[Callers] Politically Correct?

[Mary Collins]

Well said Colin.

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 6:20 AM Colin Hume via Callers <
callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> I'm going to be controversial, so please think hard about what I'm saying
> - and why you're reacting to it the way you
> are - before replying.
>
> I think "Political correctness" is mainly an American problem, though it
> seems to be spreading to England too.
>
> The word "nigger" was not originally a pejorative term, just a description
> - it's the Latin word for "black" with the
> "g" doubled. Since then it has become "black", "negro", "coloured", "of
> colour" and "African-American" (not much use in
> England, that last one), and possibly others that I don't know about.  But
> this "political correctness" is treating the
> symptom, not the disease.
>
> If we look down on black people, or women, or homosexuals, or gypsies, or
> people with mental or physical disabilities,
> then any word we choose to label them with eventually comes to mean "those
> people we look down on", and has to be
> replaced by another euphemism.  It wouldn't surprise me if in a few years'
> time the word "gay" was seen as
> "inappropriate" (a word I hate as much as "politically correct") and had
> to be replaced by another term.
>
> And different people like to refer to themselves in different ways.  Some
> women in the USA object to being called
> "ladies".  But some ladies in England object to being called "women"!
> Similarly some gypsies like being called
> "gypsies", and I'm guessing that they would object to the word
> "travellers" because that would include people who chose
> to follow a travelling way of life but were not real gypsies.
>
> So I'm with Tom Hinds - always be respectful, not intentionally
> disrespectful.
>
> Colin Hume
>
> Email colin at colinhume.com      Web site http://colinhume.com
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