Leave it to the hypersensitive from all walks of life to make an isue out of a throwaway line that was meant to be an attmpt at humor, but suddenly has been morphed in this politically correct age we live in as an allegedly prejudiced remark of insensitivity.
When Joe Biden, Senator of Delaware and so far the only officially announced candidate for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination, remarked that you have to understand Asian Indian accents to go to any Seven Eleven store in Delaware, it was actually meant to convey the message as to how vital and important a part of American life is the immigrant community in general, and in this case the Asian Indian immigrant community.
What’s really ridiculous is the idea that Biden, a distinquished Senator with a long history of public service, should have to lower himself to responding to this self-serving ignorance. What is wrong with these fucking people? Whatever it is, I see nothing defamatory about his remarks. When you get right down to it, his statement is a simple observation of reality. In fact, I will go so far as to say I’m happy to see that immigrants from
It’s kind of similar, really, to the way Chineese coolies branched out from being railroad workers to first laundry owners, and then restauranteurs. Since the latter move, incidentally, I miss not having my shirts starched in that expert way, but I do think I know what that “ancient Chinese secret” is-rice.
This all reminds me of a joke I heard on Leno the other night by George Carlin, about the difference in heaven and hell.
In heaven, the Italians are the lovers, the French cook the food, the Swiss run the hotels, the English are the police, and the Germans are the mechanics.
In hell, the Italians are the mechanics, the French run the hotels, the Swiss are the lovers, the English cook the food, and THE CHERMANS ARE THE POLEESE!!!!!
I guess it’s good for Carlin he didn’t include in this list any minority ethnic groups, there would be calls as we speak to destroy all his recordings.
3 comments:
Let me preface my post by saying I did not hear the Senator’s remarks, so I am only responding to them (and the notion of political correctness) in the context of your commentary – “context” being the operative word here.
If the Senator’s remark was made in a broader discussion about immigrants’ vital contribution to American life, his analogy is tolerable, but still not in great taste. He did play on a stereotype (granted, one founded in reality, as many immigrants work and own businesses in the food services sector). But in Canada and the U.S., it is not uncommon to hear people pejoratively remark ‘they should learn to speak our language’. This phrase is uttered even when they do speak our language, but do so with an accent. There’s also the entirely separate discussion of blaming immigrants for ‘taking our jobs’… but I’ll reserve my commentary for another time…
Food for thought… For me, the term ‘political correctness’ has been coined (or perhaps hijacked) by the ‘status quo’ (for lack of a better descriptor) to put a negative spin on endeavours to achieve fairness and equality. It’s a backlash of sorts. Treating people with dignity and respect is not supposed to be about ‘political correctness’; it’s supposed to be about ‘doing the right thing’. Our leaders should do exactly that – lead – and do so by demonstration.
The Senator’s statement may have been well intended; again, I did not hear the context in which it was made. Regardless, given the climate of the times, if his intention was sincere, he could have found a less contentious way to communicate it. Common sense dictates that the nature of his joke would spawn controversy.
The result… we are debating semantics rather than focusing on the potentially positive message he intended us to hear.
Granted. But it is true that people make way too much out of crap like this. And most of the time it is insincere, in my view, a way certain people have of playing oneupmanship. Politicians are bad for that, but so are pundits, other tv and radio personalities, etc. There have been people that have lost their jobs over this kind of thing, and I personally find it intolerable. Especially in a country that is suppossed to pride itself on freedom of speech. A lot of times, you just have to protect speech you might not like to hear, otherwise the freedom doesn't mean much, in fact it means diddly squat.
And please understand, I'm not talking about rabble rousers who purposely try to rouse people up in a prejudiced way to urge them to commit violent acts against a minority group-or against the majority as well. That's an entirely different issue. But it has become all to common in this country, and other Western democracies, to use this brand of political correctness as a means of browbeating people into line by accussing them of bigotry or "insensitivity" the minute they step out of line in the slightest way. And the backlash is unfortunately not an encouragement toward greater tolerance and understanding, if anything it results in nothing but hard feelings, and ultimatley ever more recriminations.
And when you get right down to it, it's totally unnecessary. When Biden made these remarks, if there were any Asian Indians present, I have no doubt whatsoever that they would have been the ones laughing the loudest-and the most sincerely-while some of these other people were standing there wringing their hands in totally needless anxiety. People really need to loosen up about shit like this.
I agree entirely that “the backlash is unfortunately not an encouragement toward greater tolerance and understanding, if anything it results in nothing but hard feelings, and ultimately ever more recriminations.” But this goes both ways (hence the ‘backlash’ I described when incidents are chalked up to ‘political correctness’).
It’s the proverbial pendulum; Newton’s third law applied to social life - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. My hope is that through critical examination – like we are doing here – that the pendulum looses momentum and eventually swings only slightly to the left and right. It will never stop completely.
It would be ludicrous to endorse the Senator’s resignation / termination over such an incident. Nor would I demand a public apology. The man is entitled to his opinion, and to convey it as colourfully as he might like. I’m confident he wasn’t trying to incite hatred and violence. All I’m saying is that in the public spotlight, he knows his words will be scrutinized. It was inevitable that some would take offense. If he wanted the public to walk away with a warm and fuzzy feeling, he could have selected a different analogy.
Post a Comment