This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Ununnilium: Clearing up the definition of the trope. I think this'll better explain it for people who don't already know what it is. `.`
Ununnilium: Thank you, jojabar, for cleaning up the Incompetence example.
I'm not a Harry Potter reader, so this:
- In "Goblet of Fire" and continuing on afterwards, Hermione founds S.P.E.W. in order to free the house elves from slavery. The majority of the characters roll their eyes at this, suggesting that Hermoine is taking it too far. It's later revealed that even the elves are against it.
Can I ask, why were the elves against it?
- Narvi: Because they like being slaves.
- Pro-Mole: actually, as better explained here, they like working.
- As Token said, Jesse Jackson isn't the emperor of Black people!
- He told Stan's dad he was...
Redkun: Whoever removed-
- Personally, I feel that this trope should be renamed, "Political Correctness That Is Logic-Challenged".
Ununnilium: Agreed. (Especially odd, as that same person added Conversation In The Main Page themselves.) Re-adding it.
Kilyle: As far as Truth in Television... Christmas not banned, no, but the display of nativities is getting people up in arms, and people have switched from "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays" - sometimes at the demand of the stores they work for. And yes, it is possible for governmental groups to affect the English language to some degree... a degree thankfully minor, but still felt.
- Real life example: This troper never stops being amazed by the fact that swedish is not the official language of Sweden. According to urban legend the government thought making swedish the official language would be discriminatory towards people who do not speak it. Note that several languages, such as finnish and jiddish are already official minor languages.
This isn't even especially odd, let alone "mad". English isn't the official language of the US.
Also, I think we shouldn't put in Real Life examples, following the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment.
In response to somebody stating that schools had banned dodgeball because it was competetive, somebidy replied:
- Er... Isn't this example itself an example of the kind of Conservative whining about "Political Correctness Gone MAAAAD" that this article is pointing up? (some hypothetical "school districts". Huh.)
I don't know about whether we should use Real Life examples, but my old school district did just that. With those exact reasons.
Mjb: A non-exlusive grouping of individuals should (but will in no way be forcibly coerced, pressured, or invited to) participate in a joint-answer session (without discriminative rewards or individuals chosen for difference in submission's specific form) to (audibly, visibly, or otherwise) perceive the individual (no specific individual, rather a hypothetical grouping) who can most interestingly (most being equal to least in all respects) portray the application of equality-based speech (or other form of communication or non-communication) to the translation (without implying any existing boundaries or differences) of an arbitrarily selected passage (all passages being equal) of text.
Inkblot: That's not political correctness, more like lawyer-speak.
Inkblot: I'm disappointed. I came to this discussion page expecting a flame war over whether political correctness really has gone too far, and everyone's acting reasonable!
Antheia: Unknown A Norwegian: Pulled the comment about Swedes not flying the flag at holidays, because 1) Conversation In The Main Page, and 2), well... we do, and those things have happened.
Pro-Mole: Not pulling out, but pointing:
- A Catholic bishop in The Netherlands actually suggested that the Dutch Christians call God "Allah" so as to make Dutch Muslims more welcome. To put it into perspective, this makes as much sense as American Christians calling God "Dios" in order to make the Hispanic Americans more welcome.
The example is good, the analogy is bad. As fas I know, Muslim is a religion, Hispanic is an ethnicity, that'd be more like calling God "Brahman" to avoid offending Hindi-American, but even then I'm not really sure...
Dryhad: No, the analogy is not between a religion and an ethnicity, it is between two languages. "Allah" is "God" in Arabic (well it might be "Lord". Or something similar. My Arabic's a bit rusty (read: nonexistent) but the basic point is the same). The example in question is supposed to highlight the fact that it is about language, not religion (contrary to the bishop's interpretation).
Peanut: I remember reading something in Freakonomics and I was wondering if it went here. If it does and someone has more details please add it to the real life examples. There was a politician visiting a pre-school. A little girl named Isis, told him her name meant Egyptian princess, he in a bad attempt to make a joke told her it meant "stupid dirty girl". There was an outcry in black communities all over the country. Many called for him to resign from whatever position he had. One black community leader asked would he have said the same to a little white girl. However, it turned out little Isis was white. Isis' mother Trinity didn't think it was a big deal.
Shouldn't we mark this as Subjective? I don't thing there's anyone who'll agree with all of the examples.
- Seconded! There's bound to be a fair bit of Values Dissonance here are well
Danel: I see this page has been colonised by the Fearlessly Politically Incorrect now, who've actually put down this story as if it were true:
- There's been some controversy in the UK over the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Black Sheep," with some people claiming that it's racist. That's led to kids being taught to replace "Black Sheep" with "Yellow," "Green," "Pink" and even "Rainbow Sheep." You'll find people who argue for this change, saying that "substituting the word 'black' for other colors serves as a way of teaching children colors—even yellow, which has its own racial connotations." Haven't these people ever seen an actual black sheep before?!
- Total bollocks whipped up by Daily Mail hysterior. http://www.septicisle.info/2006/03/baa-baa-rainbow-bollocks.html
- This example originally had Natter from tropers who agreed with the idea. Life Imitates Bollocks, perhaps?
- Total bollocks whipped up by Daily Mail hysterior. http://www.septicisle.info/2006/03/baa-baa-rainbow-bollocks.html
No one has ever claimed that "Baa Baa Black Sheep" was racist. The whole nonsense about "some school" doing it is a periodic newspaper story designed to fan the flames of righteous indignation, and in any case by "substitute" it wasn't meant that they didn't sing the original as well.
Danel: Here's the edited variant that was re-added:
- There's been some controversy in the UK over the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Black Sheep," with some people claiming that it's racist. That's led to kids being taught to replace "Black Sheep" with "Yellow," "Green," "Pink" and even "Rainbow Sheep." You'll find people who argue for this change, saying that "substituting the word 'black' for other colors serves as a way of teaching children colors—even yellow, which has its own racial connotations." Haven't these people ever seen an actual black sheep before?!
So, from the article - one council - Birmingham, which also did the Winterval thing - called it "racially offensive" years ago in a totally unrelated story. In no sense, then, did this "lead" to the replacement. Some schools use multiple words instead of just "black"... you conclude that their explanation for this must be nonsense and it must really be all about racism. Why? Well, because someone else called it racist years ago. Again, bullshit.
Unknown Troper: I like how you assume there's some Politically Incorrect Conspiracy at work, here. That example was on this article for months, written by someone else. All I did was find a more relevant news link and reinstated the example after you tore it down while screaming "BULLSHIT!"
Despite what you might think—and what PACT did—it is true that people have been advocating that change to the rhyme on the same grounds that with which the Birmingham Council tried to impose a ban. The example had several people praising it as promoting racial tolerance. A growing number of people are out of touch with the idea that black sheep actually exist and instead assume it's a racial slight to blacks.
So, you can't quite call this bullshit. If anything the example just needs to be rewritten so that it doesn't imply that PACT deliberately changed the rhyme for racial sensitivity.
JET 73 L: In the Penny Arcade example, the black guy is looking noticeably further down in the second panel than the first panel. Is he supposed to be staring at the top of the woman's chest, or is it just that the woman is significantly shorter than the white guy, and the size of the pixels as compared to the pupil size exaggerate the difference to where it looks like he's not looking as high as the face of the other person any more? It would be interesting to know opinions (or Word of God, if there is any) on whether or not that was a second, much more subtle level of joke/commentary.
Philip1201: The image caption says "Northern-Hemisphere-Temperate-Climate winter solstice", but that doesn't make any sense: the winter solstice is a global event not dependent on climate or hemisphere, because it's defined as the moment the sun reaches it's most northern position in the sky. If you're going to politically correct, you could at least be correct.
