Treating Other People With Respect

rwguinn said:
To reasonable people, you would be correct. My suggestion would be false advertising to anyone non-PC.
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I dunno if it's false advertising, but I do have to question what they were trying to accomplish. I started watching the actual video at work, but stopped because it really wasn't work appropriate.
 
Upchurch said:
Was this an all-white sorority by design?
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Looks that way. In fact, it seems that even black hair is banned. I couldn't see any hair past brunette.

Upchurch said:
It would be. Clearly, they did not wish to convey that they were all-white or they wouldn't have taken down the video.
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I don't think so.

Mind you, nor do I think it's wrong to have a private club that restricts membership on whatever grounds they choose.

People without Irish heritage can't enter the Rose of Tralee and non-Maori aren't eligible to play for NZ Maori.
 
From the article about the sorority video:

An article for Al.com, a statewide digital news outlet, helped draw attention and criticism to the video, slamming the sorority members for being “all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition.”
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The reason the video was withdrawn was because it was criticized (externally) for displaying a lack of diversity. I don't know why the sorority isn't diverse...probably because they are a sorority and membership tends to follow lines of similar background, interests, and outlook on life...but is it really a requirement that a non-diverse group portray themselves as diverse? I would think that would be lying.

For reference, what would consider "politically correct" would be for the sorority to deliberately stick the few non-white members into as many scenes as possible to make themselves appear more diverse. Instead of asking "Who wants to be in the video?" asking "Who wants to be in the video? Tammy and Becky, we NEED you to be in it!"

In conversation, politically correct, to me, has always meant using needlessly cumbersome phrases in order to avoid offending. And what is cumbersome, is, obviously a matter of opinion. I find "handicapped" to be a less awkward term to use in conversation than "differently abled," for example. But I would be happy to use a preferred term that flowed easier in conversation.

Being irritated by "PC" things like linguistic gymnastics does not mean one condones rudeness or that one thinks negatively towards those who are different.

Also, treating someone respectfully is different from having respect for them.
 
TomB said:
I find "handicapped" to be a less awkward term to use in conversation than "differently abled," for example. But I would be happy to use a preferred term that flowed easier in conversation.
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A recent favorite of mine was where an airline referred to "passengers of size".
 
TomB said:
The reason the video was withdrawn was because it was criticized (externally) for displaying a lack of diversity. I don't know why the sorority isn't diverse...probably because they are a sorority and membership tends to follow lines of similar background, interests, and outlook on life...but is it really a requirement that a non-diverse group portray themselves as diverse? I would think that would be lying.

For reference, what would consider "politically correct" would be for the sorority to deliberately stick the few non-white members into as many scenes as possible to make themselves appear more diverse. Instead of asking "Who wants to be in the video?" asking "Who wants to be in the video? Tammy and Becky, we NEED you to be in it!"
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I suppose there are others here old enough to remember when the revelation occurred that minorities and handicapped individuals weren't going to be fully integrated into society until they were shown that way in advertisements, children's books and group images.

In a clunky sort of way, token black kids, Asian kids and kids in wheelchairs started to be added to group images, as a kind of Orwellian attempt to picture the way the world should be in an attempt to teach kids, in particular, that that's the way it was. Black kids ate Wonderbread too. Kids in wheelchairs went on adventures with their abled friends, who cleverly included them.

Was it lying to show people of color using the same products as whites? Well, people of color surely did, even if the product was formerly marketed to whites.

But a couple of generations later, we're so used to seeing the token minorities, a video without them seems strange.
 
Upchurch said:
My guess is because it is far easier to label someone and dismiss them out-of-hand than to engage in critical thinking.
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No, that wasn't what I was asking...
Let me rephrase: why is it thought of as a pejorative?
We know, for example, why "racist" is a pejorative. It's because discrimination based on characteristics of race is unjustified and prejudiced, so people who do it are bigots.

Some people are kind, polite, and empathetic. Others aren't. Humanity, as a whole, aren't generally one or the other. There are too many factors to make a hasty generalization about that.
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We weren't talking what people were, but what people want to be.
TeapotCavalry said:
You think people don't want to be polite, respectful and courteous?
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Now you're arguing that people as a whole generally don't want to be polite, respectful and courteous. My anecdotal evidence of some 30 years from around the world directly contradicts that.

Then it's not really an insult or a pejorative, is it?
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Then the N-word isn't an insult either. You know, because the in-group doesn't consider it a pejorative.
You're entertaining weird arguments. If you're in high school and think of yourself as a nerd, that doesn't stop jocks using "nerd" as an insult.

Okay, show me an example of someone who really likes a marginalized group but who thinks that being differential to is excessive.
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I don't understand your wording here. Show you someone who really likes a marginalized group who thinks treating that group differently is excessive?

Could you be more clear?
 
TomB said:
The reason the video was withdrawn was because it was criticized (externally) for displaying a lack of diversity.
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No, that's the reason it was criticized. Maybe the video was withdrawn because the sorority didn't like the criticism or because they thought the criticism was valid and didn't want to be associated with it. Or maybe for some other reason.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
A recent favorite of mine was where an airline referred to "passengers of size".
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Hm. What's wrong with that? Do you believe it would be better for airlines to call potential and current clients "fat", "porko", or "lard-butt"? Is using the phrase "passenger of size" excessive?
 
TeapotCavalry said:
No, that wasn't what I was asking...
Let me rephrase: why is it thought of as a pejorative?
We know, for example, why "racist" is a pejorative. It's because discrimination based on characteristics of race is unjustified and prejudiced, so people who do it are bigots.
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Okay, so explain to me why "politically correct" is throught of as a pejorative.


TeapotCavalry said:
We weren't talking what people were, but what people want to be.
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What's the difference? Some people want to be polite. Some people don't want to be polite.


TeapotCavalry said:
Now you're arguing that people as a whole generally don't want to be polite, respectful and courteous. My anecdotal evidence of some 30 years from around the world directly contradicts that.
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Historical evidence from some 7-8 thousand years of written human history confirms it. It is full of people having no interest in being polite to people outside their group or society. Sometime within their group or society.


TeapotCavalry said:
Then the N-word isn't an insult either. You know, because the in-group doesn't consider it a pejorative.
You're entertaining weird arguments. If you're in high school and think of yourself as a nerd, that doesn't stop jocks using "nerd" as an insult.
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That's a fair argument. Do conservatives consider being called "conservatives" by non-conservatives to necessarily be an insult?
 
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Upchurch said:
Okay, so explain to me why "politically correct" is throught of as a pejorative.
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In my opinion it's thought of as perjorative because some time back in the 70s, some popular writers did a little too much reductio ad absurding with the idea.
 
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Upchurch said:
Hm. What's wrong with that? Do you believe it would be better for airlines to call potential and current clients "fat", "porko", or "lard-butt"? Is using the phrase "passenger of size" excessive?
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Who said there's anything wrong with it? If someone says "chocolate ice cream is one of my favorites" do you ask them "what's wrong with chocolate ice cream"?
 
Upchurch said:
Hm. What's wrong with that? Do you believe it would be better for airlines to call potential and current clients "fat", "porko", or "lard-butt"? Is using the phrase "passenger of size" excessive?
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I believe overweight and obese are the medical terms. The lack of PC speech doesn't automatically have to be third grade insults.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
Who said there's anything wrong with it? If someone says "chocolate ice cream is one of my favorites" do you ask them "what's wrong with chocolate ice cream"?
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My mistake. I thought you meant it was one of your favorite examples of political correctness and you had previously derided political correctness.

Is "passengers of size" not political correctness, then?
 
Upchurch said:
Huh. Do you believe airlines would want to call their potential clients "overweight" or "obese" when trying to sell them a service?
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Let's throw that around:
Why do you think they refer to their potential clients as "passenger of size" rather than 'overweight' or 'obese'?
 
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