a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by lifestyled
lifestyled  ·  3172 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Should Literature be "triggering"?

    The things that really get me are when kids in elementary school are expelled and shit for drawing a gun or making a poptart pistol.

This part really sticks out to me, because the "pop tart pistol" you're referencing is a clear case of people accepting what they're told second hand rather than looking into the issue themselves.

That kid wasn't expelled for his pop tart, he was kicked out because he had frequently misbehaved, including trying to grope other students, and neither him nor his parents attempted to change his behavior.

And that's where I honestly believe a lot of this "PC is ruining the world!" rhetoric comes from: places like /r/TumblrInAction and media outlets that function on the same plane are able to share false information or make it incredibly misleading, and it becomes "truth" because people would rather believe a title telling them the world is going to shit than spend a few minutes google and reading articles showing that no, the world is actually doing ok all things considered.

    I didn't know Miley Cyrus had a career. I think you're being facetious, but there are at least one or two even more ridiculous things going on in the world. I have no idea how the hell she would have a career though.

I mean, she's on tours, she's got famous photoshoots, she's been in the media pretty frequently and a lot of people really like her music.

Why am I the facetious one when you're denying that she has a career?

    To me, people of color sounds more racist than PC.

Are you a person of color? Because, let's be honest, the majority of people who seem to find PoC to be a problematic term are not PoC, and just want to insert themselves into the conversation.

The fact is, PoC has become a widely accepted term by people who happen to be of color. That's because calling someone black or african very easily associates someone with a race/country/nationality that they very well may not be part of.

    I don't believe that we need to say stuff like "cerebrally challenged"

1. This is the first time I've ever heard this term.

2. Are you implying that psychological diagnoses are not...ok? Like...if someone has developmental issues, what are you wanting their condition to be referred to as?

    or "door person" instead of doorman/doorwoman(if that's a thing).

I can honestly say that, other than blatant trolls TiA and reddit in general has fallen for, I have never seen someone actually throw a fit about the nomenclature used to refer to people who hold jobs related to doors.

Again, this comes back to what I said before, that a lot of this "PC is ruining the world" rhetoric seems based entirely on secondhand information or actual bullshit. Like you're creating a world where you're the victim of other people who don't actually exist.

    It's obnoxious. If the person I'm talking to can't figure out what I mean, then they can ask, but I loathe when someone tells me in that snarky, holier-than-thou tone to use the PC term.

Do you consider their tone snarky because they're asking you to use a different word than, say, "retard" or "faggot"? Are you sure you aren't just taking offense to someone asking that you acknowledge their humanity just as much as they acknowledge yours?

It feels like you've created a caricature of socially-minded liberals that, I'll be honest, doesn't exist outside of the deepest, darkest, trolliest parts of tumblr and maybe the occasional college freshman who just learned about feminism and got over-excited.

    I honestly believe that if we stop giving special little groups for everything, that we'll become a more homogeneous society. Everyone wants to be a special butterfly, but we're forgetting that we're all just humans.

And you're forgetting that not all humans have the same experiences nor are all humans treated equally both under the law and in general.

What you're essentially saying here is that transgender people should just shut the fuck up and act normal and they'll stop getting killed. That PoC should stop caring about the disproportionate force used against them by police time and time again because hashtag all lives matter.

    I'm tall as hell (6'5"/198.12cm) but I don't need someone to call me vertically advantaged.

Can't imagine that'll ever happen.

    I'm not very empathetic, but I don't want someone to call me emotionally challenged or whatever the hell you'd call it.

Mk, but you know that there are legitimate mental illnesses and disorders that can cause people to have problems with empathy or expressing and controlling their emotions, right? I've been diagnosed as bipolar, with ADHD, and PTSD. If you haven't been diagnosed has having mental issues, then I highly doubt anyone will refer to you as emotionally challenged, unless they're doing so as a joke or insult.

    I have varying aspects of my being just like any other person. I don't need or want to be placed in a special category besides "human being." Bam. Give me my rights. Treat me like everyone else. Give me a fair go. I think that's what everyone else really wants (maybe not the "no special category" thing, but the rights and whatnot.) Why it's not that way, I'm really not sure.

It's not that way because, no matter how much you hope and wish and dream that every human is the same, we're a very troubled species that has a lot of issues with anything different from us.

It's not that way because, no matter how much we would all love to be treated equally, we still have elected officials with immense power that use said power to keep women and minorities "in their place" and at a disadvantage.

What you need to do is face up to reality. You need to accept that people are going to have their "special categories" because they want to SHOW YOU why the status quo, heterosexual white male perception of the world is flawed, because the people in those "special categories" are treated unfairly and have a lot of obstacles that most white, straight people will never experience.

Now, have the dynamics improved compared to even fifty years ago? Sure! But we're far and away from an equal world, much less a single country in that world having equality, much less a single state in the USA having equality.