Darth_Kirby wrote:One, you would not be playing the "political correctness" card by saying that his joke was sexist and that you're offended by it because it is clearly a sexist comment.
But then we get into stuff such as the role of women in certain Christian denominations, that I and many other believe are clearly sexist, but other people do not. And that's where the problem is. See what I'm getting at?
Two, political correctness is when someone is offended about something for which there is no reason to be offended besides the person's opinion.
Ah, but who judges if there is "no reason?" You may believe there is no reason simply because you disagree with the person, but just because you disagree with their reason does not equate to no reason.
If you feel offended, even when there's no logical reason to be offended, then that's being politically correct.
No, not always. Humans don't always work on logic, and sometimes someone can be deeply offended even if there's no "logical" reason. We do illogical things all the time, and I don't think someone should be ignored or belittled because they are offended by something that seems trivial or ridiculous to others.
Case in point, someone might say "Believing in God is illogical, there is no empirical evidence for God's existence" You would probably be offended by this, as would I, since we both believe in God. But
logically speaking, this person is correct. Thus, you have no "logical" reason to be offended. But you have a pretty strong emotional reason to be offended, now don't you?
That's why the whole "logic" thing doesn't work on me. Logic and emotion are not opposites, and not everyone should think like Vulcans (yeah yeah, I know, Vulcans are actually extremely emotional and they just suppress it, but what else am I gonna use for an example :p).
Usually this is done in politics to condition base voters against the opposition so that they will not listen to logical debates, but instead they make the debate personal by blindly attacking the other side's character without listening to them.
I wasn't aware there had ever been logical debates in politics. They all are pretty much character assassination and twisted half-truths. It's the nature of politics.
Someone may see it as racist, but that is no reason to call the person a racist or that he has racist views.
Maybe, but I find it difficult to believe someone could have racist views without actually being a racist. Then we get into the territory of "I'm not racist, but man black people sure are lazy!" There are plenty of racists who do not see themselves as racist, but think they are being "intellectual," "logical," or "truthful." I've seen stuff on sites, where for example, a racist person had an image comparing average brain size between whites and blacks. On average, blacks have smaller brains. They then used this to say "Blacks are naturally less intelligent than whites, and more aggressive, and scientific evidence backs this up."
They didn't believe they were being racist, they believed they were going on proven evidence that could not be refuted. As he put it, "It's perfectly fine to look at a Toyota and say it gets more gas mileage than an SUV, because you're looking at it objectively, and looking at brain sizes objectively proves me correct. That's not racist, it's just factual." Or something along those lines.
So again, he held a completely and painfully obvious racist viewpoint, but believed he was not being racist at all. Thus, it is entirely possible for someone to hold racist viewpoints and be racist without thinking they are, and that's a problem, because if you call the person out on it, they will get defensive and less likely to listen to the opposing viewpoint.
There really isn't a right thing to do in that situation. Even if you just say "This is a bad idea and here is why," once you start mentioning race the other person will probably say "Are you accusing me of being racist?" or something along those lines. There's really no easy way to go about it, honestly, which is a problem.
What happened in World War II was clearly racist. The border issue is not clearly racist.
During World War II, the camps were not seen as racist at all because we were at war with the Japanese, and any Japanese-American could have potentially been a spy for the Japanese army. They could have been gathering intelligence on our movements and plans, and relayed them to Japan.
It was not seen as racist because it was logically sound...a Japanese-American was of course more likely to be a spy sent by Japan, Japan probably didn't have very many whites or blacks living in their country that they could send over to be spies. So again, it was completely logical. It was also extremely racist. We can look back with hindsight and say "Man, that was so completely racist," but the people who were alive then didn't think that. They thought it was necessary to protect our country.
So the border issue could be completely racist. It's just we are living in a time where it is seen as completely logical (much as the Japanese camps were during World War II). It is entirely possible that in 100 years, people living then will look at the border issues of today and go "Wow, that was so racist, I can't believe people supported that."
You may disagree, but the precedent is there.
Political correctness creates a double standard where one side holds itself up as "objective" and "tolerant" but stigmatizes any opposition as "intolerant" and "biased."
And I disagree completely. I believe political correctness sets up a society where people can openly speak with each other without fear of prejudice or belittlement.
Like I said before, it is a political tool. Not something to champion.
The assumption here is that political tools are always negative, which is not necessarily the case. For example, the mayor of the town I lived in showed up at the YMCA Active Older Adults event on Wednesday, and talked with the people there and ate lunch with us.
That could possibly have been a political tool to get his face out there and seem more friendly and interested in the events of the town. He also could have genuinely wanted to be there. But if it was a political tool, was it a negative one? I do not think it was, and thus, we can see that not all political tools are necessarily bad, and should sometimes be championed.
And I personally feel political correctness is a positive thing that should be championed, and so I do.
