How Totally Idiotic! Has Pc Behaviour Overtaken Common Sense?

[Alison]

But.... I hope it's not too politically correct of me to mention that most people with Downs are well able to go to the toilet and tie their shoelaces. In fact many of the Downs people I've worked with are very able to care for themselves, cook, shop, can read and write and have jobs.

Thanks Fee I only mentioned the toilet/shoelaces things as they were cited in the case of this particular lad's level of disability - or should I say "differently abledness? I genuinely am bewildered these days. I want to use the right terms but in most cases simply don't know what they are because they seem to change by the minute

 

I know that there are youngsters with Down's Syndrome who have achieved the Duke Of Edinburgh Gold Award amongst other great attainments. Their level of ability is patently different to that of the poor boy who unwittingly found himself at the centre of this ludicrous débâcle

 

I've reflected on what I said previously. I freely confess to being offended by some things that people say, yet am paradoxically irritated that I have to choose my own words carefully for fear of offending others (hence my remark about my own hypocrisy).

 

In my ideal world, all of us would be a little thicker skinned in terms of things said [to us] and a little more sensitive about how we word things ourselves. At the moment the balance seems out of kilter and everything is too extreme.

 

We're offended too easily and should only take umbrage at remarks that are genuinely malicious and intended to cause hurt or distress. Had the whoever they are powers that be who subjected the aforementoned boy to the ordeal that he was forced to undergo lived by this tenet, he'd never have found himself in court or even being questioned.

 

Am I the only one here whose ancient Gran thinks nothing of going into the wool shop and ordering a certain shade of brown yarn by its old fashioned name? Is she remotely aware that this is no longer a PC thing to say? Is she deliberately setting out to disparage a whole section of a particular ethnic community? Of course not. That to me is the difference between being too old to be PC and yet not in any way setting out to be deliberately offensive.

 

Just for the record I would like to state publicly that I still despise John Prescott as a "soi disant" politician and it has nothing to do with his bulimia

[snow]

I'm in complete agreement with you Alison, and I am very quick to speak out against PC madness when I encounter it - I believe I've previously related the story of a training course I went on where I almost came to blows with the silly pc twerp who interrupted the training constantly to berate us all for using non pc words - those words being "ladies" because that presumed the females present were all ladies and some might be offended at it's class overtones "gentlemen" same reasoning but applied to the males in the group, "girls" when used by either gender for example one of the men asked "would any of you girls like a drink?" or when we females actually used it about ourselves "come on girls lets leave them to it .." for those "offenses" grown adults every single one of us qualified trainers ourselves, all of us specialists in diversity issues were told to go stand outside the room

 

At one point there were more of us who were "sent out" than there were left in the training room the final straw for me and the one which really did put the "female" trainer (by that time we weren't allowed to use the word woman either as we were told that was ageist ) in danger of hearing some very very unpc language was when she attacked and belittled one of the nicest politest most unoffensive of males for using the term "nitty gritty" - she then proceeded to claim this was a racist remark, not one single person there had ever heard the daft definition she trotted out and that included several black colleagues - when we as a group demanded she substantiate her claim she then decided we were abusing her that was the point at which I lost my temper completely and not only left the room but the entire weeks residential training course along with several others. I filed a formal complaint about her as soon as I got back to work but nothing came of it - to be honest I think her managers were afraid of her. That entire weekend left a very lasting impression upon me I still get extremly angry just remembering it and it was some years ago now.

 

Oh and when I got back near a pc you can imagine the googling I did about that stupid definition she trotted out - which is completely unsubstanciated even now.

 

What is ironic about the entire pc madness is that there is no such thing as equal ops, we moved away from that kind of thinking a long time ago, it's equality and diversity these days recognising that every single one of us is a very unique individual with individual needs and it is quite impossible to enforce equal ops without recognising diversity and that includes use of language ...