Ok…let’s all take a moment and untwist our panties (sorry…our non-gender specific undergarments). What has happened to us? When did it become acceptable to belittle someone with a different opinion? Why is everything racist, xenophobic, homophobic? Why do we lose sight of actual issues and focus on the inane?
People today just need to be offended. Example? A security video making the rounds clearly shows a woman walk up behind an elderly woman who is sitting on a hoverround (or scamp or rascal), and while the elderly woman is busy trying to figure out which ketchup is just plain old normal ketchup and not some low salt, low sugar, gluten-free, caffeine free, organic ketchup in a bpa, PETE, phthalate free bottle, this other woman sneaks in from behind and casually walks off with the old lady’s purse.
The first few comments were, “Sad!” and “What kind of woman could do this?”…and then the magic happened that set me to typing. The comment started with the poster “literally shaking now” and I thought that might be a bit of an overreaction, but I appreciate the empathy…it continued that he was literally shaking that other posters were assigning a gender to the perpetrator. What?!?!? That is what makes you sad in this whole affair? Who cares that some 82-year-old was just robbed as long as you don’t dare to assume anyone’s gender based on all outward details presented?
This is the person that sets back any movement. The overly offended person who has to introduce their issue into every other issue. This is that person who could watch a documentary about child trafficking and comment about the amount of greenhouse gasses that were released by the film crew.
The video in question was solely about someone having the complete lack of self-worth to shamelessly steal a purse from someone who, even if they noticed, couldn’t get up and do anything about it.
I was on a phone call recently with a gentleman whose name was spelled Tui. Someone from my team kept calling him, “Too-ee”…until his teammate called him, “Tay”. Our person apologized and asked if he was saying it wrong. This guy has the attitude that I wish we could teach others…he said, “It doesn’t matter, I knew you were talking to me and it doesn’t look like it sounds…so no offense taken”.
Shouldn’t he have dropped the phone and screeched that we were insensitive for not saying it correctly? It reminds me of the people in Starbucks who absolutely MUST tell the barista how to spell their names. Does it matter if the cup says Bayley, Bailee, Baighly, Behly, or BayLeigh with a heart over the i? Of course not, but try telling that to Bailey and see what it gets you.
I get it…we are all conscious of gender fluidity and the heteronormative society in which we live…but this person on the video is a woman until she tells us otherwise. We must make these identifications based on what we see on the outside. They may internally identify as something else, but it isn’t offensive to call someone what they appear from all evidence to be until you know otherwise.
Imagine trying to describe in detail the perpetrator to the police without that detail:
“Attention officers. Be on the lookout for a person of non-determinate gender and non-determinate race. They are of non-determinate height and weight. They may be dangerous, but we can’t make assumptions.”
Isn’t it odd that the people who call out the loudest that we need to stop labeling everyone are the ones that keep coming up with new labels? If I see a picture of a person, I am going to assign a gender in my head. That is how this works.
If, however, I meet you and you tell me that you identify as something else, I will be 100% on board with calling you whatever makes you happiest. I can’t promise that I won’t make mistakes, but I will try to get it right. Live your life your way. Whatever you do that doesn’t harm anyone else is ok by me.
This is only the start…not so long ago, this happened:
Jerry Rice wore a helmet with a chicken wing attachment in a commercial for Popeye’s chicken and by the reaction you would have thought he was killing puppies on the screen.
Let’s look at the whole scenario…Jerry Rice is black, the old stereotype says black people love fried chicken. Jerry Rice enjoying fried chicken in a commercial is therefore racist…can someone (with calm and reason) explain how we make this leap? Is the new rule that black people may be spokespeople for a fried chicken restaurant but not be seen enjoying the product in a commercial? Can they not do something as silly as attach a wing to the facemask for easier eating?
Was he shoeless in overalls shuckin’ and jivin’ and saying, “yessuh….thass some gooood chicken”? No, of course not…I can’t imagine he would. Did he choose of his own free will to partake in this silliness? Yes…Is the spokeswoman for Popeye’s chicken, Annie (played by Deidrie Henry) also black? Yes…has anyone complained in the last few years about her? No…though they did in 2009 when she was introduced…and apparently Popeye’s went out of their way to make her less…ummmm…ethnic?
I discovered that KFC used to have a black spokesperson…he was fired because too many people complained about a black man selling chicken. So that is where we are now America? We are so starved for real issues that we are going to go after a person for choosing to be in a commercial? What if KFC, Popeye’s, etc…never had a black person in a single commercial? Would this stop the complaints….or would we then be subject to the complaints of a lack of diversity? It appears to be a no-win situation.
Oh…it is acceptable if they advertise a product, just don’t be silly about it. Got it…so when the Dodge guy (Jon Reep) yelled, “yeehaw” and “It’s got a hemi!”, that was acceptable because it was an overacted white stereotype and we can all agree that anyone with a southern accent is a redneck hillbilly who loves him some trucks and shootin’ and drinkin’ and fightin’.
I see…so only certain groups can be made fun of…much like the idea that it is ok to put on a British, Australian, Canadian, South African, German, French, Norse accent…and no one will bat an eye. Now, what if those weren’t predominately white countries? Would it be acceptable then?
Ha, just go out and imitate your Japanese step father’s accent in public and you may as well be dropping a deuce directly in someone’s open sun roof.
How many people have looked at you and said in their very best (which is most of the time extremely bad) Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, “I’ll be back”? Is that not accent-shaming? Yes! I made up a new term!
The fact that I still call them “bla queedos” instead of black widows isn’t racist…it is a fond memory of my son’s childhood. Why no askance looks when my step-father tries to imitate John Wayne? Is it not the same? Oh…I’m white and so by imitating any other culture, I am denigrating them.
We talk about treating everyone the same, but we don’t. White is white, but everyone else is special. Let’s stop it altogether. What if we were all just people…could we try that? This need for over the top political correctness is eating our country away from the inside like a fat kid left alone with the birthday cake.
What? Oh, I can’t say fat kid? Sorry…I apologize, I never meant any offense…what I should have said was that political correctness is masticating upon the insides of our country as if it were a corpulent moppet wandering about untended in the vicinity of the celebratory baked goods. Better? Sorry…not trying to r/iamverysmart anyone with a thesaurus explosion, but it goes to the point…everything sounds so much nicer when you wrap it up in pretty wording, no?
No…it means the same thing and in either case there is nothing wrong with saying it. Now, if I specifically pointed at a big kid, ugh…sorry, child of size (because that way, I am apparently seeing him as a child first and fat second…makes all the difference), while I made that comparison, then that would be uncalled for and impolite.
We have got to come to the realization that descriptive words and opinions are a part of our nature and are absolutely the least important thing going on in this country…besides the person seeking the law to force the airlines to widen airplane seats. Bullying is not the same thing as political incorrectness. As in the example above, saying fat kid is not bullying, pointing to one and saying it certainly may be. Can we start to see the difference?
Do you remember the uproar from this story: “Steve Martin deletes sexist tweet”. I thought, “I wonder what he said…that doesn’t seem like him at all.” Here is the tweet, “When I was a young man, Carrie Fisher was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She turned out to be witty and bright as well.”
It was then that I finally realized that people have lost their minds. They need something to be upset about and they find it. I read that quote as saying that Carrie Fisher was beautiful, smart, and witty. Where does it say that he was surprised a pretty woman could be smart…or that it is such a rare combination.
When you see a picture of someone, you can’t know how witty or intelligent they are (unless they are standing in front of a chalkboard filled with calculus or something…even then it isn’t a sure thing). He thought she was gorgeous…he met her and learned more about her. How is that in any way sexist?
Stop! Just stop with the incessant need to find ways to be offended. Worse yet, he deleted the tweet. I tell you this and I will tweet it, email it, post it…I know pretty women who are dumb as a bag of hair…I know pretty women who are smart. I know ugly (sorry…what is the new pc term for ugly?) Oh…I know unfortunate looking…no? Attractiveness challenged? Non-standardly pretty? You get the point.
This attitude has been slowly working its way into our job titles…it used to be that salesmen would leave a note for their secretary before they would head to the airport where they would be served on their flights by stewardesses. (I guess pilots were never really called plane jockeys…though they should have been) They would check in at the hotel with the desk clerk before heading to the restaurant. A waiter/waitress would bring them their food that had been brought to the restaurant by a truck driver. Then a stop at the coffee place where the counterperson would bring them coffee…you know where this is going, don’t you?
Now, a regional account director leaves a note for their account executive before the flight where a flight attendant now serves them. The hotel is staffed by guest representatives and that restaurant has servers who bring food delivered to the gastropub by a mobile logistics technician. Last stop for coffee and service from the barista…
Why the changes? Some say it was to make the job sound more enticing to potential applicants, but most of the changes seem to be because people are embarrassed about what they do and want to bring a false sense of loftiness to their job. If you are embarrassed by your job title, you are in the wrong job. Unless your company is one of those that create strange titles to bring about an atmosphere of fun… if you are a Personnel Evangelist or Grand Duke of Manual Data Transitions (File clerk) then you can go ahead and be embarrassed by the title.
It happens with descriptive words all the time. People were lame, crippled, handicapped, handi capable, differently abled, physically challenged, and then disabled. I am sure there were others, but you probably get the idea by now.
Those that police public speech are now claiming that disabled folks are to be called, “person with a <insert type> disability” instead of disabled because if you put the disabled first, you are defining them by their disability and not as a person.
It goes so far that there is a group of people who are offended by the “Stand up to Cancer” movement because there are people who can’t stand up. They miss the point. Stand up in that case is using the idiomatic phrase where someone applies courage or holds their ground in the face of a challenge. Does anyone really believe that simply standing upright is a method of fighting cancer?
It is time for us to take a step back and breathe. There is nothing wrong with caring passionately about an issue. There is, however, something wrong with introducing that issue where it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t generate the response you would hope. It does the opposite. It makes people angry.
Imagine walking into a funeral service for a cancer victim and declaring that heart disease kills more people than cancer. You may be correct with your statement, but your timing is off. Trying to shoehorn your current cause into every conversation is the same. Don’t do it…don’t be that person.
Above the Nonsense 