<i>there’s a label for this</i?

Moonbattery?

ALL dictionarys should update, under D, the definition of the word Diversity.

My submission:  Diversity:  A poison pill.

They are just going to refer to everyone else as the “majority”

Actually if we all want to be treaded equally, then no labels would be a good start.

“Change starts with symbolism.”
Both Hitler and Stalin agree.

“advocating the use of specific classifications, such as African-American, Native American, Hispanic.” but wait, everyone can’t be Native American nor African American. I guess that means EVERYONE IS NOT EQUAL! No one is equal in any one quality, only in being Americans or in being created are we equal. Anyone who professes otherwise is trying to divide us in order to gain power.

Maybe they’d like us all to display an ethnic symbol:

Brittenum said the word doesn’t ring true in Memphis where “people of color are not the so-called minority.” Also, classifying a group of people as “the minority” fosters a mindset of inequality and lumps different people in a single category, ignoring unique cultures and histories, he said.

Brittenum is advocating the use of specific classifications, such as African-American, Native American, Hispanic, Honkey mofos.

WTF???  Whitey can’t be no minority??  Dat shit be wack… Las’ time I wuz being in Mefus, you couldn’ swing no chicken wing on a string (I gots me some fly rhymes yo) widout you be hittin’ on a “People of Color”.  Couldn’ be findin’ me no honkey mofos nowhere…

I guess the Councilbrudda’s be thinkin’ dey Da Man now an’ it be time to fuck whitey…

Another step towards “Tribal America”.

All languages have words which from time to time acquire unsavory connotations. English, the great thief of words from other tongues, is so rich and diverse that writers can easily avoid dangerous situations with minimum thought.  For example, consider the generic he or his to refer to both males and females, or the suffix man on compounds to signify agency.  Today’s political correctness fad attacks a writer’s credibility as a data source if he or she isn’t careful on such delicate fundamental issues as race or gender equity.  Well, I call bullshit on most popular attempts to avoid biased language; they are intrusively self-conscious, condescending, misleading, and often downright silly.

A document or speech which relies too heavily upon the construction he/she or he or she to avoid sounding sexist can instead come across as too self-conscious on the issue.  In fact, in standard written English, the he/she construction isn’t allowable, and the slashmark tends to leap up off the page after a while, distracting readers from the intended message.  Some writers try to dance around the issue by using he the first time and she the second, alternating thereafter.  But that creates another distraction:  trying to find an antecedent for she.  The most common sidestep is simply to use he or she (his or her, him or her, his or hers) any time the singular third person pronoun issue surfaces.  Again, that often annoys readers even though grammatically correct.  But . . . wait . . . third person plural has no gender.  So instead of
Every writer needs to watch his pronouns
we can say
Every writer needs to watch their pronouns
right?

Wrong!  “their” is trying to refer to the singular noun “writer.”

So change “writer” to “writers”?

All writers needs to watch their pronouns

Nope!  That makes a subject-verb disagreement, an egregious flaw.

So change the verb.

Writers need to watch their pronouns

Ah!  Good.  Everything agrees, and the gender issue is neatly avoided.  But, there is no rule saying that the pronoun is required in the first place.  So it’s equally correct to say

Writers should use pronouns correctly

and keep gender out of the equation by eliminating pronouns in the first place.

Another method some writers use is inventing new words to gender neutralize, or neuterize, standard English. 

hizzer=his/her, his/hers, his or her, his or hers
herm =him/her
shim =she/him
heesh =he/she
womyn=women

Others are even ridiculouser than these.  The point, of course, is that none of them are valid words, so writers using them sacrifice credibility to placate a radical feminazi fringe.

Along the same lines are the ridiculous terms created by trying to neuter male-sounding prefixes or suffixes.

cowpersonsfor cowboys
policepersonforpoliceman
postal personfor mailman
herstoryfor history
personholefor manhole

Better ways exist to get around the problem, if getting around it is even necessary.  If cowboy simply MUST be avoided, the term ranchhand is considerably better than cowperson for most readers.  And letter carrier or postal worker is as genderless as postal person and definitely clearer in the bargain.  And if you feel you cannot use the word history because of that insidious reminder of traditional male repression of non-males (to avoid a diminutive of male as in female or men as in women), then you are hopelessly paranoid or merely trying to satisfy a radical element which doesn’t really want to be satisfied and have its self-righteous anger taken away.

Histrionics, manual, herpes, sheik, hermit, shenanigan—the list is very long.  And the word hurricane has nothing whatever to do with the pronoun her ; it comes from the Carib word Uracan, the god of winds.

The delicate human sensibility can be harmed by other people’s words only with its own permission.  You simply cannot pick up a turd by the clean end, folks, and a boiled-egg-and-beer fart by any other name would smell as rotten.  The only thing runaway political correctness in language will accomplish is confusing reality with illusion, and that’s more dangerous in the long run than laying out the truth in the first place.

Ummm...how about a simple word...’American.’

What a fucking dipshit!

People of Color. White is not a color??

In Memphis, the term minority would refer to whites. Me thinks that Brittenum can’t handle the idea of whites getting minority status, meaning the right to be heard and heeded based only on the amount of whinning rather then the relivance of the argument.

TomR, oddly enough white is the result of the blending of all the colors of the spectrum.

Hee hee.  Nice essay ET!
I wish city hall would stick to fixing the potholes and sidewalks, rather than debating esoteric issues and passing meaningless resolutions. To me, that’s preening narcissism rather than an honest effort to do the people’s business.

“Change starts with symbolism.”
Both Hitler and Stalin agree.
as well as the SF Boared of Stuporvisors when attacking Michael Savage…

a newly re-treaded meme?

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The only thing runaway political correctness in language will accomplish is confusing reality with illusion… and that would seem to be da point, no?