Polictical Correctness - gone too far?

Hi Guys,

I was reading someone's post in another thread earlier and noticed in his post that he has described someones' nationality as 'nigerian'.

Having been a bit touched by their sensetivity, I started replying to the post to point out his mistake only to find that it had been originally typed correctly (n.i.g.e.r.i.a.n.) but the filters had grabbed it and made it 'less offensive'.

Originally posted by Conspiracy Theorist
Its hits on a very emotional subject, then goes on to say that it requires $30,000,000 to initiate a lawsuit against bush. Where this figure comes from, I dont know.

To me it seems like an updated version of the 419 scam. You have heard of the nigerian email scam havent you?

The difference being that the unsolicited emails request a donation rather than your bank account details.

my $0.02

CT

About 6th post down...
Original Post

I am now quite upset by this as a nationality has now been filtered and, if anything, it makes it look even more offensive than the N word!

Is this really the state of the world? Has political correctness been taken out of context to such extremes that words which may appear similar to offensive words are added to a filter because they may be deemed offensive, even if mispelt?

Let's see how some examples look and see how offensive a perfectly innocent statement may seem...

'My pen pal is coming of from nigeria, she lives about 20 miles from the River niger, her mother is French and her Father is nigerian. '

'nigeria is a country which borders the country of niger...'

I'll leave you with that thought, and hope that someone somewhere will see what an awful mistake they have made!

For those of you who are already offended by my post, please reply to it and you'll see that I missed out a vital letter.


Ok, so it needs to be lower case for it to be filtered but...

[edit on 11-12-2007 by morgansolutions]

Yes, Political Correctness has gone too far. However, on the scale of PC gone wrong, I think this is pretty low on the scale. I think it is more of a software issue, rather than worrying about offending anyone.

I totally agree with you, this is a software fault that has been overlooked, but in doing so, it has made a perfectly innocent commecnt appear much more offensive.

I am actually quite amused by it - in the UK we have to be so aware of PC for fear of offending anyone to the point that we can't celebrate Christmas in the office!

[edit on 11-12-2007 by morgansolutions]

reply to post by morgansolutions


Please call it the "holiday season" or "Xmas", you just offended me with your use of Christmas. Feel free to edit your post before others are offended as well.

(Kidding)

Yep, even Santa Clause is being affected by PC. How messed up is that? They want his laugh changed and for him to slim down because it may be offensive to some people.
IMHO, some people need a life.

Even worse - Chrisitans in the UK have rewritten the Nativity Play and removed all religious content, and replaced it instead with good moral values - these are Christians rejecting their own religion so as not to offend the minorities in our society. I really saddens me.

[edit on 11-12-2007 by morgansolutions]

Political correctness only fosters helps foster extremist groups like neo-nazis. In many European countries being "racist" is illegal, while in the U.S. being "racist" is perfectly legal, albeit shunned. Extremist groups like neo-nazis also have stronger followings in Europe than in the U.S.

The two facts are correlated in that sometimes people have to express reasonably held opinions that can be deemed as "racist." For example, reasonable people can criticize a nation's immigration policies as not being restrictive enough. If people are not able to express their "racist" views through mainstream channels, they will turn to the extremists to express those views. This gives the extremists strength and allows them to draw in people who would normally be moderates.

Political correctness probably began its descent into total absurdity when a thesaurus word meaning "stingy," was uttered by DC Mayoral Staffer in 1999 during a private staff meeting. "N-word-gardly," if you will, in the spirit of this posting, was deemed unworthy because it sounds like the n-word. This was of course the depth of ignorance, unless you count all those rappers who use the n-word with highly profitable results in total impunity.

Speaking of rap, remember this Christmas when Santa was not permitted to say "ho ho ho," anymore because it sounds like the rappers "ho," or the illiterate version of the word "whore?" Popular rappers of course can banter about it with impunity. Oh yeah but just let Santa say "ho ho ho," and the thought police come on you with a vengeance.

I suppose with the new House HR1955 and Senate bill S1959, our burgeoning Federal police forces will may be well over employed to everyone's grammatical and sensible detriment. When you simply utter proper English and it has any element of onomatopoeia that offends anyone at all, you are in deep trouble for thought crimes. Do not think that they would fail to act out so stupidly. Have you been to an airport lately?

[edit on 30-12-2007 by SkipShipman]

Seriously guy's is this like the filter for the forum or is it a personal filter? I test it real quick:

Nigerian

I've seen the F word on here before. I think political correctness is getting too far, it's all just a ploy to take away our rights or better yet it's a ploy for us to ask, no, beg the Gov to take our rights. Just waiting for the RFID chip to come out, if that happens I'm gonna move to the MoOn!

I can't stand political correctness, people offend me all the time, I just tolerate it. I try (notice I say try, meaning I don't always do it) to treat people with respect when I'm being attacked or when someone attacks something near and dear to me (like my faith).
People need to grow up. Don't be nasty, be nice. It would be a much better world then.