Comments on: Denying reality

By: Manu

Manu — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:23:09 +0000

Some observations:
1. Discrimination against words appears to be an American invention. Imagine my surprise when going through ‘racial discrimination information session for Teaching Assistants’ at a US university, I discovered that ‘Oriental’ can be perceived as a racially charged epithet!

2. The height of hypocrisy is that Afro-Americans refer to each other as ‘niggers’ all the time and it’s okay. But if a non-AA person as much as utters the word, it is a serious offense.

3. Sanjay – chamaar is just apabhransha of charmakaar i.e. leather artisan. Harijan / dalit was created for the untouchables (‘bhangis’) who were in the business of cleaning toilets.

By: Vinod Khare

Vinod Khare — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:34:27 +0000

Wholeheartedly agree with your post. These verbal gymnastics act as a means to distract people from the real problem. I don’t really understand the modern worlds obsession with political correctness at all. To me it seems that it is only an attempt at not doing anything concrete and just playing around with words at the dinner table. Calling blacks as african americans is not going to change the fact that they are being discriminated left right and centre in the US of A.

By: Sanjay

Sanjay — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 00:11:46 +0000

I do not think that there is a sharp line demarcating black and white in verbal gymnastics. Some times it doesn’t make sense – such as replacing ‘blind’ by ‘visually challenged’. On other times it does make sense – such as replacing ‘chamaar’ by ‘harijan’ or ‘dalit’.

The guiding principle should be to respect the sensitivities of the affected group. If the label has been used in derogative reference, it is justified to change it, otherwise not.

By: captainjohann, BANGALORE, INDIA

captainjohann, BANGALORE, INDIA — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:38:01 +0000

Sir,
the same verbal gymnasts are enacted with regard to “lunatics”. changed to disabled due to mentalillness.Then someone came up with mentally challenged,intellectually challenged.Immediately the mental retarded lobby usurped the same and started calling themselves as mentally challenged.Now the mentallyill have come up with Psychoscocial disabled. i donot know how thew bureacracy in the social justice ministry will react to this as still rehabilitation council act 1992 doesnot include pscyhosocial disabled while Persons with disabilities equal opportunities act 1995 included disabled with mentalillness.So they just donot help and the mentallyill wander the streets after abondoned by the family.only the banyan of chennai accomodates 500 abondoned mentallyill woman. Not even delhi has ahome for the ABONDONED MENTALLYILL while skudglerry with words continue.

By: kopos

kopos — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:11:17 +0000

Reminds me of that post on poverty in US where hungry people were replaced ‘people with low food security’:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2659818&page=1

By: apu

apu — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:08:10 +0000

While I agree that political correctness is taken too far, some of these did have reasons behind them; ‘Negro’ for example by virtue of offensive usage over time, I think, became offensive, though as you mentioned, the word itself doesnt mean anything offensive.

By: Denying Reality « Anand’s blog

Denying Reality « Anand’s blog — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:06:29 +0000

[...] 2, 2007 Posted by anand in General. trackback Read this post titled Denying Reality by Atanu Dey on how people and companies go great lengths to m [...]

By: Rohini

Rohini — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:39:26 +0000

And it doesn’t stop at newspapers too. I must tell you the new PC-version of the popular nursery rhyme ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ that’s on the CD I just picked up for my son. It goes something like this:

Mother: Baa Baa Pink Sheep
Child: Noooooooo…it’s not pink
Mother: It isn’t? Ok, let’s start again. Baa Baa Yellow Sheep
Child: No…..sheep are not yellow, they’re black or white.
Mother: Really? Ok then. Baa Baa Black Sheep….

By: Abhijit

Abhijit — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 10:07:50 +0000

My understanding is that the term visually challenged, is used to group several degrees of visual impairment, from complete blindness to partial cases like extreme myopia. People with partial blindness are slightly better off, but they often have to use the same tools as those who are completely blind.

Was the business plan in question targetted exclusively towards those with complete blindness ? I’m guessing it wasn’t. Ergo, the use of “visually impaired”.

By: shiv

shiv — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:11:40 +0000

Language is often used to blur the truth rather than communicate effectively. All of us do this is different contexts. The PC brigade (IMHO) attempts to blur the distinction between the have’s and the have not’s, more to lessen the guilt of the haves. The have not’s dont give a damn. I am yet to meet a poor guy (or is that person who called himself financially challenged or a blind guy who said he is visually challenged. When we were kids people did not think twice about this. For instance anyone who was squint eyed was called ‘dori’. To their face. In fact to me it seemed that it helped these guys shake off any stigma about it or fix it if it made that much of an impact. Bipasha basu is certianly ‘dori’ and is all the better for it I have had various such nicknames ’sotai’ (baldy, though i am not) ‘pal’(tooth, as one of mine sticks out), ‘karia’ (black, For my Afro-Amer hue) etc. Never has bothered me (the tooth still sticks out and i am as afro-american as ever … Guess this shit is not worth the time we waste on it. Calling a blind guy visually challenged seems to lessen the need to do something about it. IAC most of the PC brigade if pressed will admit they will do everyting in their power to help, short of real help.

By: DesiPundit » Archives » Not Short, But A Potential Vertical Opportunity Group

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:03:18 +0000

[...] haps â€œpotential vertical opportunity group.â€ Atanu Day seems to believe that overdoing the use of politically correct euphimisms to refer to disadvantaged people is ridiculous and t [...]