On Political Correctness

[gaudior]

Much of school is splendid, particularly the Clinical Seminar. It's basically eight first-years in a room with a professor, talking about our field placements. Or theoretically talking about our field placement, but since none of us have yet started, we talked about our worries starting the year, and what we were expecting. It's that sort of class-- very touchy-feely, very much about teaching us to figure out what sort of issues becoming psychologists is bringing up for us so we can deal with it. I like it a lot, and I like the prof immensely.



See, the thing is, ordinarily when people complain about Political Correctness, it raises my hackles. Because I just don't see anything that difficult or outrageous about calling people what they want to be called, or not making jokes that might offend people (especially not when they might hear), or not acting like their culture is inferior to yours. All of that is, as Miss Manners would point out, part of a code of conduct as old as the hills-- it's just that the people being put down didn't used to have the power to enforce basic politeness. Rude is rude, and the idea of new terminology is that everyone should know what word is polite, so they can use it.

This book, however, is driving me nuts. Because it makes a lot of valid points about how therapists should be culturally sensitive, and aware that there's more than one monoculture out there, and I agree with those completely. What I don't agree with is the sort of oversimplification that seems inherent in the text.

For example:

"The changing demographics [sic] of the United States make it clear that the current ethnocultural 'majority' will soon be the minority in the United States... Thus, today, instead of ethnic minority, we more commonly hear the terms multiculturalism or diversity. "*

You know what? No, we don't. You know why? Because "multiculturalism" and "diversity" are _not_ synonyms for "minority group." Because the sentences "Members of multiculturalisms in America have often faced significant discrimination in the past," or "It is interesting to contrast the experiences of people who are born to diversities, like African-Americans, and people like gays and lesbians, who only discover as they grow older that they are diverse," do not WORK. Not that the textbook tries to use these phrases that way-- but it SHOULD. Because then the authors would realize that they need to actually think.

I mean, I take the point that by 2056, if this one theoretician is right, the majority of people in the United States will be non-white. (I'm not sure she's correct, I haven't seen the research, but I see no reason why she shouldn't be.) And in that case, yeah, Black, Asian, Latino, American Tribal, Jewish, Muslim, queer, etc, etc, etc "minorities" would no longer be contrasted with the straight white Christian "majority." But... look at the math. It's true that, if white people are 75% of the population, Christians are 76% of the population, males are 48% of the population**, and straight people are about 96% of the population, then only 26% of the population are straight white Christian males. (I'm not including disabilities and such, because the US Census doesn't count them, and I'm lazy). Therefore, they're technically not the majority. BUT. I'm queer. About 2.5% to 5% of the population, of all races and religions and abilities, is also queer. The vast majority of the population is NOT. And it doesn't matter that they're all colors of the rainbow and every religion under the sun-- they're straight. That means that straight people are a majority group, and queer people are not. Ditto with each race and religion.

More importantly, there needs to be some word for "groups of people who, not being straight white Christian males, have in the past held, and still hold, different positions in American society than people who are not members of their groups." Because all that history can't be talked about if we don't have language for it, and the mess we're currently in (while admittedly a much-improved mess) won't get any better if we can't talk about it now.

I think what bothers me most about the authors' style is this sort of fuzzy thinking which seems to claim that all right-thinking people now agree that all cultures are wonderful, and so we must embrace all of them, and then everything will be better. Never mind that all cultures are created by human beings, and therefore have wonderful aspects and awful aspects and things that work and things that don't work and things that are just there. Never mind that European cultures are just as much a part of a multiculturalism as any other. And never mind that relations between groups remain a serious American problem, and a sufficiently complicated problem that it needs much more thought than just "bigotry is bad."

It just doesn't have enough depth. And it doesn't seem to me to really respect the people it talks about. I mean, there's this other section, talking about a teenager arrested for carrying a gun, and it talks about his prostitute mother and his father killed in a drug raid and his ADD "related to ingesting lead paint and being exposed to other toxins dumped in his community," and the lack of career prospects in his area besides drug dealing and the closing of teen programs in his area so he that "his main opportunity for friendship is gang membership." It then talks about how we must "pay as much attention to the circumstances and the relationships of our clients, and to the effects the larger world has on them, as we do to their internal process." And the thing is that yes, our world affects us. But it doesn't take away our ability to make choices. That kid chose to carry a gun, just as another kid in his circumstance might not have, and a kid in different circumstances might even without these reasons. It's true that knowing his background helps one better understand why he made the choice, and why, in that situation, he saw it as a reasonable and survival-oriented thing to do. But he made the choice. His world didn't make it for him. Saying that he carried the gun because corporations dumped toxins in his neighborhood removes the key step of his free will. And if he doesn't make his own choices, then he can't change his life-- he can only have it changed for him by people willing to step in and change his environment-- which, the authors say a few pages later, is a therapist's responsibility to do.

I think that's what's bothering me most about the book. The authors act like there's one right way to do things, and if it's done that way, we'll save the world. They don't look at _why_ bigotry exists, or why cultures clash-- they just say it's bad. That means that instaed of giving arguments that might change people's minds, they assume that their readers agree with them, and charge on without justifying themselves. It's sloppy logic, and it's not a very nuanced view of the world.

In conclusion: I like cheese.

--R






*Murphy & Dillon, Interviewing in Action: Relationship, Process and Change, 2003. p 11

**http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Demographics_of_the_United_States

Comments

[khava.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll bite, since you were complaining about lack of comments to your serious entries and because I found this interesting.

I would say, though this is overstating it quite a bit, that multiculturalism is the problem, not the solution. I'm still a believer in those unfashionable traditional American ideals, the melting pot and the colorblind society. I think that for general, day-to-day purposes, it shouldn't matter what color someone's skin is or what type of minority culture one grew up in. It most certainly shouldn't matter what goes on in someone's bedroom, and while disability is a more complicated thing, ones that can be overcome shouldn't matter to other people either.

Sure, growing up in an ethnic minority community shapes the person you are. But so does that fact that I was never good at sports, or that someone else was a sickly child, or that a third person was training for Olympic figure skating, or that a fourth had a parent die at a young age. Everybody has things that make them unique, and everybody has obstacles to overcome, some more than others. While it's interesting and good to learn about these things in your friends, it's unimportant and even counterproductive to have to think about them in your aquaintances, business colleagues, and the guy who bags your groceries.

My idea of the ideal ethnic-American culture is something like Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans today. There's a certain group cohesiveness, a set of "stereotypical" traits that are dealt with in good humor, a few common themes that are shared throughout families in those groups. But mostly, Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans are just plain Americans - their friends are from the general American public, their personal identity tends to be built of individual characteristics as opposed to group ones, and the average American looks at them and says "American", not "Irish" or "Italian" as would have happened 100 years ago. I would say that Jews are also at this integration level, and Asian-Americans are close.

There's a big question as to why African-Americans, despite over 150 years of freedom in America, have never acheived anything close to that level of integration here. I'm not going to hash out all the theories on that, but I will give my support to Bill Cosby's recent comments about African-American youth culture. And I will say that, whatever the attitude of whites may have been 50 years ago, in this day and age it is more the fault of African-Americans not wanting to integrate than European-Americans keeping them out.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

Of course! The reason we're not a color blind society is because of the Black people! Those silly Black people. They should really just be color blind like the rest of us.

If I sound sarcastic, it's because I am. If you think Bill Cosby's point was that Black people are collectively at fault for the fact that no one's let them integrate into American society, then I have news for you, my dear: you don't really understand anything about racial issues in this country.

Only white people have the luxury of being "color blind." Irish Americans and Italian Americans have managed to become just plain Americans because for the most part they've become diluted into the "just plain white folks" paradigm. What do you mean by "traits that are dealt with in good humor"? Irish folks laughing at jokes about being drunks, and Italians laughing at jokes about being mobsters? What else, Jews laughing at jokes about being greedy and miserly and swindlers, and Hispanics laughing at jokes about being lazy, and Blacks laughing at jokes about being sex fiends who'll rape white women, and are only good at sports and physical labor?

We think "American" when we look at white folks. Jews who don't make a "big deal" about the fact that they're Jewish - that is, who don't question why every fucking floor of their office gets decorated in red and green tinsel for three months of every year, and why there are two Christmas trees per floor, regardless of whether one dinky menorah gets put out - get to be Americans too. What you're talking about for Asian Americans isn't integration: it's respect. It's a different concept altogether. And yes, it's a big question why after 150 years of "Freedom," Black folks still don't get any respect in this country. Maybe it's because for more than 100 of those years, that disrespect was legally enforced, and because even now, the funding of neighborhood schools correlates almost exactly to the ethnic makeup of their student bodies. Why do you suppose that is? Because African Americans won't laugh at jokes made at their expense? Because they won't stop making such a big deal about being Black? And if multiculturalism is such a problem, then whose culture should everyone adopt?

[khava.livejournal.com]

Well, this is interesting. I calmly talk about my views on race, and you get sarcastic and defensive in response, and practically accuse me of being a racist. That's a great way to create dialogue and understanding, don't you think?

With "stereotypes", I was thinking about things like the way Jerry's parents were portrayed on Seinfeld.

"Just plain white folks" not too long ago meant Northern and Western European Protestants. I think we can all agree that it's expanded far beyond that. It's expanding more. The "white" is disappearing from the phrase, too. I think that's a good thing.

As to whose culture everyone should adopt, the answer is that American culture is an amalgam of all the cultures that go into it. American culture is not the same as British culture or European culture or some mythic White culture. Fascinating things happen when cultures mix, and the end result is usually stronger than anything that went into it. Cultures evolve, they're not static. You can't point to any moment in history and say this is the "pure" culture and everything different, everything after or before, is adulterated. Multiculturalism tries to keep cultures apart, stop them from mixing and evolving. I think that's a bad idea. I like mixing, and I want more of it.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

I was sarcastic because I wanted to get the point across that you're being ridiculous. Calmly ridiculous, yes, but ridiculous none the less.

Multiculturalism doesn't keep cultures apart: people who belittle multiculturalism keep cultures apart. How do we define culture? Should I have a Christmas tree becasue it's part of American culture? Should I eat Texas barbecue because it's part of American culture? Should I fly a Confederate flag because it's part of American culture? Everyone in this country adopts some aspects of "American culture," and chooses to keep some aspects of their own. I don't think that blaming the people who choose to keep parts of their own rather than "integrate" as you call it into "American culture" should be blamed for the bigotry, anti-Semitism, and racism that they face, which is what you're saying.

And I didn't call you a racist. I pointed out that you're asking the wrong questions, and that you're still asking the wrong questions. It's not the same thing: I think it just shows how myopic people can be about race and culture.

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

I think you're missing a very basic point.

I mean, yes. Unity and cultural mixing and such are great things. I want to see more of that too. I don't think multiculturalism is opposed to those goals. But it's not about what you, or I, or any other part of white America wants. It's about allowing people to define themselves and their culture by themselves, not having it defined for them by the dominant majority.

Which is what white people are, and glossing over that fact is what gets you in trouble. Yes, the definition of 'white' has expanded to include Jews and Italians, etc. But that does not mean that the category itself has lost its significance. These categorizations mean a lot more, in everyday life, than what music you listen to or how you do your hair. It's about whether you get called for an interview, or whether a cab picks you up, or how likely you are to die from homicide or stress-related illnesses, or whether people grab their purses and lock their car doors when you walk by. It's about who represents you in Congress and what skills you are presumed to have, or to lack. In short, it's about whether you as a group have power in this society or not. That, above all else, is why African Americans haven't integrated into larger U.S. society to the degree that you would prefer. They have a shared experience of life in this country that is very different from what you and I experience.

Toni Morrison's description of her goal is a country where "race exists, but doesn't matter." I think that's a fantastic goal. But the fact is that right now it does matter, and you don't get to where it doesn't by pretending that it already doesn't.

[signy1.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that political correctness- while necessary to a certain point- is getting to the point of ridiculous and going past it. "Flowers for Algernon" has a paragraph that says it best- the pc locutions are retired as soon as they begin to mean something for fear that the negative connotations attached to the words they replaced begin to be transferred to the pc phrase. In that book, of course, they were speaking of people who fall outside of the educational norm; the very gifted and the very challenged, but the rule holds up for other groups ass well.
I was reading an article a week or so ago- I think it was in the New York Times- about the phrase 'African-American.' Now, as I'd always understood it, it was intended to replace the descriptive term 'black' as applied to a person. It seems that some people take offense when the phrase 'African-American' is used by naturalized American citizens who recently immigrated from Africa. (Not to mention people like Mrs. Kerry, who was born in Mozambique and was nearly crucified for referring to herself as such. A white African-American offended *everybody.*)
Their quoted reason for taking offense is that the label 'African-American' should refer only to thosee individuals who inherited the legacy of slavery and segregation from their immediate ancestors. A phrase that, I had thought, was intended as a merely physical description has become a cultural one, another 'us-vs-them' wall to impede the colorblind society that- I had also thought, Khava- was the eventual hope of all Americans.
Studies have shown that segregation, while no longer an official policy, has become the individual choice of many; you name the group- ethnic, religious, cultural, or whatever- and statistically relevant numbers of them will choose to form tightknit groups. The high school cafeteria model (jocks at one table, Goths at another, cheerleaders at a third, etc, and never the twain shall meet,) is spreading to an alarming degree, fostering insular thinking and multiculturalism is coming to mean that all cultures are given equal time and attention rather than merging.
It's a problem, and I wish I knew how it could be fixed.

[khava.livejournal.com]

From reading political commentary after Mrs. Kerry referred to herself as African-American, I've discovered that the PC term for people like her is "Continental African". How this relates to a Continental Breakfast, I am not entirely certain.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

The reason for the term "African American" was to point out that Black people have a culture that goes beyond the color of their skin, which is all most people see them as. It's the same reason we don't call immigrants from China and Japan and Korea and Vietnam "Orientals" anymore.

The color blind society is a nice idea when you're in sixth grade. Most of us, once we grow up, realize that we don't want to be color blind, or culture blind: we want to understand and celebrate our differences, not just cram everyone into a mold that fits us. Part of celebrating a person's difference is calling them by the name they want to be called by: just as we woudld all consider it incredibly rude to call gaud or rush "Miss So and So" after they're married (Yay for Massachussetts again!) or to call a woman who has kept her last name as "Mrs. Husband's Last Name," we show the same respect to an ethnic group and call them by what they feel is respectful to them, instead of what we think is descriptive. It is the people who refuse to give that respect, or who belittle the idea of doing to, who create the "us vs. them" mentality, not those who ask for the basic respect that everyone is entitled to, regardless of skin color.

[fiddledragon.livejournal.com]

Why do white people still get called white people then, regardless of whether or not they have a strong connection to some European cultural identity?

Political correctness only bothers me when I am told that something is the Only Right Thing to call an entire group of people. Especially when they're not part of that group. I call people whatever they, individually, want to be called. And I generally try to pick the name that I've heard the fewest people object to, if I have to describe a whole group collectively.

And it would be really nice if I could not feel like Anglo-Saxon is a term loaded with lots of negative cultural overtones...that's what my heritage is. And some Celtic. If we're going to pay attention to whether someone is Chinese or Japanese or Korean, white people should get to celebrate their ethnicity as Italian or Irish or Eastern European Jewish or Russian or Saxon or Viking or whatever they like. Or as Standard American Mutt. The main thing that bothers me about Multiculturalism is that it seems to translate to Remove All Vestiges of European Influence. Other people's cultures are wonderful colorful fascinating things. But I would feel much happier about it all if I wasn't constantly made to feel rather embarassed about my own. I know my ancestors were slave owners. I can even tell you which ones, being a genealogy geek. They're related to Evil British Imperialists, too, though most of them had left Britain by that point. It's not a fact that I'm at all proud of. But I'm not an Evil Imperialist, and I dislike being blamed for their deeds. And if it makes people feel any better, my ancestors were just as gleefully killing each other off long before they touched anyone of a markedly different skin color. And my ancestors produced some nice things, too. Beethoven was a straight white man, but he made lovely music.

[ghostsphoenix.livejournal.com]

Yes.

This is why I occassionally feel the urge to describe myself as Arayan, because I am (nearly 75% German all told is the figure my father who has talked to the pertinent reletives quotes, and the rest is Scandinavian, British, and Scotch-Irish). As long as whatever term I'm in is going to be, by implication, negetively charged, I might as well go all the way.

I do understand that the American people have a long way to go, and that improvement can happen, but being fair doesn't mean punishing the side whose ancestors were meanies.

-Ghost

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

Who's punishing you for being German? Seriously, are you punished in your daily life for having German ancestry? And in what way? Are you shown disrespect by peopel who think that if you're German you must be a Nazi? Or do you just feel uncomfortable describing yourself as German, and if so, why?

[ghostsphoenix.livejournal.com]

No, but I honestly don't see people who are black, hispanic, asian, or jewish being punished in their daily lives either.

I realize that I may very well be insulated and myopic in my worldview, but I dislike the feeling I get from many "multiculturalism" events that the white, Eurpoean culture that America and I am a legacy of is not one to celebrate and be proud of. I am reacting to what you responded about below, the "Remove All Vestiges of European Influence" idea of multiculturalism. It seems to me that sometimes more damage is being done by a heavy-handed attempt at "multiculturalism" than would be by a little (a LITTLE) more assumiliation. We're all Americans, right? All eating at the same table. If I'm eating pork and you're eating matza (sp?), it's still the same table.

-Ghost

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

Okay, you've stopped making sense. You don't think you should be punished, but you don't think you are being punished, and you don't think that anyone else is being punished either? Am I with you thus far? And you don't like "multiculturalism" that only includes minorities, which was the whole point of gaud's post, and my replies, to begin with? So we agree that part of the point of celebrating diversity is to not act as if only minorities have diversity, right?

As for Blacks and Hispanics and Asians and Jews, etc., not being punished in their daily lives, well, I'd suggest you take a look at the school funding statistics across the country broken down by racial makeup of the student body; and the homicide statistics for Black males; and the percentage of the population by racial makeup versus the percentage of people living in poverty, or without health insurance, or who are in jail, by racial makeup; and the average sentence lengths for violent and non-violent crimes by ethnicity; and the percentage of Black defendants executed for murdering white people versuis the percentage of white defendants executed for murdering Black people; once you've done that, you can come back and tell me again that minorities aren't still discriminated against and punished for being different in this country.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

See, that's the point of Ruth's whole post. That multiculturalism isn't just about ethnic minorities. By all means, celebrate your European heritage. I celebrate my Irish and Italian sides, just as I do my Jewish Got-Chased-Around-Eastern-And-Western-Euorpe-For-Several-Hundred-Years side. Multiculturalism only gets translated as "Remove All Vestiges of European Influence" by peopel who think that only minorities have culture, and only people of color have race, and only women have gender. Don't treat it that way, and it will stop being that way.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

In other news, I love you. Will you marry me?

[kgaard.livejournal.com]

:^O

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, sweetie: I still love you more.

[zeret18.livejournal.com]

>>Never mind that European cultures are just as much a part of a multiculturalism as any other.

ABout this I just wanted to say that I took this one women's studies course,in fact it was the final and most important senior seminar, and a huge part of the class involved 10 white girls, one indian girl, one arab girl, a couple of Jewish girls, and exactly no black girls, sitting around expounding at length about the fact that white people actually have no culture whatsoever, and to try to claim that they do amounts to racism. It was the most simplistic, agravating discussion.

>>And the thing is that yes, our world affects us. But it doesn't take away our ability to make choices.

How do you know? What if it actually does? What if there are certain situations in which one might be raised or live, which somehow set out for the individual a limited set of choices or ways of being? I am thinking here of people who are raised in situations of violence or sexual abuse or even neglect. People that grow up learnign their are certain ways to survive, and to deviate from those ways is soemthing of which they cannot conceive. Not because they choose not to conceive of deviation, but because their brains are actually unable to conceive of alternate actions. I don't know much factual information about this, but I have heard that over time people become hard wired to respond in a certain way to things, I would imagine this is especially the case if they learn that only certain actions enable emotional or physical survival. I think it is easy to assume the ability to chose or to assume free will when raised in environment in which you have any number of options and no severe abuse.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

How do we know? Because there are plenty of people who grow up in the exact same - and worse - horrific situations, who don't. Are some people more susceptible, both through wiring and environment, to do bad things? Of course - I don't know any reasonable people who think otherwise. But other people still manage to go through the same thing and NOT become murderers/abusers/rapists/criminals. Unless a person has a complete inability to distinguish right from wrong (the legal definition of insane) they do still have a choice.

[zeret18.livejournal.com]

goat_girl--loved all of your comments on this btw.

[goat-girl.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

[zeret18.livejournal.com]

I know how to spell there.sorry about that.

cheap cialis online 1788

[(Anonymous)]

[url=http://cialisnowdirect.com/#qmaog]cialis 40 mg[/url] - cialis 20 mg (http://cialisnowdirect.com/#ovqrf) , http://cialisnowdirect.com/#ddonb cialis 20 mg

payday loans 1045

[(Anonymous)]

[url=http://paydayloansheredirectly.com/#hoqel]payday loans[/url] - payday loans (http://paydayloansheredirectly.com/#fceuu) , http://paydayloansheredirectly.com/#akqkm payday loans