Rant time with Uncle W! Today's topic: PC around ethnic background.
I have a huge problem with some PC terms that I see and hear being used all the time. Let's start with a classic.
African American
Ok, this presupposes two obvious and somewhat offensive notions; first, that a person with dark skin is of African ancestry. Black people come from more places than Africa - Jamaica, perhaps? It also presupposes that a person is an American, which isn't necessarily true. Added to that, it doesn't really tell you anything, except that the person using the term is more interested in not offending somebody that's hyper-sensitive to the ridiculous, and is willing to arbitrarily lump somebody into an ethnic identity that may have no basis in anything connected to reality. People of actual African descent don't necessarily have dark skin, either.
The biggest problem with this kind of PC crap is that it's ridiculously restrictive. If one were to grant some kind of validity to identifying Americans by their geographic ethnicity (and I don't), then why are we stopping with one? I want to be known as a Scandinavian-British Islander-Caucasian-Sino-Hugenot American!
Native Hawaiian OR Pacific Islander
Moving on. Isn't Hawaii a series of ...islands? In the ....Pacific Ocean? Wouldn't that make natives of that area of the world ....Pacific Islanders?
For that matter, why don't we call them Pacific Islander Americans? You know, to be consistent.
Ethnicity vs. Race
Somebody out there tell me what the hell the difference is??? Please?
Why are the categories for "Ethnicity" White or Hispanic? Do non-White, non-Hispanic people not have any ethnicity? Where did this idea come from?
Blah, I could come up with a hundred more ridiculous examples. I have a suggestion, however.
Somewhere, somehow, there is a small group of people out there who are coming up with these ideas, and actually convincing the people around them that the ideas are good ones. I think we should find them, capture them, and fire them into the sun.
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3 comments:
The news story about Hillary's supposedly racist remarks is a case in point. It shocked me - I thought that Mr. O'Bama was of Irish descent...
You're just not culturally sensitive and I'm offended. heheheh
Cute link in your name, Bike Owner. :)
Yeah, that's pretty much the take on Hillary's comments that I'd had as well. The Clintons are masters of getting the nasty smear quote out there with deniability from the candidate, but they haven't learned yet that the massive fact-checking ability of the Internet is the bane of that approach.
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