The Big Picture: Correctitude

[reachforthesky]

Dude, the point of Wikipedia is that everything has an external, credible source.[citation needed]

Fixed.

Not everything is sourced properly.

The example used in the video was. Seriously Bob, while as usual I'm in complete agreement with the main idea of the video, please don't use your privileged powers of addressing a community to take verbal potshots at a vast well-cited and strictly maintained source of free information. I figured you would know better, Wikipedia really doesn't deserve half the flak it gets.

Edit: In regards to the rest of the video, I agree the PC accusation is thrown around way too often by the most despicable kinds of people, but I would argue that there are some situations where the accusation stands.

 

[internetzealot1]

Political correctness is when you avoid the facts because it might offend someone. It's a good thing that PC is a dirty word.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

I don't think I've ever disagreed more with you.

I'm a firm believer in being an equal opportunities asshole.

I'll call anyone for anything I choose to. I don't pick on certain races, creeds or genders or use anything like that as a springboard for my assholery. But being called a bigot because I'm taking the piss out of someone for being an idiot, or a thug, or a ditz. Just because of their Creed, race or gender..... That doesn't sit well with me.

Political correctness, regardless of it's etymological source, is today used as a means of carebearifying the planet.

That's just something I'm not going to get behind.

Oh. And the Thor thing.... Yeah. That's wrong. They're NORSE Gods. From NORSE mythology. They're going to look EUROPEAN!

Can you imagine what would happen if there was a film about the Hindu Gods and they cast Kali as a 8 armed white chick with blue eyes?

Oh that's not OK? But the other way around is fine?

I like things to be authentic. I take just as much issue with a white guy being cast as sinbad or Cpt' Nemo as I do with a black or asian guy being cast as a white character.

That is what we should be moving away from. If the race isn't a fit for the role. Then they're excluded. Regardless of what race they are. Black, white, yellow, caramel. I don't care. If it's not right.... IT'S NOT FUCKING RIGHT!

Don't even get me started on the ridiculous backlash Res 5 got. Denying that some tribes in Africa still dress that way is both racist and moronic.

And the exaggerated weapons... Racism? Pyramid head had a pretty exaggerated weapon... is that racist too?

You're not smart or heroic for ignoring a double standard. And yes, society is full of them. On both sides of every race/gender line. Political correctness. Whether you choose to accept the term or not, perpetuates them.

I kept trying to articulate my feelings towards this video, but I really didn't want to have to write another essay today. Thanks for taking care of it for me.

I just don't agree with this video, which is kind of a first for me. Race, gender, religion, etc. makes a difference. It isn't cool to treat people who are different like they are inferior, but acting like we are all the same is stupid.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Awesome, Bob. Awesome.

 

[Logan Kane]

call me a retard but i still dont get what pc is.

 

[Yan Hunt]

without a like button, all can do is add to the flood of agreement.

Another kind of linked topic is how hollywood and games do portray race and gender and how the attempts at political correctness have stalled.

The two sterotypes of successful tightly buttoned down black guy (usually Don Warrington http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0913116/in UK dramas, but samuel l jackson's nick fury might be close too, and wise-ass ghetto guy who knows all about crime and hip-hop (Chris Rock, eddie murphy). that all the coloured people of africa, the carribean, and america can be summed up in just two characters is really dull-witted. Films (and i mean hollywood blockbusters here i guess) do now try to include black characters, but seemingly always in the role of sassy comedy sidekick. hollywood shuffle came out 25 years ago now, but it seems were still at that (quotes as well as he's able to from memory) "(white hero) i've been shot, you've got to go on without me!"

Like you, and indeed anyone with a brain, i found transformers 2, and then GI joe both terrible films for this casual racism and lazy writting.

Positive responce time: I realised a type too many critisms and not solutions, so here goes. Instead of lazy sterotypes in RE5 (have to admit, I've never played it)how about some more realistic african ideas. Umbrella corp is promoting the use of artificial babymilk for use in fammine hit areas. the formula is laced with growth hormones and other nasties such as t-virus offshoots. safe for infants who's bodies digest the poisons, they build up in the bodies of desperate adults sold the milk on the blackmarket. mutations and zombification ensue to hilarious consequences. Some umbrella staff believe they're there to help other are cashing in on the black market, and some to watch and study the results...

 

[mptothedc]

I think Carlos Mencia is funny- His jokes that probably made you dislike him are the ones about retards. Besides I'm watching it just to laugh not gain social merit or political knowledge. Jeff Dunham isn't funny, tho. You got that spot on- and not because he's a jerk, but because he just ISN'T funny.

I think what makes someone funny is their delivery, material, and credibility; but a joke is still a joke if people are laughing. Why not rant about every other comedian doing stereotypical racist jokes that could been seen as offensive?

Anyway, I really like the comedians you posted at the end. All very thought-provoking and intelligent, although Sam Kinison could fall into that pig category of yours (but I still love him just the same).

 

[DannibalG36]

Dude... white heterosexual men are the schizz.

In all seriousness, what I don't think you get, Bob, is that it's pissily unreasonable to censor media to avoid offending a minority. I believe Yahtzee has addressed this issue in his 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand review.

 

[Danpascooch]

Not bad, but I don't remember the resident evil 5 racism scandal being quite like how you portray it. I'm pretty sure the complaints were "whitey killing blacks" and not "misuse of tribal imagery" But hey, I could be wrong.

Edit: Before the MovieBob defense force comes to crucify me, here's a quote from a group of the complainer's since the original article has been taken down.
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/08/01/african-womens-blog-critical-of-resident-evil-5-trailer

I think it WAS about white people killing black zombies, which is a shame because the game really was really racist. Just not in the way they were saying it was. The tribal areas were obscenely racist.

 

[Baneat]

Same wavelength as Bob, but I disagree with the Resi5 example.

we do NOT defend people because they're being dicks. I put my foot down the moment someone says "there should be a law" or "x should be banned because it offends me".

There's a fucking difference. It's not illegal to be a prick, you went straw-man there.

 

[Actual]

If you want to know the source on Wikipedia you click the source button...

Turns out in that case they were referencing another website but the quote is from a magazine so you'd need to visit a library and look up the issue to confirm it.

Disagreed with this entire video, I've never seen anyone use being anti-PC to justify being an arsehole, I have seen plenty of arseholes trying to force everyone to be PC. Being PC benefits no-one.

You've got those that mean the exact same thing and we're only changing them because over the years the normal term has collected negative connotation.

Mentally Challenged (Retarded)
Black people became coloured people, (then in the US became African American).

And those that have a completely different meaning and are totally insensible.

Specially/differently able (disabled)
Happy Holidays (Happy Christmas)

 

[mrhateful]

Please stop talking about politics, as your clueless about the subject.

Also who are you to decide what is and what is not acceptable.

 

[Robyrt]

I think Bob drastically overestimates the problem here.

It's easy to explain with selection bias: as an outspoken left-leaning public figure, he is likely to see a lot of right-wing trolls who are using "political correctness" as an excuse for saying whatever they want regardless of the consequences, and "a tiny minority" of the other way around. I, however, am far more likely to see the people complaining Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" is insufficiently inclusive and therefore an affront to true diversity, and only hear the other way round from people like Bob.

Now, I'll grant you that political correctness has been exaggerated by some pundits - but even in this case, it's not the scenario Bob describes. Fox News doesn't actually make politically incorrect statements themselves, and they certainly aren't suffering from the "War on Christmas" or whatever; they just want you to feel like the opposition threatens you personally.

There's a big difference between words which by long association have become vulgar and are no longer socially acceptable, words whose etymology derives from a pejorative term but whose meaning is now rather innocuous, words which at least one person finds offensive, and words which are offensive in the abstract but make sense as part of a larger context. To treat all four of these categories as verboten is the kind of thinking that gets you a censored Huck Finn.

 

[Robyrt]

Not bad, but I don't remember the resident evil 5 racism scandal being quite like how you portray it. I'm pretty sure the complaints were "whitey killing blacks" and not "misuse of tribal imagery" But hey, I could be wrong.

Edit: Before the MovieBob defense force comes to crucify me, here's a quote from a group of the complainer's since the original article has been taken down.
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/08/01/african-womens-blog-critical-of-resident-evil-5-trailer

I think it WAS about white people killing black zombies, which is a shame because the game really was really racist. Just not in the way they were saying it was. The tribal areas were obscenely racist.

Definitely. Bob correctly calls RE5 out on the tribal nonsense, conveniently ignoring that many of the original objections were just "here is a white man shooting black zombies."

 

[Kumomaru]

This is the first time i found myself being in enough disagreement with your opinion to be unable to pin it on one specific thing in the video.

However bone-headed an opinion might be, or how much you dislike it personally, it DOES have a right to exist and be out there.

I would never say sexual harrasment doesn't exist. I will, however, say it IS used as an excuse more often than it should. How often is too often? 1/One thousand times is too often for something as serious as racism, sexism or sexual harassment.

What really grinds my gears though is when the discrimination is done in reverse of the percieved 'normal' way (female on male, for example) and the one discriminated against can't do anything about it without being accused of discrimination himself/herself.

A social experiment was performed once, where a woman beat a man on a bench for about half an hour, then they switched. For the former, she got a glance or two but everybody kept walking. The latter? Pretty much everybody looked, and one person even ran in to break it up.

If i could FIND it, i'd link it to you. -_-

 

[CloudsApprentice]

Bob, you are a shining beacon of intellectual fortitude, and the world would be a sorry place indeed without you. Keep doin' what you're doin'.

 

[Callate]

Bob is largely right, of course. But I rather wonder if he has any ideas how one would counter the "you want us to be politically correct" card; it rather seems that just calling the user of that shallow tactic a pig, however satisfying, isn't likely to be terribly productive.

 

[Uszi]

Dude, the point of Wikipedia is that everything has an external, credible source.

Well... I'd need to look at the article myself, but either there is a [#] at the end of the date Bob gives, in which case he could just go look it up...

And here it is:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287100.html

That's the source for the date in the wikipedia article.

Wikipedia is good... um, but I don't think it's 100% credible. To say it's schlock isn't correct, and for day to day use it's pretty good, but if you're attempting to be academic about something, as Bob seems to have been trying, Wikipedia isn't really the best source. It would best be used as a jumping off point to find more legitimate sources to use in arguments.

....

About the actual video:
Pretty good. I like the fire! Keep it coming

 

[Cabisco]

It's nice to see someone point this out, theirs a British comedian Stewart Lee who summed it up brilliantly.

 

[MrGalactus]

Well, of course words only mean what we decide they mean. Language is just arbitrary sounds and symbols used to convey meaning, a meaning which we designate. I'm not sure I understand your point? I realise that words are just noises or letters, but now we have a long established language, a lot words are limited in terms of interpretation.

my point is just that the problem with PC and, in some ways society (in my view) is the fact that some words are offensive regardless of context when context is one of the most important things in communication and when it's ignored it just causes problems most of the time. in other words, while as you pointed out, there needs to be some limit to interpretation for a language to work, i think the limitations have gone too far in some cases.

Oh, yeah, some words are universally offensive, but that is because of the negative connotation they hold. Words like these are easily avoidable, though. If you say the N word (assuming you are not one) it will always be offensive, even if you're joking. What I'm saying is that if you're saying something offensive, even for comedic effect, you shouldn't if you know someone will be upset by it, because if you do, you're just being nasty, BUT, it's more important to not be offended by things people say. You've got to have a sense of humor about everything.
I'll try and sum this up.
You have the right to say what you want, but with that comes the responsibility to use your words respectfully.
How's that?