Political Correctness

[ArmorPierce]

I think limited political correctness in where you respect another person and his or her culture is alright. I don' t think, however, that it is ok to have so much political correctness that some people are getting special rights over other more deservent people.

Edit: Corrected some bad grammer

[Raptor 597]

I think limited political correctness in where you respect another person and his or her culture. I don' t think, however, that so much political correctness that is being used that you are actually giving the other person special rights.

Yeah, well sad thng is the other people are getting special rights. I liked that 60 Minutes thing about how some white students with a high SAT and better qualifications had lost their spots to less qualified black students. Sad thruth is some colleges race is a deciding factor, and true I know their is the opposite ith the college thing, merely an example.

[Tsyroc]

I think limited political correctness in where you respect another person and his or her culture. I don' t think, however, that so much political correctness that is being used that you are actually giving the other person special rights.

Yeah, well sad thng is the other people are getting special rights. I liked that 60 Minutes thing about how some white students with a high SAT and better qualifications had lost their spots to less qualified black students. Sad thruth is some colleges race is a deciding factor, and true I know their is the opposite ith the college thing, merely an example.

Sometimes not being the right minority can discriminate against someone. My coworkers daughter is of Korean decent (actually born there) but in her school system she isn't considered a minority because "the Asian students usually do well without extra help". So even though there are far fewer people of Asian decent in Tucson than Hispanics in that school system the Hispanics get preferential treatment over them.

[Raptor 597]

I think limited political correctness in where you respect another person and his or her culture. I don' t think, however, that so much political correctness that is being used that you are actually giving the other person special rights.

Yeah, well sad thng is the other people are getting special rights. I liked that 60 Minutes thing about how some white students with a high SAT and better qualifications had lost their spots to less qualified black students. Sad thruth is some colleges race is a deciding factor, and true I know their is the opposite ith the college thing, merely an example.

Sometimes not being the right minority can discriminate against someone. My coworkers daughter is of Korean decent (actually born there) but in her school system she isn't considered a minority because "the Asian students usually do well without extra help". So even though there are far fewer people of Asian decent in Tucson than Hispanics in that school system the Hispanics get preferential treatment over them.

Damn, now thats really fucked up

[Nick]

Sometimes not being the right minority can discriminate against someone. My coworkers daughter is of Korean decent (actually born there) but in her school system she isn't considered a minority because "the Asian students usually do well without extra help". So even though there are far fewer people of Asian decent in Tucson than Hispanics in that school system the Hispanics get preferential treatment over them.

Damn, now thats really fucked up

And where it goes wrong is this:

Correct chain of logic:
1. Minority group A has a tendency to suffer unjust material disadvantage as compared to the general population
2. Person A is a member of minority group A
3. Person A is suffering unjust material disadvantage by virtue of being in minority group A
4. Therefore, person A should be given help in overcoming those unjust disadvantages.

Leap of logic:
1. As above
2. As above
3. Therefore, person A should be given help

In a lot of cases, the existence of the 'leap in logic' situation is both an information problem, and an 'erring on the side of caution' problem. It is an information problem, because it is much easier for the government to determine 'is a member of a minority group' than it is to determine 'is suffering unjust disadvantage'. It is an 'erring on the side of caution' problem, because many people (myself included) would prefer to see a few (emphasis on 'few') freeloaders rort the system than to see deserving people not receive the help they require.

That being said, social justice is certainly about the first situation I describe - the existence of the second is merely an implementation problem.

[Tebrak'aun]

Waiter I'll take a double serving of humble pie

Good dissection of my points Darth. Basically I was imprecise in my argument and overgeneralising. This will teach me to surf the net at 4 in the morning after work. As far as political correctness goes I was talking about the verbal aspect of it not the physical aspect as it is not a side I have witnessed. I found that your arguments did a good job of clarifying and elaborating on what I was trying to say. The only other point I have to make is that political correctness in my veiw tends to make the differences between ethnicities, sexuality/gender or religion a taboo subject and discourages open discussion. So By doing this it perpetuates a cycle of fearing something that is not understood as it doesn't provide an avenue of education or demystification. It is my belief that more time should be spent trying to find common ground with our fellows than acknowledging and underlining differences.