There's a tendency in police shows, to typecast certain ethnic groups into particular behavioural traits, and of course into specific crimes. Thus, East Indians are involved in honour killings or forced arranged marriages; Blacks and Latinos are gangstas or petty criminals; East Europeans are into prostitution and trafficking, with some shadowy link to Croatia, Albania or Russia. In real life, there are East Indian fraudsters/inside traders, sauve Black or Latino criminals, and East Europeans involved in crimes independent of the mafia and trafficking.
So while crude remarks seem to be a thing of the past, caricaturing appears to be alive and well!
Stirring the pot. Making judgements of Americans based upon your limited view of decades old television programs as if they were gospel. The thinking your discussing here we had back in the 70s. Find a different hobby, Varuns+-1. Or start looking for racism is some other countries old television programs. Go pick on Russia.
I believe the person decrying "political correctness" has a point. If we focus so much on not offending others by our speech we cripple ourselves. What is offense to one population may not even be considered in another population. If we are so easily offended by words we aren't listening to the actual meaning or intent behind them.
It reminds me of a documentary I watched back in the seventies. Elderly black people were being interviewed and asked if America was better now than it was when they were children?
The answer was surprising to me because I am white and at the time I watched this I was school aged. Why did it surprise me? Well, when I was very young I was not polite call people "n I g g e r" under any circumstance. I was told that people of African decent were "colords". They called themselves that. People of color in their skins.
Well, the old people in this documentary said in "the old days" you knew where you stood with "whites". If they didn't like you they told you right to your face. Sure they called us "n I g g I r s" but from some it wasn't offensive or hurtful, it just was what it was, but from many it was very hurtful. Now, today, you can't always tell who is out to hurt you, they hide their hate better because we own the word. We use it and they (the "whites") don't. We get angry when they use our word and they teach their young not to use it. But it's sometimes much harder to tell what lies underneath the words.
What I learned from this was the way to gain self respect was to take control of the insult so it can no longer hurt you. And, just because sweet words are being used doesn't mean there can't be poison behind them.
So we as human beings should be cautious about just how offended we feel we should be cautious about quickly banning the use of words just because a few are finding them offensive.
Sorry for the rant, but here's a new one that actually galls me although I understand the intent. Banning the word "retard" or "retarded" and exchanging it for the R-word. It's ridiculous. The word retard means the slowing of...
To call a slower moving or slower thinking person a retard is offensive. That's why we have parents and teachers to teach us not to be so hateful of people different from ourselves.
I have a friend whose son is clinically retarded. It's a medical term for his specific type of disability. To say her son is retarded is not offensive. To call him a retard is. What we need to do here in America is take responsibility for the bullies and knock them down a peg or two, not opt to mask words or stop using them altogether.
Rant over.
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