Political Correctness

hystericali · Political Correctness

Oh how I think its spiralled out of control.

I have some examples in the back of my mind, I'll dig them out the depths of the old brain.

Everyday I read something and think its crazy.

My kids don't have a school sports day and haven't for years because there will be the winners and losers and its apparently not fair on the losers, to discriminate between the more athletic and the less athletic kids.

One school has banned the making of Mothers Day cards because it will upset 3% of the total kids in the school....

Is it me being narrow minded? Do I need to open my mind up a bit more?

wildflower

no, i agree totally, my mum and i were talking about this the other day, like not being able to say "gingerbread man" anymore, it has to be "gingerbread PERSON" why? its just silly, i hate all the religious double standards too, like not being able to wear crosses if youre british, but allowed to wear the full face gear if youre Muslim! i hate the way this world is going!

hystericali

I know what you mean about the religious double standards. While I choose not to follow a religion, I do have a wooden cross on a cord type necklet, and to me its not a symbol of religion, its a piece of jewellry I adore, because its quite ornately etched and shows the different grains in the wood, and its a thing of beauty to me. I wanted to wear it to work, but thought I'd better not incase I offended someone. My fellow collegues are some of the finest people I know, and I know I wouldn't cause offence in the office, but what if I'd been dealing with a member of the public that might have taken offence, be it in their eyes an offence against any religion, or a person of another ethnic origin?

I remember some Council in London didn't celebrate Guy Fawkes night as it might have caused offence to some residents of the authority.

I'm all for equality and treating everybody the same regardless of everything, but some things are just making things worse.

sarahbelle

I agree...political correctness has gone mad...

you may have seen this before...tis quite relevant

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1940's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking .

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a van - loose - was always great fun.

We drank water from the garden hosepipe and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no text messaging, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits/legal from these accidents .

We played with worms(well most boys did) and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out any eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Local teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good....and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

PS -The BIG type is because your eyes are shot at your age

hystericali

Sarah, as someone born in 1970, that sums it up PERFECTLY

Its so true though

TreeHeart

I was born in the 80s but I think some of that applies to me too.

I agree, some of the political correctness is crazy! but a lot of it comes from individual groups being discriminated against. Being Irish, growing up and watching british tv, there was always the joke about the stupid paddy or something to do with potatoes and not fully understanding why they were slagging off my country and people, I got well peeved. So, I do go along with some pc stuff..thats not to say that people adhere to it, as I only recently saw an interview of an Irish person by a british journalist and I swear, I would have slapped the journo!

I think the sports things are very lame, life is gonna be even tougher when your older, so kids need to learn these things.

Regarding the crosses, that whole BA thing really miffed me. The way I saw it and the way it was in the rules of their uniform was that, jewelery outside the shirt was not allowed, be it a crucifix or a whatever! That woman just blew it all out of preportion and now of course she gets her way! I think the muslims/sieks(sp?) should be allowed wear their full clothes as it's more than just their religious symbols it is part of their culture, more so than every British person wears a cross. You are not by law required to wear a cross if you are catholic(i dont think)

I think Ali, if you want to wear your cross wear it. Somehow in this day and age, I don't see the wearers of a symbol of Christianity being ostracised.(i know you dont see it as a religious thing)

anyway, thats my 2cent

hystericali

I agree that we should be equals regardless of religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and any other thing I may have missed, but some aspects of political correctness only serve to widen the gap by making such massive issues out of a point, like the lady who wore a cross and BA sacked her. We should be able to go about our own lives and follow our own belief system without having to worry if we could possibly offend someone. If someone acts in a deliberately offensive manner then yes, its provocation, but the majority of us just want to do our own thing and never intend to cause offence, and any offence would be unintentional, and we would apologise if we upset someone.

Today in the paper there is an article about kids being banned from playing tig incase they hurt someone else, and another school has banned kids from throwing snowballs. It seems to me the fear of doing something 'wrong' or the fear of 'upsetting' someone overshadows a hell of a lot and is getting in the way of having fun and just day to day living.
Kids play tig, they throw snowballs, they should be able to run round and have fun, its part of being a kid.

wildflower

hehe that was great, im a child of the early 60s and im also a child of a mother who took thalidamide for the first three months of her pregnancy, for those of you who dont know what that is, it was something expectant mothers were given to help with morning sickness, but more often than not resulted in their children being born without limbs, or with very much shortened and stumped limbs, truly truly awful!!

I agree that some political correctness must be adhered to, like the things you were saying Karen, thats just wrong, its generalisation at its worst, i hate that kind of thing, but its like Ali said about the kids playing snowballs, i dont know about the rest of you, but thats one of the things that go to make up my happy childhood memories, and its sad that all that will change in years to come! also the gollywog on the marmalade jars, that used to be a song that we sang along to the advert on tv years ago, as a family, no one even dreamed that it was detrimental to black people, i think its all just made such an issue out of, where perhaps there are no issues! sometimes i fear for my daughter and wonder what ive brought her into the world to have to suffer!! :?

TreeHeart

I remember when I was in 6th class(i was 12) and we were banned from playing any kind of game that involved running around or the like, it was stupid alright and really annoyed us all

That Whole BA thing really annoyed me *rant alert*
The woman wasn't fired, she was told that the BA uniform policy didn't allow jewelery to be worn outside the shirt, you could wear it under but not on show. So, she left!! She wasn't fired at all. She was even offered a position in an area where she could wear her cross on show, but no, she chose to, as she put it "martyr herself" and went on unpaid leave. So, I have no sympathy for her, at all. Then politicians were dragged in and the church..I mean its up to a company to allow what they want their staff to wear. pah
I think the government ie. Jack Straw getting involved was a bit much.

hystericali

sorry, my fault, I thought she was fired :oops: :oops: :oops:

TreeHeart

hystericali

I really thought she was fired, I must have got it confused with the teacher that wore a veil whilst trying to teach because both those stories happened around the same time.

My brain gets jumbled sometimes, it needs a spring clean

TreeHeart

yeh I remember that story too, and Jack Straw was involved in both those stories

Ham of the Problematique

http://www.brainlock.org/fun/redridinghood.htm

Made me laugh so much!

wildflower

hahahah i enjoyed that so much, its getting that way though now isnt it?

Ham of the Problematique

It is. Slightly ridiculous...

wildflower

i think the only thing you can do is make a joke of it! i hate the Big Brother way things are going now!

tasheh

Ham of the Problematique

:? How odd!