Treating Other People With Respect

xjx388 said:
I think there's a difference between modifying speech so as not to cause offense and modifying speech in order to convey an accepted political outlook. Calling someone fat is just rude. There is usually no need to address a person's size and when necessary, we should try to be as polite as possible.

But "undocumented immigrant," is an attempt to change the perception of people who came to America illegally. It downplays the fact that they are doing something wrong which serves the political purposes of those who want them to receive amnesty. "Illegal alien/immigrant," is the proper term and is not insulting to anyone. The insulting nature of the term was only recently fabricated for political purposes.

That's an illustration of the difference between respect and political correctness in my mind.
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You explained it much better than I did earlier. Very well said. :thumbsup:
 
From newyorkguy's quote of Charles Garcia:
When you label someone an "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant" or just plain "illegal," you are effectively saying the individual, as opposed to the actions the person has taken, is unlawful.
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By this same logic we should not refer to people who have broken laws as "criminals" or people who have committed felonies as "felons" or people who have committed sex crimes as "sex offenders."

People who have come into the country through extra-legal methods have, in fact, broken the law. I don't particularly blame them for doing so. I even admire them to some extent for the risks they took/take presumably in order to better provide for their family. I've known several. Good people.

But they HAVE broken the law which means they HAVE committed a crime and therefore could legitimately be described as criminals. "Illegal Alien" is arguably softer term than could be used: "Criminal immigrant" for example is technically correct. (I think illegal sounds nicer than criminal.)

What "Undocumented" implies is a paperwork error. When they came into the country they didn't sneak in, they just neglected to stop at the border station and fill out their paperwork.

An illegal immigrant is someone who immigrated to the country illegally. Were they to leave the country, they would cease to be illegal immigrants. Should they gain legal status (which I'm largely in favor of) they would also cease to be illegal immigrants.

I don't really have a problem using either term, but I don't think "Illegal immigrant/alien" is particularly insulting. I see it as descriptive.
 
Undocumented implies a paperwork error? Who decided that? By the way recently we were using dictionary definitions; this is the way Webster defines "undocumented:"
Full Definition of UNDOCUMENTED
: not documented: as
a : not supported by documentary evidence <undocumented expenditures>
b : lacking documents required for legal immigration or residence <undocumented workers> Link
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Close to half the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. did enter legally; they then overstayed their visa or entered on a travel or student visa and then stayed and sought employment.


"Criminal immigrant" for example is technically correct. (I think illegal sounds nicer than criminal.)
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I think in a roundabout way this illustrates the problem some Americans have with the term, "undocumented immigrant." It doesn't sound bad enough! ;)
 
CNN Op-ed piece written by Charles Garcia said:
When you label someone an "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant" or just plain "illegal," you are effectively saying the individual, as opposed to the actions the person has taken, is unlawful.
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No, that's just silly. It says that person is illegally residing there. No more than calling someone criminal or a felon, as pointed out already, is calling that person him/herself unlawful in some kind of abstract Kafkaesque way, it simply denotes to their illegal actions. This is quite absurd argument.

The terms imply the very existence of an unauthorized migrant in America is criminal.
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Only if you intentionally equate illegality with criminality. But as the following paragraph shows the author is making a distinction between different kinds of illegal activities and their semantic connotations, so this basically seems like begging the question. You might as well proclaim that jaywalking isn't illegal, because illegal implies it's criminal and jaywalkers aren't criminals. It's basically an equivocation of the word 'criminal'.
 
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TomB said:
By this same logic we should not refer to people who have broken laws as "criminals" or people who have committed felonies as "felons" or people who have committed sex crimes as "sex offenders."
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That's not the same logic at all. We don't call any of your examples "illegal citizens".
 
newyorkguy said:
I think in a roundabout way this illustrates the problem some Americans have with the term, "undocumented immigrant." It doesn't sound bad enough! ;)
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I'm not an American and I can't figure out why the aversion to use "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant". Seems pretty much your typical excessive PC jargon machine in action for no rational reason.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Of course, people like that he isn't PC. That gets him a lot power.

He is the perfect case to show that a lot of people do mean treating people with respect then they talk about being PC. His lack of being PC when he calls them a bimbo or talks about blood coming out of their whatever, is the kind of not being PC that people like.
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For a non-US citizen, and to someone who doesn't care about the left-right wing brouhaha, what Trump seems to be doing is playing on the atmosphere the SJWs/PC activists have created. He's being totally unapologetically anti-PC in every possible way. It seems even a lot of the anti-authoritarian left-wingers find it kind of cathartic.
 
arthwollipot said:
Does the term "othering" mean anything to you?

If not, then I suggest that you go and look it up.
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It does and I'm convinced it can be done as easily with words such as "immigrant", or "foreigner", as it can with "alien".

It's not the individual words, it's the context that matters.
 
Apologies if this has been said already but I don't have time to read the thread. Political correctness is the recoil after years/decades/centuries of discrimination against, oppression of, hatred for some group or class or minority. It is an over-correction which in time will sort itself out. Given what it is an over-correction of, it is of very little consequence, comparatively speaking, but it feels awkward while we adjust ourselves to behaving decently to the aforesaid groups etc.
 
arthwollipot said:
You don't see the problem with calling someone an "alien"?
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No, why is it a problem? Alien. Seems like perfectly apt term.

ETA:

arthwollipot said:
Does the term "othering" mean anything to you?

If not, then I suggest that you go and look it up.
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In what way does this term other the illegal immigrants any more than, say, "criminal"/"felon"/"suspect" would other the criminals/felons/suspects?


anglolawyer said:
Apologies if this has been said already but I don't have time to read the thread. Political correctness is the recoil after years/decades/centuries of discrimination against, oppression of, hatred for some group or class or minority. It is an over-correction which in time will sort itself out. Given what it is an over-correction of, it is of very little consequence, comparatively speaking, but it feels awkward while we adjust ourselves to behaving decently to the aforesaid groups etc.
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It most likely is an over-correction, but frankly that's no excuse, it's just an explanation. And "we" don't need to adjust to behaving decently when "we" haven't behaved indecently, "we" don't adhere the sins of our forefathers, and neither should "we" adhere their oppression.
 
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Cl1mh4224rd said:
That's not the same logic at all. We don't call any of your examples "illegal citizens".
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Who has gained citizenship illegally?

newyorkguy said:
The above is the basic position for those who don't like the phrase undocumented immigrant. That it's essentially a con job. A political construct. What is that belief based on though? How was it discovered that the use of the words undocumented immigrant began as an attempt to change the perception of people who came to the U.S. illegally? Of course once you have been convinced of that you're going to be pretty hostile to the use of the words. But what is the belief based on? Can anyone say?

This is from a CNN Op-ed piece written by Charles Garcia**:


** - Charles Garcia is a native-born American businessman who heads a major firm (Sterling Financial Investment Group Inc.) that provides financial services for, primarily, Hispanic investors.
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So "unlawful immigrant" would be better than "illegal immigrant?" Undocumented is a euphemism for unlawful?
 
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Cl1mh4224rd said:
We don't call any of your examples "illegal citizens".
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I think the above is the point Charles Garcia was making.

In personal conversation I doubt what term is used makes much difference. As for me I think undocumented immigrant is a more accurate description. Someone who has immigrated legally but then commits a crime and is wanted by the police could be called an illegal immigrant too. The word undocumented seems to specifically address immigration status.

For the media and political leaders it's possibly better to use undocumented immigrant. The reason why I think that is, there has always been a strong strain of xenophobia in the American psyche. We're in a period where that seems to be on the rise. Anything that fans the flames is probably best avoided. For that reason I think the words undocumented immigrant is a less emotional term. We're already seeing violence directed towards non-whites who seem to be -- to the people who attack them -- from foreign lands. Anything that lowers the temperature, even minimally, is probably a good idea.
 
TeapotCavalry said:
It most likely is an over-correction, but frankly that's no excuse, it's just an explanation. And "we" don't need to adjust to behaving decently when "we" haven't behaved indecently, "we" don't adhere the sins of our forefathers, and neither should "we" adhere their oppression.
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Well, I see your point, but it's not so easy to draw a line under the sins of our forebears. I have at least one German friend who has told me how ashamed she felt about WW2. She was born in the 60s.
 
newyorkguy said:
Close to half the undocumented immigrants in the U.S. did enter legally; they then overstayed their visa or entered on a travel or student visa and then stayed and sought employment.
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It's not clear to me why you think that's relevant.

Is it that, because the initial act of immigration was legal, they don't count as "illegal immigrants"? If so, I don't find that compelling. They are immigrants that are not legally entitled to be in the country they're in.

I don't have a strong opinion on this term, but I tend to think that "illegal immigrant" is reasonably apt and not excessively offensive or misleading.
 
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