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Political Correctness Devours yet Another College, Fighting Over Mini-Sombreros

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Re: Political Correctness Devours yet Another College, Fighting Over Mini-Sombreros

#22

> The statement deemed the party an act of “cultural appropriation,” one that “creates an environment where students of color, particularly Latino, and especially Mexican, students feel unsafe.” The effort to purge the two representatives who attended the party, via impeachment, soon followed. > The school’s reaction seems especially arbitrary when you learn that — on the very same night of the “tequila party,” just…

>creates an environment where students of color, particularly Latino, and especially Mexican, students feel unsafe There's a part of this that I really don't understand. What's with all the misleading word-usage? Did people of Mexican origin feel unsafe? Their safety was compromised? I don't think so. This is 1984 level of double-speak where words have been redefined to fit the narrative. Feeling unsafe means there i…

The worst part is these tolerance policies are written in such a way that it does not actually require anyone to complain, only that there exists a situation in which a hypothetical minority might complain.

Which is to say, the purpose of the rules is not to protect the people who represent minority cultures, it is to protect the university (or employer, or government) from a lawsuit.

Earlier today HN had an article accusing the Chinese government of enacting "precrime" in the form of a terror threat analysis system. But all around me in the United States I see forms of before-the-fact suspicion being used to punish people. This is one of them: no one of Latino heritage felt harmed by the party, but someone might have and thus the students are being punished. A man with a felony conviction on his record didn't do anything threatening, but he was told he couldn't attend a parent-child activity at school. You can buy alcohol if you're over 21-years old and show valid ID... unless a 19-year old friend is with you in the checkout line because you might give the beer to an underage person.

All situations where people are being accused of committing a crime before it happens. The government may not be literally throwing you in prison without a trial, but they passively-aggressively encourage it by passing laws that mandate zero-tolerance policies. And appointing judges who authorize civil suits that punish people who don't perform this kind of criminal profiling, such as a supermarket being liable for selling beer that is later served to a teenager.

Re: Political Correctness Devours yet Another College, Fighting Over Mini-Sombreros

#24

> The statement deemed the party an act of “cultural appropriation,” one that “creates an environment where students of color, particularly Latino, and especially Mexican, students feel unsafe.” The effort to purge the two representatives who attended the party, via impeachment, soon followed. > The school’s reaction seems especially arbitrary when you learn that — on the very same night of the “tequila party,” just…

Well, why don't you first try a party where everybody shows up like an inbred redneck with some missing teeth and no Tshirt? Or a bunch of Polo wearing blond guys walking like they have ants up their ass? Try that and then come back to report.

That's a real thing that real people do.

There's even a website devoted to "redneck" themed party attire: http://www.billybobproducts.com/

Re: Political Correctness Devours yet Another College, Fighting Over Mini-Sombreros

#25
post #3

I'm curious to know what other HN readers think about this topic. I was born and raised on the left side of the spectrum, and continue to be so. I can empathize with my fellow millenial's struggle to push for a true egalitarian and respectful culture in the name of liberalism. I'm torn though. I see some of these actions moving the left to eventually begin embracing seemingly-fascist policies and aesthetics. What cou…

I'm loosely Buddhist. I subscribe to the concept of the Buddha Nature. I suspect this trend of viral angry arguments about both important and stupid things is a side effect of our innate ability to practice individual discrimination apart from the whole Buddha. This natural type of discrimination is healthy in one sense, as it gives rise to all of us believing we're separate entities. On the other hand, it's possible that trait has been exploited by some self-propegating meme mechanism (accelerated by the Internet) which causes us to discriminate against each other, even to the point of pretending to discriminate against the discriminators.

I think when we start chewing up clock cycles simulating whether another group might be offended by the action of another group, we've gone a step too far in governing ourselves. I'm also a bit troubled this agenda is being pushed by our country's educational system.

And, FWIW, I do think that if a given group of people are offended by the blaming actions of another group of people, they have the right to stand up and say how they feel about it and be heard. Real discrimination of humans by humans is not cool, and should be avoided where possible.

Re: Political Correctness Devours yet Another College, Fighting Over Mini-Sombreros

#26
post #3

I'm curious to know what other HN readers think about this topic. I was born and raised on the left side of the spectrum, and continue to be so. I can empathize with my fellow millenial's struggle to push for a true egalitarian and respectful culture in the name of liberalism. I'm torn though. I see some of these actions moving the left to eventually begin embracing seemingly-fascist policies and aesthetics. What cou…

The political correctness movement isn't the first to embrace totalitarian methods, and it won't be the last. When you manage to convince yourself of the rightness of your beliefs, there's very little you can't find a way to justify to yourself and other like-minded folk.
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