The Land of the Touchy
After moving to Brazil, I noticed many differences in culture and habits from what I was accustomed to in the U.S. One of the things that really pleased me about my new land was how the Brazilians did not have this nutty obsession with political correctness that has held America in its grip for over a decade now.
Don’t get me wrong. Some degree of political correctness is simply good manners. After all, I feel more comfortable using the word, “Chinese,” than, “Chink,” and I am pretty sure that most Chinese people would prefer the former to the latter. However, not being able to use the word, “Oriental,” seems a bit much to me, and I think that is a case where things get taken too far.
Another such case recently popped up on the Web (see link), and though it did not surprise me, it did disappoint me.
The story is about a police chief in Florida who, using a memo, chastised his entire 80-person staff to lose weight and get fit. Because he used the term, “Jelly Belly” in the title of his memo, it caused a furor and the chief was fired. Fired! For having the guts to call out his whole police force (Gee, d’ya think it is possible that they are overweight?) to be in good physical condition he was canned just because he used the term, “jelly belly.” Jesus H. Christ, someone needs to get a reality check.
I remember I once was in a seminar that dealt with sales and management problems back in the U.S. During the second day, we were finishing up an activity where we had broken down into sub-groups of 10 people to work out some ideas to solve a given problem. After all the groups had finished, the group leaders stood up one by one to summarize what his or her group had discussed. The group next to ours had a leader who was a man in his early 50’s. He stood and started to recount who had given certain ideas within his group. Then he said, referring to a woman in a red dress who was in her early 30’s, “This girl here had an idea to…” As the seminar leader moved on to the next group leader, he was interrupted by the, woman in the red dress, who stood up. She was crying and said that she had been offended by the word, “girl,” that the older man had used. The older man apologized, but the woman later asked to be reassigned to a different group.
What the fuck is wrong with people? Have we lost our collective sense of humor, or worse, our sense of reason?
If a boss asks his staff to shape up and asks them if they have “jelly bellies” it may not be politically correct, but he may only trying to make the subject lighter. If someone calls a woman a girl, that may not be appropriate, but that does not mean it came of bad intentions.
Maybe it is time America as a whole started to pay more attention to things that make a real difference in society instead of dwelling so much on semantics. Of course, I am not saying we should all just kick back and start letting people call us bad names and disrespect each other. I am simply suggesting that the pendulum of good manners has swung a bit too far to one side and it is time to relax and really communicate with each other.
Take a lude and enjoy the ride, people.
Don’t get me wrong. Some degree of political correctness is simply good manners. After all, I feel more comfortable using the word, “Chinese,” than, “Chink,” and I am pretty sure that most Chinese people would prefer the former to the latter. However, not being able to use the word, “Oriental,” seems a bit much to me, and I think that is a case where things get taken too far.
Another such case recently popped up on the Web (see link), and though it did not surprise me, it did disappoint me.
The story is about a police chief in Florida who, using a memo, chastised his entire 80-person staff to lose weight and get fit. Because he used the term, “Jelly Belly” in the title of his memo, it caused a furor and the chief was fired. Fired! For having the guts to call out his whole police force (Gee, d’ya think it is possible that they are overweight?) to be in good physical condition he was canned just because he used the term, “jelly belly.” Jesus H. Christ, someone needs to get a reality check.
I remember I once was in a seminar that dealt with sales and management problems back in the U.S. During the second day, we were finishing up an activity where we had broken down into sub-groups of 10 people to work out some ideas to solve a given problem. After all the groups had finished, the group leaders stood up one by one to summarize what his or her group had discussed. The group next to ours had a leader who was a man in his early 50’s. He stood and started to recount who had given certain ideas within his group. Then he said, referring to a woman in a red dress who was in her early 30’s, “This girl here had an idea to…” As the seminar leader moved on to the next group leader, he was interrupted by the, woman in the red dress, who stood up. She was crying and said that she had been offended by the word, “girl,” that the older man had used. The older man apologized, but the woman later asked to be reassigned to a different group.
What the fuck is wrong with people? Have we lost our collective sense of humor, or worse, our sense of reason?
If a boss asks his staff to shape up and asks them if they have “jelly bellies” it may not be politically correct, but he may only trying to make the subject lighter. If someone calls a woman a girl, that may not be appropriate, but that does not mean it came of bad intentions.
Maybe it is time America as a whole started to pay more attention to things that make a real difference in society instead of dwelling so much on semantics. Of course, I am not saying we should all just kick back and start letting people call us bad names and disrespect each other. I am simply suggesting that the pendulum of good manners has swung a bit too far to one side and it is time to relax and really communicate with each other.
Take a lude and enjoy the ride, people.
posted by Neil Dallas | 3:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home