Political Correctness Gone MadFreddy Woo writes: "I once worked on an animation to help highlight the issues homeless people face in winter. The client was happy with the work, then a note came back that the ethnic mix of the characters were wrong. These were cartoon characters. They weren't meant to be ethnically anything, but we were forced to make one of them brown, at the cost of about 10k to the charity. This is how your donations are spent. Wisely as you can see."
How has PC affected you? (Please add your own tales - not five-year-old news stories cut-and-pasted from other websites)
(, Thu 22 Nov 2007, 10:20)
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I swear I'm not making this upI used to teach on a teacher training course. One lesson, for a laugh, I produced the official government guidance document on non-discriminatory terminology.
The two that stuck in my mind were:
"Brainstorming" apparently this is offensive to people with Epilepsy. The alternative they suggest is "mind showering". Which to me sounds like some sort of dodgy fetish activity.
The other was to do with the phrase "disabled toilet" apparently you should use the phrase "toilet with equal access" instead. It's not the toilet that is disabled you know!
Also those disabled symbols on the tube map piss me off. For whose benefit are they precisely? How many people in wheelchairs have you seen traveling on the underground?
(, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 0:47, 4 replies)
As someone...who works for a very large transit agency in the States, I can tell you that even though our bus fleet is 100% wheelchair accessable, and we have what is called Access-A-Ride, which is door to door service for those who have qualified all for the same fare as the regular bus and subway $2. We have about 65 Accessable stations. When we in the states passed the laws to give those who are "mobility impaired", they pretty much made any new building built from that point forward accessable. Now the tricky part. It costs lots of money to make a station accessable. Some subway stations are going to be nearly impossible to make accessable, due to alignment of the station. If the agency was to have made every station accessable, it would have cost over $85 BILLION in 1990 US Dollars. This would have bankrupted the Agency, and the state of NY. So the Feds cut a deal, 100 stations to be made accessable by the year 2020. Of course we are going to try and make as many as we can accessable after that, but some will be damn near impossible.
(, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 1:04, closed)
do you ever wonderWHY you don't see many people in wheelchairs travelling on the underground? Accessibility for the underground is still a pretty new thing and although a lot of those station are now technically possible for a person in a wheelchair to get in and out of... it's a long way from straightforward.
As soon as a person in a wheelchair can get from A to B on the tube without having to pre-book their journey, arrange for assistance, allow an extra hour's travel time, and go via C, D and E as well... then you might see a few more. Until then, it's so much easier to just get a fucking taxi - costs a bit more but at least you retain your dignity and get where you're going same-day.
As for the "accessible toilet" business, part of that whole palaver was because of it so often being the baby-change room as well.
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Batsgirl, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 11:20,
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Not making it up eitherI used to see two one legged trampy winos travelling on the tube (usually near Elephant & Castle) in wheelchairs regularly - one time they were fighting over half a bottle of sherry, on a moving tube, whilst rolling around the carriage... fucking hilarious... All their tramp mates were shouting at them to stop... haven't laughed do much in years.
(, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 13:47, closed)
the wheelchair symbols... are for step-free access -- useful also if you are pushing a pram, or are unsteady on your feet. Many such ppl are seen on the underground; it just happens that the wheelchair symbols are the accepted symbol.
(, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 22:24, closed)
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