DraQ said:
You don't make people respect each other by forcing them to use non offensive terminology.
Sadly, force seems more and more necessary these days. It's all very nice thinking there is some pathological cause we can eradicate, thus ensuring social harmony, but it's never that simple. Words and reasoning often fail, and I have to sic the police on cunts who can't behave.
I don't *like* the idea that we have to write people off and treat them as animals. Some idealistic part of me still likes to think there is hope, but you can't run a society on hope alone. Until we do have utopia, we have to bring the hammer down to ensure cohesion. Figuring out when and where we bring the hammer down is the difficult part.
A lot of my confusion about the PC/Racism thing has to do with my background. I'm from the Midlands in the UK: Coventry to be precise. Now, anyone who's from the UK will know the Midlands, and Birmingham in particular is referred to as the 'Balti Belt'. We have every single ethnicity under the sun living in the Midlands. You can go to Birmingham, point at various areas and say: "The Pakistanis live there; the Banghalis live there; the Somalians live there; the Jamaicans live there; The Chavs live there, etc. etc." you have everyone.
Now this is an odd kind of environment. In order to run various establishments like clubs and so forth, you have to think in generalisations. If you have a club frequented by Black geezers, ideally you put Black geezers on the doors. You can get away with using White guys - they'd be considered ineffective, and may not get much respect, but they wouldn't really trigger any flashpoints. An Asian guy would be a slightly risky proposition. It's not so bad these days, but about 15-20 years ago, there was a lot of tension between the Black and Asian communities here. The Asian community contains a great deal of infighting right to this day.
Anyhoo, to cut a long explanation short: you have to run things on stereotypes, but the council can't sanction this - there'd be riots otherwise - so they bring in the PC stuff. Does this restrict freedom? In theory, yes, but in practice? It's a bit different.
If someone in this big melting pot tries to accuse someone of being racist, the usual response is "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST CALL ME?" It's like a low-blow in a boxing match - it's something you just don't do. If you try and play the racism card, you get the shit kicked out of you. If you take it to court? Meh. It makes no difference, the guy has friends. Chances are he'll get the local nutters to pay you a visit with some axes. The most extreme case I ever heard of involved hundreds of people with vans and miniguns, but I don't think that particular incident had anything to do with racism... meh. I can't remember - but you get the idea.
So when a lot of people get hysterical about the PC thing... well, I have trouble taking them seriously. To me, it's just the government/corporations covering their arses. Everything just carries on down here like it always has. It doesn't seem to make any fucking difference.
