So you are saying that Mexican people associate non Mexican people dressed in stereotypical Mexican attire with Mexican's being called rapists, criminals etc?
Has political correctness actually gone mad?
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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So you are saying that Mexican people associate non Mexican people dressed in stereotypical Mexican attire with Mexican's being called rapists, criminals etc?
I've been to Mexico actually and there was a street vendor on pretty much every corner selling sombreros to gullible tourists. The last time i went to Oktoberfest, some Germans felt (jokingly) insulted if you didn't wear a lederhosen.
Hell, go to pretty much any country and there will be street vendors and souvenir shops trying to sell you stuff (cheap knock offs mostly) that has some cultural significance to the indigenous people.
Not trying to insult anyone here, but i just have a hard time grasping why people find this so upsetting. Now i am from Norway, if someone from abroad decided to dress up as a viking or dress up in a "bunad" (traditional folk costume) i could not imagine being insulted by that. I remember last 17th May (our National day) a Muslim girl had sown her own bunad/hijab crossover. She did get some abuse, but that was from racist thugs and right wing nutters, as most people (me included) found it great that she embraced Norwegian culture whilst showing her own.
Now obviously there is a stuff like dressing up in black face, an SS solider or a member of the Klan that is offensive. But dressing up as a mariachi, a samurai, a viking or a cowboy i don't really see the issue with. I think that if a culture is strong enough to have developed such identifiable traits, then it's strong enough to survive some kids running around with sombreros and maracas and having a good time.
I just find this mindset of: "This is mine, your a foreigner, you can't have it" confusing coming from the left side, as it' usually something you would expect from the polar opposite. Just because you use something from a different culture does not mean you seek to belittle or mock said culture. I don't know man. In this day and age with the resurgence of the far right and an escalation of conflicts between ethnic/social groups i think this mindset does more harm than good.
I guess complementing the band's image (i.e. stereotypical 'tough guys') was more important to him than respect.
It's usually a bit of both. The last few pages of this thread are a great example - people who likely held those opinions before having them reinforced by what are demonstrable lies. i.e "safe spaces for people don't can't handle opposing opinions" turning out to be nothing of the sort.
That's where I'm at. The only way to expand the appeal of the liberal left is to pick our battles a bit more carefully. Even if there's some sense to our arguments. Because we're sure as shit not winning hearts and minds over the last few years!
Hehe. Come on, Steve. They were camp as a row of tents. Their image was 100% queer. It was quite funny how such an obvious thing was so widely overlooked at the time.
You're telling me that those macho men were gay?!?!?
Freezers H. Christ...
Tbf it's not really "the left". Every story about non-egregious ones (which you made a good distinction between) seems to be the newly emerging brand of twitter journalism, where someone on a clickbait farm copies tweets and tries to make them seem like a massive moment - when it's usually a dozen people on a forum or social network chatting shit.
I'm sorry, dude. Are you rethinking the arseless chaps and leather cap you wore to your 18th birthday party?
Yes, mate - I'm a chapless arse.No, not even close.
Brietbart is a very disappointing publication, it is so puerile and offers nothing more than petty point scoring against the left.
Numpties like Lena Dunham just fuel the whole movement though. Breibart go to town on her and she keeps offering them ammunition. Hilary had her as a surrogate for her campaign too, dumb move.
Define the insult then.
It seems to be working though, the public perception seems to be leaning more and more towards what the alt right is preaching.
You said you see no difference caricaturing a dominant group and a marginalised group. So I used two examples and listed the differences between stereotypes of one vs another.
I think the only person I knew back in the late 70's who did not know the Village People were gay was my Grandmother, she just thought they were nice boys dressing up to put on a show.
Mental isn't it? As @Cheesy pointed out, you'd think universities were massive safe spaces where you have to give a trigger warning before every sentence. Of course, reality doesn't match that at all.
This is where I interpreted what you were saying as being that Mexicans might feel foreigners wearing sombreros were calling them lazy.
Me too, I really couldn't believe it wasn't meant as satire when I first stumbled upon some of those sites. Really not sure about how 'new' the manosphere is. It does seem relatively new, but at the same time, one of the most populair news websites over here is called GeenStijl. They've been extremely popular for more than ten years now, by satirizing the political establishment and the main stream media, being very politically incorrect regarding pretty much every topic possible, in a way that used to be unheard of (and still is compared to nearly all other popular news sites around the world). Over the years they've become a bit more political, for example an organisation related to hem was responsible for our Ukraine-referendum (somewhat comparable to the Brexit-referundum).
When you read the comment sections of ten year old articles on there, they are very comparable to comments on manosphere and other alt right websites right now. So I guess maybe those attitudes have been around for quite some time now.
https://www.geenstijl.nl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeenStijl
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The stereotype wasn't instilled by Mexicans though. It was used in imagery mostly in America and in media of a guy taking a nap on a porch or under a tree with a sombrero on top of his face. I think Taco Bell used something similar years ago.
That stems from Mexican culture implementing naps as part of their day (in the past, can't say if the same applies now), plus not placing as much importance to arriving to functions like birthday parties at the exact time of the invitation, in comparison to western culture where these can be portrayed as lazy. That's how it was explained to me.
So yes, some Mexicans may have upheld and shunned wearing sombreros unless it's for a particular function, but I don't believe the stereotype originated from Mexican people.
My bad if I didn't make the distinction clear, I'm typing on my phone.
It's not that by wearing a sombrero you're necessarily calling them lazy directly. It's part of the entire costume being made to mimic common Mexican stereotypes
The difference is that the ones in the real world are permament services set up to provide vulnerable people with help at times when those people may well be struggling to find anyone to help them through their pain and suffering. No that's not the same as some students deciding that because they disagree with a visiting lecturer, they need to provide a 'safe space' during the few hours of that lecturers visit where people completely unaffected by the visit can feel 'safe'. In fact it's a insult to the people who actually need and actually run those real services.
I'm talking about the whole move towards an extreme form of what is often (and annoyingly) called political correctness. It's not just in universities, the same pattern of behaviour appears on social media every time a celebrity or politician says anything that can even vaguely be construed as going against the neo-liberal grain.
I'm practically a fecking hippy in terms of my liberal beliefs, but then again I'm also anti-authoritarian, and in my eyes when you impose standards of speech and behaviour on people using a mob mentality and public shaming (with no right of reply) then you're not being liberal you're being authoritarian. Declaring that you're setting up a 'safe space' for sexual assault victims (a group that every decent person feels extreme sympathy for) during a lecturer's visit is nothing more or less than branding that visitor as an enemy to those vulnerable people. It's a form of public shaming, nothing more and nothing less.
I remember this guy
There are temporary services in the real world too. Be in it in the form of the temporary support group or extra staff and volunteers usually gather when a TV show covers a sensitive subject or during difficult parts of the year. There's nothing out of the ordinary about setting up an extra support group or using more resources during a particular time. It's fairly standard practice.
And you're conflating here. Safe spaces have nothing to do with a mob mentality or public shaming or authoritarianism. Those things exist by themselves, and always have. It just happens that they're no longer confined to the pages of the Sun and Daily Mail. Or religious leaders before them. All that's changed is public shaming has been democratised by the internet.
True, however when those things are becoming common in the day to day life at universities, then we have a real problem. Institutions designed to broaden minds and educate cannot be allowed to become places where discussion and debate are stifled.
Say a visiting lecturer was delivering a bigoted viewpoint, what is likely to be the most effective means of countering that? Trying to prevent the debate happening in the first place (in which case those with sympathetic views on campus will just retreat into a feeling of victimhood) or raising strong counter arguments in the questions section demolishing the basis of the bigotry?
If we keep trying to push bigotry and bad ideas into the shadows, then they'll just fester and grow. Bring them into the light, expose them to full scrutiny and take them apart from the foundations. Then people who are feeling they need a safe space might actually start to live in a society that IS safe.
You're conflating again. Attempting to prevent certain speakers from giving talks at universities is a distinct issue from providing safe spaces for students who might be upset by the content of the talk, should it go ahead. FWIW, I have no sympathy with the former but some with the latter.
Perhaps, but I think they're parts of the same overall picture. By tying a safe space to a certain event based on one persons political opinions, you're politicizing that space.
Why does the space have to be apolitical? You can't tell LGBT groups they have to have separate organisations for support and campaigning. Why does any other support group or safe space have to be apolitical if it doesn't want to be? And surely you're the one assigning political leanings to it? From what I can see it just a few students deciding they're going to use the time to try and help others.
And surely any time you have someone who works with a politically aligned think tank giving a lecture it's going to be inherently politicised, by virtue of the speaker having politicised themselves.
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The lecture itself is certainly politicized, which isn't itself a bad thing at all. Groups campaigning on a political issues again not in any way a bad thing. The very nature of a safe space though is surely to provide vulnerable people with a space they can feel safe within, no? If that safe space is for survivors of sexual assault, then politicizing it creates divides within an issue that should be apolitical. Is a right wing survivor of sexual assault welcome in that group? Are supporters of the lecturer who are also strong supporters of supporting sexual assault survivors supposed to support the aims of that group, despite it being set up to suggest that the lecturer herself is somehow an enemy?
"safe space"
"safe space"
I didn't get the idea of safe spaces either, until I had a chat on another forum with a gay American guy who described how his entire family, everyone in his town, his school etc were virulently anti-gay. It was something he'd had to hide from everyone for fear of being completely cut off from everyone around him and facing massive bullying and likely physical violence. For him the idea of having a space where he could genuinely feel safe and talk about things he'd never been able to put into words before was more valuable than he could imagine. After that I understood why they can matter.
Yeah, I guess it is different for us over here. If you are virulently anti-gay around our neck of the woods then you are the outcast, not the gay one. Same goes for anti abortion lunatics, and if you are overly religious you are seen as some novelty.
Just two whole different worlds I guess.
Yes.
If they want to.
Keep it apolitical and then these things wouldn't be an issue in the first place. Seriously, some things should be beyond politics.
Nothing is beyond politics. And it's only a issue because you're (not just you) making it into one.
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Ah the old 'its only a problem because you're making it a problem' argument. Always a sign of a strong position.
I think there's a balance - this hateful stuff where people feel physically at risk is obviously not acceptable. And picking on social groups, or whatever, in a hateful and inciteful way is obviously not good either. But I do think political correctness has morphed into something quite stale and sanitary and misses the point really.
Comedy for me is a good example, when a comedian is clearly not attacking a certain group, but makes a joke that involves that group in some way - people seem to feel like they need to object, groan or get offended; but in a pre-programmed way rather than actually thinking about what it is that might be offensive. This is clearly a grey area, but societally we seem to be moving to the point of the nonsensical where any mention of anything vaguely close to a sensitive topic becomes off limits. It's one of the things I like about 'The Last Leg' on Channel 4 - the jokes are funny, often because they stick their finger up at P.C.
Here's Cleese talking about P.C. in terms of comedy.
Comedy for me is a good example, when a comedian is clearly not attacking a certain group, but makes a joke that involves that group in some way - people seem to feel like they need to object, groan or get offended; but in a pre-programmed way rather than actually thinking about what it is that might be offensive. This is clearly a grey area, but societally we seem to be moving to the point of the nonsensical where any mention of anything vaguely close to a sensitive topic becomes off limits. It's one of the things I like about 'The Last Leg' on Channel 4 - the jokes are funny, often because they stick their finger up at P.C.
Here's Cleese talking about P.C. in terms of comedy.
Reading some of it, I think it's got a real cult-like feel to it. A lot of the manosphere ones kinda start off soft and throw in some light ideas regarding relationships that don't seem ridiculous: if your gf cheats on you, don't mope over it, move on, and work on improving yourself, and don't let others get in the way of it. For a lot of disillusioned young guys, that seems like a pretty solid idea. Then it gets progressively worse till those same young guys are getting indoctrinated in calling all women evil, believe that the liberal left is out to get them and that those same people are their enemies, that society should return to the way it once was and that equality for women is unnatural and incorrect. From whenever I saw such groups on places like Reddit I kinda saw them as smallish, fringe groups...but as time goes on it appears they're getting bigger, and Bannon's potential involvement with Trump gives them a real voice.
The irony, though? It's essentially the same sort of safe space they lament...only in a nastier, more twisted form. It's a place for these people to air their abhorrent views without question, one where those people will vent about groups they dislike without being challenged, allowing them to demonise those groups. And that's the sort of thing they're supposed to be against!
I'm beginning to think that for all the accusations of the left being a hivemind unwilling to have their worldview challenged, the right are just as bad, if not worse...in generally speaking terms. They lament their inability to say what they want about liberals/minorities and other such groups they feel are too heavily protected...but if you dare call one of them racist, or sexist, or any other term that could be construed in a negative manner then they lose their shit and become equally outraged.
2 issues get conflated here:
1. The expectation to "temper" comedic routines or serious academic discussion to cater to the sensitivities of certain groups. I think that is unacceptable, and that is why this thread was created; to lightly mock students who expect their teachers to leave out references to the Holocaust or other tragedies, or shut down discussion of issues in a setting where they are meant to be discussed.
2. The belief from historically dominant groups that marginalized demographics and communities are not still suffering and impacted disproportionately by past injustices; and any reference to how these should impact policies and behavior going forward is political correctness; and shunning said advice is prudent. No, it is foolish.
I'm here for 1, but not for 2.
1. The expectation to "temper" comedic routines or serious academic discussion to cater to the sensitivities of certain groups. I think that is unacceptable, and that is why this thread was created; to lightly mock students who expect their teachers to leave out references to the Holocaust or other tragedies, or shut down discussion of issues in a setting where they are meant to be discussed.
2. The belief from historically dominant groups that marginalized demographics and communities are not still suffering and impacted disproportionately by past injustices; and any reference to how these should impact policies and behavior going forward is political correctness; and shunning said advice is prudent. No, it is foolish.
I'm here for 1, but not for 2.
As in, you're imagining it's something it's not, and creating an issue that doesn't exist anywhere but your imagination.Ah the old 'its only a problem because you're making it a problem' argument. Always a sign of a strong position.
I don't actually think that's true. I think it's more the fact that the negative stereotypes of dominant groups don't matter so much because they're not contributing to active persecution/oppression, as they may do with minority groups.
For example, Americans are stereotyped as stupid, ignorant, loud and trigger happy. Probably about as offensive as it gets - imagine if those were the commonly repeated stereotypes of an oppressed people... However, stereotyping Americans in such a way doesn't really matter so much because they're not really oppressed as a group in general. To be fair, America shouldn't have elected Donald Trump if they were uncomfortable with this stereotype.
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