Talking about being Politically Correct !

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  • Posts: 1,469
    In case you didn't hear about this: in Louisiana, a student was doing a math problem in high school, drew the sign for a square root, and another student said it looked like a gun, and somebody called the cops, who investigated a claim of "terrorist threats". As Gomez said in Addams Family Values, "Has the planet gone mad?"
    http://www.katc.com/story/37560947/student-investigated-after-allegedly-saying-a-math-symbol-looked-like-a-gun
  • Posts: 19,339
    Here we go again FFS,from The Independent :

    Primary school sorry for asking pupils to pull faces to ‘look Chinese’ for photo .


    A primary school has apologised after asking children to “look Chinese” for a project about China.

    The children then posed for a photo pulling the side of their eyes, which was pinned to the window of New Bradwell School in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

    The teacher, who has not been named, was featured alongside the six and seven-year-olds, along with a teaching assistant.

    Headteacher Phil Webster said the picture was removed as soon as he was made aware of it.

    “The school would like to apologise if we caused any offence and after our internal investigation has been completed will look to see if any changes need to be made with the school’s procedures and policies,” he said in a statement.

    The photo drew complaints from parents of students who said it sent out the wrong message about acceptable behaviour.

    “It was meant to show us what a success Chinese Day had been,” one mother said.

    “All the children were using their fingers to pull up the sides of their eyes in what I assume was an effort to ‘look Chinese’.

    “Even worse was that the teacher and the teaching assistant were doing it too.

    “These children will now think it’s OK to do this, when it is clearly not. At best it’s insensitive and at worst it’s racism.”


    Pathetic,PC crap.

  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    edited March 2018 Posts: 5,185
    Bill Maher great as always. Giving some badly needed perspective to todays news.

  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Someone just got outraged here because a shop sold face paint kits that would let you paint yourself as witches, devils, vampires, Chinese or Africans. Wouldn t surprise me if the shop apologizes and withdraws the products.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281

    A black James Bond is an utterly ridiculous idea. It would be akin to casting a white actor as Shaft.
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    Dragonpol wrote: »

    A black James Bond is an utterly ridiculous idea. It would be akin to casting a white actor as Shaft.

    I love the Doctor Who one. Goal post moving at its finest.
  • Posts: 4,617
    I used to be a big Frank Sinatra fan but I have since found out that he was 100% male so I have given all of the albums to charity. I'd like to apologise for any offence I have caused

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/06/david-byrne-apologises-for-not-collaborating-with-women-on-album-with-25-male-contributors#comment-113157213
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    Posts: 13,978
    How come there were no Fridge Freezer Combos singing on the album? *TRIGGERED*
  • NicNacNicNac Administrator, Moderator
    Posts: 7,582
    If you are on Twitter follow Tommy Lee the Motley Crue drummer. Hilariously non-PC
  • Posts: 19,339
    Some people have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands,and need to seriously get a life.
  • Posts: 4,617


    Following my earlier admission regarding Frank Sinatra, after further soul searching, I would also like to apologise for owning and watching the DVD of "The Magnificant Seven". With hindsight, I don't know what John Sturges was thinking of: all seven men!! Not so magnificent after all, Mr Sturges.

    Made worse and re-enforced by the 2016 remake: I eagerly await apologies from Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and the remaining four actors. Just an utter outrage.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    There are only men on this thread as well.

    I expected better from you, Barry.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited March 2018 Posts: 18,281
    There are only men on this thread as well.

    I expected better from you, Barry.

    Maybe some of them would be willing to go through a sex change? It's not asking much after all. They could quickly and efficiently use the fully patented Sex Change Machine:

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited March 2018 Posts: 18,281
    This is how to avoid #MeToo as a man (as well as keeping your hands to yourself of course!):



    Jerry Seinfeld's perfectly reasonable reasoning here:


  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    edited March 2018 Posts: 13,978
    That was Kesha?

    giphy.gif
    There are only men on this thread as well.

    That's not true. I sexually identify as a Fridge Freezer combo. I'm awaiting a medical procedure to have hinges grafted onto my body, so my chest cavity will open up to store ice cool beverages.

  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,281
    That was Kesha?

    giphy.gif
    There are only men on this thread as well.

    That's not true. I sexually identify as a Fridge Freezer combo. I'm awaiting a medical procedure to have hinges grafted onto my body, so my chest cavity will open up to store ice cool beverages.

    I have seen a man who had hinges tattooed in the bend in his arm so we are getting there technologically as a society. The Iron Man is only some ink away...
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    edited March 2018 Posts: 45,489
    Fridge freezer combos are asexual and gender neutral, then? Or are you just drawn to other electric equipment? I feel so unenlightened, and deeply apologize for the offense.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2018/mar/06/inequality-30000-feet-qantas-aviation-least-progressive-industry

    I love this phrase: 'The “booklet” also warned against unconscious colonialist bias when discussing Australian history.'

    Apart from the fact it's probably rather difficult to notice when you do something unconsciously I am struggling to understand what it means.

    I guess it's saying you should give the thousands of years the Aborigines just wandered round the outback not doing a great deal equal weight to after the first ships arrived.

    Although the point they are trying to make is factually incorrect. Australian history starts when Australia was founded and that was in 1788. Before then it was not known as Australia. It was just a land mass. Do you go back to when Australia was part of Pangea?

    It's rather like talking about the history of the Tower of London and writing numerous chapters covering the palezoic age, 947BC and the Roman invasion when it just sat there as an empty piece of land.
  • edited March 2018 Posts: 4,617
    @TheWizardOfIce Ill bite at this one rather than do some work. "It was just a land mass." This could be an example of the values that are being discussed.

    To describe it as "just a land mass" implies that the massive island and the home to the Aboriginal people was somehow worth less until Western man turned up with stuff like guns, alchohol, racism etc and , somehow, added value. The land mass that we now refer to as Australia was just as stunning (perhaps more so) with its remarkable countryside, wildlife and an Aboriginal culture which has every right to be respected as any other culture (perhaps more so as it was so untainted by others)

    If I had the chance to visit Australia now or before Western involvement, it would be the latter. Just by giving a land mass a name (who said we had the right to name it?) and discuss it's history from "day zero" comes over as an attempt to wipe out any history that we all know existed before the land mass was "re branded" by the West. And, by doing so, shows no respect for the people whose home it was and still is.

    Did Ayer's Rock not have a history before it was renamed ? Does page 1 of the history of Ayer's Rock start in 1872? Before that is was "just a big rock". Does the "just" disappear after the West become involved?

    Was North America also "just a land mass" before other cultures made contact and started handing out new names as part of the invasion/land grab?

    PS looking at some of the Wiki pages, it's interesting that , only now, we are having a discussion about the language used. Previously, it was called "colonisation, settlement, foundation day etc"...but I can see how invasion is a much more accurate word.

    noun

    1An instance of invading a country or region with an armed force.
    ‘Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812’
    mass noun ‘in 1546 England had to be defended from invasion’

    1.1 An incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity.
    ‘there was a brief pitch invasion when Sunderland scored’
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited March 2018 Posts: 9,117
    patb wrote: »
    @TheWizardOfIce Ill bite at this one rather than do some work. "It was just a land mass." This could be an example of the values that are being discussed.

    To describe it as "just a land mass" implies that the massive island and the home to the Aboriginal people was somehow worth less until Western man turned up with stuff like guns, alchohol, racism etc and , somehow, added value. The land mass that we now refer to as Australia was just as stunning (perhaps more so) with its remarkable countryside, wildlife and an Aboriginal culture which has every right to be respected as any other culture (perhaps more so as it was so untainted by others)

    If I had the chance to visit Australia now or before Western involvement, it would be the latter. Just by giving a land mass a name (who said we had the right to name it?) and discuss it's history from "day zero" comes over as an attempt to wipe out any history that we all know existed before the land mass was "re branded" by the West. And, by doing so, shows no respect for the people whose home it was and still is.

    Did Ayer's Rock not have a history before it was renamed ? Does page 1 of the history of Ayer's Rock start in 1872? Before that is was "just a big rock".

    If you say 'the history of the country now known as Australia' then fine I suppose.

    But even if you start it in 1AD and dedicate 1 page to every year that's 1788 pages of not much apart from the invention of the boomerang and the discovery that eating witchcetty grubs wouldn't kill you.

    And before I get accused of denigrating Aborigines and their culture I couldn't really give that much of a toss about the history of Britain in 1000000BC. All you need to know is the bullet points: grew gills, discovered fire, the wheel, the Bronze age and then we're up and running and can get to the juicy stuff like the Vikings, the Black Death and WW2.

    History is shaped by key events and is not just a dispassionate recounting of the passage of time otherwise it would be exceptionally dull:


    1000000BC - nothing happened
    999999BC - nothing happened
    999998BC - nothing happened
    999997BC - nothing happened
    999996BC - nothing happened
    999995BC - something happened
    999994BC - nothing happened
    999993BC - nothing happened

    I can't wait to see Simon Schama present that series.
  • Posts: 4,617
    If you look at stone henge, it is fully integrated into the history of Great Britain. We dont try to not cover it in history as it was not part of Great Britain's history because it was built at a time before GB was called GB. And I cant find any examples of using "the country now known as GB", the previous history is fully integrated within one time line. Does the history of Great Britain start in 1707?

    And by saying "nothing happened" implies that Aboriginal history is less important that post Capt Cook. No doubt that the pace of change accelerated rapidly but, by focussing on these changes (obviously caused by the West) implies that what we did is of more importance compared to the developement of Aboriginal Culture. I witnessed this myself when doing history at school: Australia equals Capt Cook. America equals Columbus. This was how I was taught history together with millions of other kids around the World. .
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited March 2018 Posts: 9,117
    patb wrote: »
    If you look at stone henge, it is fully integrated into the history of Great Britain. We dont try to not cover it in history as it was not part of Great Britain's history because it was built at a time before GB was called GB. And I cant find any examples of using "the country now known as GB", the previous history is fully integrated within one time line. Does the history of Great Britain start in 1707?

    And by saying "nothing happened" implies that Aboriginal history is less important that post Capt Cook. No doubt that the pace of change accelerated rapidly but, by focussing on these changes (obviously caused by the West) implies that what we did is of more importance compared to the developement of Aboriginal Culture. I witnessed this myself when doing history at school: Australia equals Capt Cook. America equals Columbus. This was how I was taught history together with millions of other kids around the World. .

    That's fair up to a point. Stonehenge and boomerangs are worthy of note certainly.

    But the quote was: 'The “booklet” also warned against unconscious colonialist bias when discussing Australian history.'

    The absence of bias means treating things equally and I'm sorry but with all the will in the world and due respect to Aboriginal culture it is not on a par with western culture. I'm not saying we should whitewash it from history but some achievements are more significant and thus worthy of note than others.

    There's a reason that Tim Berners Lee has a knighthood and the bloke who invented the Breville sandwich toaster doesn't.

    Apart from anything else with this - why would Qantas staff be needing to discuss Australian history anyway?
  • edited March 2018 Posts: 4,617
    @TheWizardOfIce "Aboriginal culture it is not on a par with western culture."

    I did not know it was a competition. History is not about "who had the best culture" and, therefore, that creates the agenda. Again, that phrase is a classic example of the implied superiority of the "invaders", "settlers" compared to those for whom, it was their home.

    "Hello, I'm Captain Cook and I represent a culture that is superior to yours. We shall be taking over forth with. If your happy to wait around til the early 1960's we may allow you to vote."

    Do we say the same for Native Americans? Or tribes of the Amazon? To state as simple fact that one culture is "not on a par" with another culture is a very slipery slope and history can give us so many examples where cultural superiority was just assumed and how the inferior culture was then treated. Not good.

    PS Cook himself could clearly see that we could potentially learn from Aboriginal culture:

    "From what I have said of the Natives of New-Holland [Australia] they may appear to
    some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they are far more
    happier than we Europeans....They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb'd by the
    Inequality of Condition....[T]hey live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very
    wholesome Air, so that they have very little need of Clothing and this they seem to be
    fully sencible of....In short they seem'd to set no Value upon any thing we gave
    them...this in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with all the
    necessarys of Life and that they have no superfluities. "

    PPS Organised religion is often guilty of the "cultural superiority" factor, grasping every opportunity to send missionaries to every far flung corner (including Australia) with the "our God is better than your God" message. Horrible form of cultural bullying.

    PPPS
    "The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proved again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous."
    — Jean-Luc Picard, "Symbiosis"[7]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive


  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Although we'll have to agree to disagree on them being on a par (personally I consider the invention of the printing press, aeroplanes, the internet and splitting the atom as greater achievements than the boomerang) but I take your point.

    However referring back to the original article that Qantas staff were instructed not to display a 'colonial bias when discussing Australian history' I still find it rather preposterous given the following wiki entry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia

    Note the difference - 2 points under Aboriginal history (to sum up; not much happened) but a further 39 entries about post colonial Australian history. If Qantas staff are asked questions about Australian history are they supposed to cherry pick just two points as to discuss any more it would be giving 'a bias' to the post colonial stuff? If someone says 'Can you tell me why Botany Bay is so named? or Who was Ned Kelly?' do they answer 'Well I can only answer one of those. If you want to ask another question it has to be about Aboriginal history as otherwise I would be displaying a colonial bias.'

    I was taught in school about the Romans and me bleating that ancient British history wasn't treated equally compared to the bias given to the post colonialist history would be rather pointless. The ancient Britons were not much more than a bronze age rabble and the Romans came and imposed their culture and civilised the country. The reason the likes of the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians resonate through history is that they were pioneers in science, medicine, thinking, architecture etc. In short they furthered human progress.

    History is not all equal is it? Otherwise it's just the documentation of the passing of time. Why do we learn about the ancient Greeks or Romans and not Estonian history or Aboriginal history of the same period? Because whichever way you cut it some peoples had a greater impact on mankind and some peoples didn't.

    We can try and learn from history but we can't change it and artificially forcing ourselves to treat the history of every little group such as the Amish or Inuit as being as significant to the speices as the Romans or Western European history just to be 'inclusive' seems rather counter-intuitive and self defeating.

    How is one supposed to study or teach the lessons history if every single event that ever occurred carries the same weight and importance? You'll end up with children growing up not knowing how to gauge which events are worthy of study compared to others. Does the story of the Aborigines discovering Uluru really have as much to teach us as the second world war?




  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    Although we'll have to agree to disagree on them being on a par (personally I consider the invention of the printing press, aeroplanes, the internet and splitting the atom as greater achievements than the boomerang) but I take your point.

    However referring back to the original article that Qantas staff were instructed not to display a 'colonial bias when discussing Australian history' I still find it rather preposterous given the following wiki entry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia

    Note the difference - 2 points under Aboriginal history (to sum up; not much happened) but a further 39 entries about post colonial Australian history. If Qantas staff are asked questions about Australian history are they supposed to cherry pick just two points as to discuss any more it would be giving 'a bias' to the post colonial stuff? If someone says 'Can you tell me why Botany Bay is so named? or Who was Ned Kelly?' do they answer 'Well I can only answer one of those. If you want to ask another question it has to be about Aboriginal history as otherwise I would be displaying a colonial bias.'

    I was taught in school about the Romans and me bleating that ancient British history wasn't treated equally compared to the bias given to the post colonialist history would be rather pointless. The ancient Britons were not much more than a bronze age rabble and the Romans came and imposed their culture and civilised the country. The reason the likes of the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians resonate through history is that they were pioneers in science, medicine, thinking, architecture etc. In short they furthered human progress.

    History is not all equal is it? Otherwise it's just the documentation of the passing of time. Why do we learn about the ancient Greeks or Romans and not Estonian history or Aboriginal history of the same period? Because whichever way you cut it some peoples had a greater impact on mankind and some peoples didn't.

    We can try and learn from history but we can't change it and artificially forcing ourselves to treat the history of every little group such as the Amish or Inuit as being as significant to the speices as the Romans or Western European history just to be 'inclusive' seems rather counter-intuitive and self defeating.

    How is one supposed to study or teach the lessons history if every single event that ever occurred carries the same weight and importance? You'll end up with children growing up not knowing how to gauge which events are worthy of study compared to others. Does the story of the Aborigines discovering Uluru really have as much to teach us as the second world war?




    When are you running for PM, Wiz? I’ve a vote going spare.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    RC7 wrote: »
    Although we'll have to agree to disagree on them being on a par (personally I consider the invention of the printing press, aeroplanes, the internet and splitting the atom as greater achievements than the boomerang) but I take your point.

    However referring back to the original article that Qantas staff were instructed not to display a 'colonial bias when discussing Australian history' I still find it rather preposterous given the following wiki entry:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia

    Note the difference - 2 points under Aboriginal history (to sum up; not much happened) but a further 39 entries about post colonial Australian history. If Qantas staff are asked questions about Australian history are they supposed to cherry pick just two points as to discuss any more it would be giving 'a bias' to the post colonial stuff? If someone says 'Can you tell me why Botany Bay is so named? or Who was Ned Kelly?' do they answer 'Well I can only answer one of those. If you want to ask another question it has to be about Aboriginal history as otherwise I would be displaying a colonial bias.'

    I was taught in school about the Romans and me bleating that ancient British history wasn't treated equally compared to the bias given to the post colonialist history would be rather pointless. The ancient Britons were not much more than a bronze age rabble and the Romans came and imposed their culture and civilised the country. The reason the likes of the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians resonate through history is that they were pioneers in science, medicine, thinking, architecture etc. In short they furthered human progress.

    History is not all equal is it? Otherwise it's just the documentation of the passing of time. Why do we learn about the ancient Greeks or Romans and not Estonian history or Aboriginal history of the same period? Because whichever way you cut it some peoples had a greater impact on mankind and some peoples didn't.

    We can try and learn from history but we can't change it and artificially forcing ourselves to treat the history of every little group such as the Amish or Inuit as being as significant to the speices as the Romans or Western European history just to be 'inclusive' seems rather counter-intuitive and self defeating.

    How is one supposed to study or teach the lessons history if every single event that ever occurred carries the same weight and importance? You'll end up with children growing up not knowing how to gauge which events are worthy of study compared to others. Does the story of the Aborigines discovering Uluru really have as much to teach us as the second world war?


    When are you running for PM, Wiz? I’ve a vote going spare.

    Don't think Britain is quite ready for my brand of electrifying leadership yet.

    If there's one thing history - proper history I mean, not Aboriginal ;) - teaches us it's that a dictator rarely ends well and I have to admit I've got a long list of people who would be marched off to the gulags on day one.
  • Posts: 5,994
    If there's one thing history - proper history I mean, not Aboriginal - teaches us it's that a dictator rarely ends well and I have to admit I've got a long list of people who would be marched off to the gulags on day one.

    Like those, for example ?



    Or those ?



    Or those ?



  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    edited March 2018 Posts: 5,185
    Black Panther co-writer on Iron Man 1
    During a “Superhero Science” panel Saturday afternoon at SXSW, Joe Robert Cole — who co-wrote Marvel’s “Black Panther” with director Ryan Coogler — proposed that the Trump administration and the #MeToo movement might have altered what theater-goers want in their blockbuster heroes.

    Responding to a question on whether superheroes’ values reflect or shape the culture, Cole said: “Think about where we are now, with this very vapid, unintelligent president and our world is crackling on the edges because of that. Think back to Tony Stark, him being douchey and being okay. If that character, Stark, was created in a movie today, I wonder if the response would be like, ‘Oh, it’s cool that he’s douchey and disrespectful to women … That’s fine.’ I think we’re at a different place. I think it’s a better place.”


    I think i threw up in my mouth a little bit... It's a freaking MOVIE!
    If screenwriters and artists continue to become this whiny and 'concerend' about the PC culture and how their movie fits into it, then my biggest worry for Bond is that in 10 years there won't be anyone around who can even WRITE a damn Bond film.
    It will definitly get harder to find someone
  • Posts: 4,617
    Whether we like it or not, movies are a reflection (to some extent) of the values that exist within the current culture. Just take a look at the Carry On series. Would anyone seriously consider for one second makeing a new one?

    The whole Metoo thing will have some sort of impact on Bond, no doubt IMHO
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