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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'Disabled' terminology...as much as I hate the Daily-Mail-reading "it's PC gone mad!!!" attitude (and the implication that there's some sort of left-wing "PC brigade" conspiracy or whatever), there are some fairly amusing cases of, well, I'm not sure what to call it. Bureaucrats going overboard in trying not to be offensive, really.
The ones I've seen: Posters around the university, on random noticeboards, doors etc. Meaningless "abstract art" picture covering most of the poster, and then the text:
Disabled Toilets X
Accessible Toilets (tick mark)
or
Wheelchair Bound X
Wheelchair User* (tick mark)
.. and a few more on that sort of theme). "PC" aside, it boggles the mind to think that there are people who
- come up with this sort of thing
- think that anyone in a wheelchair or whatever would be offended by this
- think that a naff poster like that is the best way to spread the word, and won't just invite ridicule.
* (actually, the wheelchair one *almost* makes sense - I do know people who *can* walk, but mostly go around in a wheelchair because their joints hurt or whatever. Still, I doubt they'd give a fuck about the finer points of terminology. EDIT: Indeed, two girls I know who are in the wheelchair-user-not-wheelchair-bound situation were recently sitting in the corner at a house party along with a few other people who have chronic diseases and/or disabilities. They were referring to themselves as "Crips' corner". Go figure.)
(, Sat 24 Nov 2007, 17:30, Reply)
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