthens the position of those who choose to call them on it for the base attitude.

KaterinLHC wrote:

Racially-coded language and gendered insults may have the same root cause -- an inability by those in privileged positions to recognize that context matters, that communication differs depending on the speaker, and that words can hurt despite one's intent -- but I really hesitate to equate the two. Racism and anti-feminism, while both examples of oppression, are not a one-to-one match, and oftentimes an attempt to equate the two only ends up oversimplifying both.

Racism is also often brought up as a distraction tactic, to divert attention away from a discussion about feminism (or vice versa) -- a purpose which it is serving in this very thread.

I don't think it's serving that purpose in this thread. There are other recent threads where this conversation would definitely be out of place. However, the way I see it we've gone beyond what the original poster was saying (for good reason, IMO), are generally accepting of the reasoning that Certis gave, and are now in the realm of general discussions about political correctness/hurtful terminology. That fits, doesn't it?

I have to agree with Lou on that. This thread was never really a feminism thread that I can tell. It was about words and the implications and effects that they have on any group of people.

Tanglebones wrote:
obirano wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

On a somewhat related note:
Associated Press Stylebook Drops ‘Illegal Immigrant’

The Associated Press announced on Tuesday they will no longer recommend journalists use the term illegal immigrant when referring to immigrants in the United States without legal permission.

The announcement comes more than three years after Colorlines.com launched The Drop the I-Word campaign that called on media outlets to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” because it is a racially charged slur that confuses the immigration debate and fuels violence.

“The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally,” wrote AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll on the organization’s blog.

I'm not 100 percent sure how I feel on that. I understand that when you say it, people tend to think of a certain ethnicity. At the same time though, if you are discussing someone who entered the country illegally, regardless of race, it describes the action and person to me.

The place where it intersects with this discussion, as I see it, is when someone is defined by culture as 'illegal' - it's a way of stripping their humanity away and turning them into a faceless criminal to be processed. That there's a healthy dose of racial politics behind it doesn't help. It's also terminology that isn't used with other crimes, and, taken the way you describe it, applies equally as much to Mexican migrant workers, as to Cuban refugees seeking asylum, Soviet defectors, Canadian cheese smugglers, or children brought over by parents.

Conservatives cemented the use of the term "illegal alien" during the raucous debates around California Prop 187 back in 1994. Prop 187 banned any non-citizen from using any publicly funded services, such as education, health care, or other social services.

The use of "alien" goes back to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 where it simply meant "any person not a citizen or national of the United States." During the debates around Prop 187 the meaning of term alien morphed from a purely legal one to the more sinister "them/not one of us." Additionally, "illegal" was tacked on ostensibly to communicate that those immigrants had broken the law and were criminals. This term, of course, carries it's own baggage in America and fails to communicate the complexities of our immigration law and people's status under it.

All of this was done on purpose by conservatives to paint immigration as something that endangered or weakened the country and immigrants as dangerous criminals. But instead of having mobs scream racial epitaphs the terminology and supporting message points were served up in an easy to digest, media friendly bullet-point format by folks like Frank Luntz, the man who replaced Estate Tax with Death Tax.

obirano wrote:

I have to agree with Lou on that. This thread was never really a feminism thread that I can tell. It was about words and the implications and effects that they have on any group of people.

Bold just blew my mind because it didn't occur me that someone could see it that way. My experience has taught me otherwise. Feminism lends us some of the tools/language we use to discuss the OP topic.

Amoebic wrote:
obirano wrote:

I have to agree with Lou on that. This thread was never really a feminism thread that I can tell. It was about words and the implications and effects that they have on any group of people.

Bold just blew my mind because it didn't occur me that someone could see it that way. My experience has taught me otherwise. Feminism lends us some of the tools/language we use to discuss the OP topic.

We absolutely use those tools and those are many of the examples we have used in this thread. I'm saying that the thread itself has expanded beyond the scope of just words that have negative effects on women specifically, but words that have negative effects in general. Thereby, the new story being brought in discussing the use of "illegal immigrant" was not out of the scope of the thread, nor was it being used as a distractionary tactic as suggested.

Edit: I'm not sure if that made anymore sense or not. Basically, I think that this thread can talk about more than just the words against women.

No worries, I only just noticed six hours later that I posted in the wrong thread to begin with, so...ah...nothing to see here. I confused a thing for another thing.

This is not the "Sexism, Gaming, Pax and Fear" thread you're looking for.

Feminism is certainly the reason this thread exists though (more specifically, someone getting angry about people being more respectful towards women). If people think there's nothing more to discuss about that, it'd probably be better to start either a political correctness catch-all sort of thread or a thread specific to the AP change, mainly due to the following:

KaterinLHC wrote:

Racism is also often brought up as a distraction tactic, to divert attention away from a discussion about feminism (or vice versa) -- a purpose which it is serving in this very thread.

This is exactly what happened. It may not have been intentional, but we went from talking specifically about language offensive to women to offensive opinions in general and are now on racism. We could keep going with this thread and just say it expanded to include all offensive language, but doing so really feels like distractionary tactic so people don't have to continue to hear how the words they like using affect women.

Stengah wrote:
KaterinLHC wrote:

Racism is also often brought up as a distraction tactic, to divert attention away from a discussion about feminism (or vice versa) -- a purpose which it is serving in this very thread.

This is exactly what happened. It may not have been intentional, but we went from talking specifically about language offensive to women to offensive opinions in general and are now on racism. We could keep going with this thread and just say it expanded to include all offensive language, but doing so really feels like distractionary tactic so people don't have to continue to hear how the words they like using affect women.

I think the conversation broadened out, rightly or wrongly, to encompass offensive language towards others. We should be careful when ascribing deliberate, malicious distraction tactics to people who may have had no such intent. Speaking personally I raised the example of an Indian man in Britain being distressed by constant low level animosity in an attempt to give an example of how that sort of thing can be painful in a similar way that subtly demeaning words in every day conversation can be oppressive to women.

Stengah wrote:

This is not the "Sexism, Gaming, Pax and Fear" thread you're looking for.

Feminism is certainly the reason this thread exists though (more specifically, someone getting angry about people being more respectful towards women). If people think there's nothing more to discuss about that, it'd probably be better to start either a political correctness catch-all sort of thread or a thread specific to the AP change, mainly due to the following:

KaterinLHC wrote:

Racism is also often brought up as a distraction tactic, to divert attention away from a discussion about feminism (or vice versa) -- a purpose which it is serving in this very thread.

This is exactly what happened. It may not have been intentional, but we went from talking specifically about language offensive to women to offensive opinions in general and are now on racism. We could keep going with this thread and just say it expanded to include all offensive language, but doing so really feels like distractionary tactic so people don't have to continue to hear how the words they like using affect women.

I still disagree. The changes to the podcast were definitely feminism-centric. However, this thread started with a rant about about avoiding hurtful language in general. Yes, we have discussed sexist language here and that would continue to serve as both a subtopic and a good example. I don't think that anyone here is using discussions about other hurtful language to mask or cover up the topic of sexist language.

Hmmm. Whether they intended to do it or not, that's what happened, Lou.

There was a dilution of the discussion to include items that the OP did not specifically address but could be included in his manifesto, so to speak. It's now a discussion about how certain words can hurt feelings, vs how a few specific phrases like "don't be a p*ssy" target an individual group.

I don't think the dilution of the discussion was intentional, but that makes it no less pervasive and no less an attempt to diminish or ignore the sexist language.

As the diluter, I'm willing to accept that my dilution is what it is - it was unintentional, but the effect remains the same. Back to the topic of sexist language!

Yeah, I suppose if the majority of folks think that's what this thread is about, then that's what it's about. I apologize for misunderstanding that and for contributing to the dilution of the topic.

LouZiffer wrote:

Yeah, I suppose if the majority of folks think that's what this thread is about, then that's what it's about. I apologize for misunderstanding that and for contributing to the dilution of the topic.

It's still a topic that deserves discussion, just in it's own thread.

Back to the original topic - Barack Obama recently drew heat for saying that a California Attorney General was the best looking attorney general in the nation. He apologized for his language today - I don't think the apology cost him anything other than the needed empathy to realize he'd said something inappropriate and trivializing:

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.co...

Would the same fuss be an issue if she were a man?

The Conformist wrote:

Would the same fuss be an issue if she were a man?

Of course not. Men are judged to a far lesser degree on their appearance vs job performance, while a woman is judged almost equally on both.

The Conformist wrote:

Would the same fuss be an issue if she were a man?

From Obama? Yeah, it would confirm that he is gay, as well as a foreigner Muslim.

The Conformist wrote:

Would the same fuss be an issue if she were a man?

Successful men aren't constantly accused of getting where they are because of their looks.

The Conformist wrote:

Would the same fuss be an issue if she were a man?

Why would Obama even think to mention it if she were a man?

Men often introduce or identify the female professional peers they admire as "lovely" or the "beautiful and talented", etc. (You see this a lot with, say, Felicia Day, or any other woman in a male-dominated field, tbh.) It's meant to be a compliment, but because the visual evaluation is apropos of nothing, the "compliment" serves only to distract from the woman's accomplishments.

If you're a man having trouble seeing why these compliments are a problem in a professional setting, imagine if your female peers constantly referred to you as the "balding and talented programmer" or as "intelligent yet brown-haired salesperson". See how the visual evaluation distracts from the actual compliment? Why is it relevant to mention that you are balding, or brown-haired? Answer: It isn't. Nor is it relevant to mention that your female co-worker is "lovely" or "beautiful and talented", etc.

The Conformist wrote:

Would the same fuss be an issue if she were a man?

No, it would be a different fuss, because it is remarkable for a straight man to mention another man's attractiveness.

The fact that it's not remarkable to describe a woman that way is precisely the problem.

It may be rare when is done to a man but that wouldn't make it any better.

Back in 2007 Biden caused a fuss when he said:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

It wasn't appropriate then either.