So people who have your attitude can just stay away from places that promote sensitivity. Right?
One caveat for the discussion going on lately in this thread: In the eternal debate over the proper singular form of data, I note that whatever it is, it isn’t anecdote.
That’s a problem with all this, really—any side in this argument can come up with anecdotes that support their point of view. Actual proper data? No, that’s harder to come by—not to mention that humans seem to be hard-wired to prefer anecdotes (or at least the narratives that they often come packaged with). It’s part of why we’re so bad at things like risk assessment, after all.
The cost of a PC-driven society run amuck:
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/penns-water-buffalo-incident-20-years/
I’m perplexed by anybody who thinks that the water buffalo incident is proof that nobody ever uses offensive racial epithets. What planet are they living on? I see them every time I read comments on a political story involving certain non-white leaders.
"The student government president and Hispanic/Latino campus club at Northwestern admonished students not to eat tacos or drink tequila on Cinco de Mayo on grounds that it “offends, marginalizes, and isolates many of our friends, classmates, and community members.”
This is what I mean by you can’t win for losing. As a non-Hispanic, is my proper response to celebrate Hispanic culture (which includes enjoying Hispanic-influenced foods, drinks, music, literature, etc.) in proper appreciation of what diversity brings to the richness of life? Or am I prohibited from enjoying such things because doing so marginalizes those cultures?
What’s the point of diversity if those outside a given culture can’t partake in it?
I’ll note that the cultures that seem to have participated well in mainstream American life haven’t had this problem. I haven’t seen Jewish people protesting that the goyim shouldn’t be allowed to eat bagels and lox because it offends them. I haven’t seen the Irish protesting that no one should eat cabbage and drink Guinness.
And let’s see it go the other way, shall we? Perhaps non-Anglo-Saxon-heritage students should be discouraged from reading or performing in Shakespearean plays; after all, it’s not their heritage.
I find the whole thing eye roll worthy, and I’m pretty darn liberal on most things.
@dfbdfb I’m not exactly sure I’m following your point, but when you are talking about discrimination against individuals, anecdote is the gold standard, not data. So, you could have a company with rock solid evidence of no statistically significant discrimination against blacks, but if a single manager decides not to promote a single person because he’s black, that’s discrimination. (For the hypothetical, assume the manager told everyone that was the reason). Conversely, the WalMart class action that was based on overwhelming statistical data was thrown out because each class member’s case turned on his or her own anecdotal evidence.
And, the kind of data that is available to analyze these issues is often not all that helpful or persuasive. Large scale surveys with standardize questions are often less helpful than accumulated anecdotes with specific examples in conveying the nature of the problem and in raising people’s awareness about things that might offend.
So, whether it is relevant that there is statistically sound data depends on what you are trying to prove. Are you trying to determine whether the individual telling the story was subject to discrimination, or whether the problem is widespread enough that a wide swath of people in a particular class have been subject to it? Either question is worthy of attention (although the policy implications may differ).
This was the response of Northwestern’s Hispanic international students to the Cinco de Mayo letter.
I particularly like the final paragraph.
That’s from the original letter–I think it just needed a little editing. If it had said “Getting smashed on tequila while wearing a sombrero does not commemorate Mexican culture,” would there have been much of an uproar?
Somehow “water buffalos” seems pretty derogatory. Some cultural attitudes and phrases just don’t play well outside their core group.
There are always some kind of crazy stories that then become anecdotal evidence that someone is being unreasonable. For example, there are people who take PC too far, and then, there are people who don’t even admit they have to behave in a respectful manner to anyone.
Don’t both of them provide something like bumpers in a bowling alley, keeping the ball headed forward (progress in getting along and getting contributions from all members of society, which is ultimately enriching both socially and economically for everyone) and keeping people from getting to carried away with either PC or non-PC crusades.
Maybe it’s just the quoted texts and a few key posters, but I am detecting an anti-PC crusade that seems wildly out of proportion to the actual goings on. And throwing around leftist, right-winger, that just makes it another polarizing issue, and now it’s personal.
What bothers me about the statistical analysis is for example, some pervasive attitudes about women in the workplace that are not harassment, certainly not assault, but just wearing on a day to day level and possibly indicating, reinforcing, or leading to larger issues such as not promoting women to position of authority. So, if I get a survey, what do I really answer to this question? Let’s say the question is “how often do you perceive microaggressions at work”, using mAggs sort of vaguely? I answer weekly. Does that really mean anything? As opposed to telling a story or telling how this pervasive climate led to being passed over for a key promotion, which never became available again.
So instead, a story about say an a joke about women airline pilots after a rough landing on a business trip or similarly maybe a story about someone going crazy about a comment about your shirt … I think both are maybe more instructive since they help us learn. The joke wasn’t really funny since we were all professionals and that easily could be a slur on me or maybe other women colleagues hidden as a joke. The blue shirt comment … well, either you could see it that “hey, that new young lady might be hearing too much of this crap from every eligible or midlife crisis man in our office” or maybe … oh, I guess a comment on my shirt isn’t really a big deal, I’ll stop counting. Or maybe I can type that about the women airline pilot thing and realize it was nice teasing and obviously a joke and part of being part of the gang.
I don’t suppose you’ve been to many hockey games. First of all, you’re wrong about women’s restroom lines at hockey games. I have stood in them many times. Secondly,
Hockey games don’t have halftimes. Hockey games have three periods separated by two intermissions.
@nottelling #565: You’re confusing/I’m being confusing about (or both?) evidence of actionable events with evidence of pervasive social trends, I think. In the former case, since you’re dealing with an individual action (or set of actions), a telling of the event isn’t simply anecdotal, because you’re describing a population of a single event (or a small set of potential events); in the latter case, however, simple anecdotes aren’t proper evidence because there’s no evidence that they’re drawn in a statistically meaningful way from the very, very large population of potential events.
Do the Irish get offended at American St. Patrick’s Day celebrations? I’ve heard they’re a bit perplexed by it but not offended. It seems a good analogy to the Cinquo de Mayo one.
@dfbdfb post 570: Yes, I agree with you there. My only point is that an individual’s description of his or her own personal experience is relevant to determining whether that individual has experienced discrimination (whether “micro” (ie non-actionable) or not), even though it tells us nothing about whether it is part of a larger social trend. I personally feel that sharing stories is very important; it seems to me that it is the first step in defining a potential larger social trend. And, by sharing stories, people are able to put their finger on the specific behaviors that cause the vague sense that “people like me are treated differently” or in otherwise identifying the source of a general sense of discontent. It is also the content of those individual stories that determine whether people (specifically, people who are not experiencing the slights) care about the issue or not.
I personally don’t like the word “microaggression.” It seems like almost everyone would agree that the accumulation of minor slights could wear a person down after a while, that some groups that are more likely to experience this accumulation of slights than others, that if it is pervasive enough it could really affect a person’s stamina and ability to persevere, that continued small slights may be reflective of a larger unconscious bias that really could be unfairly standing in the way of the progress of many individuals, etc etc etc. i don’t really see the point of divisive language, especially language that attributes a motive (“aggression”) to what is likely most often unconscious (if still biased) conduct.
Of course, there are also blatant bigots out there but that’s not what we are talking about here.
@“Cardinal Fang” - nope been to quite a few, mostly tall men, short lines in ladies (they are not deserted, but also not crowded). Similarly, concert bathroom lines really depend on who is there.
You got me with the halftimes.
Mostly I can’t afford the ticket prices, or I would be there all the time.
I believe the correct term is “peequality.”
Women just have to learn to pee faster. They have been socialized by an oppressive white male patriarchy into thinking they can’t do it.
I don’t think so. The Irish having been parading up Fifth Avenue every March since the mid-18th century. A quarter of a million people, give or take, do the actual parading and another couple million turn out to watch them. I’ve been to the parades and I’ve never heard anyone object to them, but I haven’t personally spoken to every spectator so my knowledge is limited.
I’ve known Irish who are offended by the American St. Paddy’s Day drinkfest. They see it as a perversion of Irish culture. Have heard more than a few remarks on the subject. But so what? They’re entitled to be as negative about the US as they often are about their own country.
Regarding sinking ships…more men were saved from First Class on the Titanic than women from steerage. I’ll take realistic restrooms, also. Apparently it is a biological fact that it takes women longer to empty their bladders than men. 
If men had to pull down their pants to pee, and then tuck everything back in, it would take them a longer time too.