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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Getting one back for the good guys.Back at Warwick University, in the early 90s, just like at many universities, there was Nelson Mandela bar. Now, at that time, I was very anti-PC and anti-leftie, and this Student Union habit of PC naming really annoyed me. Now, don't get me wrong, Mandela is an amazing statesman, and at that time, he had been elected President of South Africa. Great news for him, and South Africa.
I got together with the seemingly apolitical Union President, and pointed out that it wasn't really appropriate to have a bar named after a sitting president, and maybe if we renamed it, we would present a progressive image to the outside world. It was the bar where they showed all the sports, so why don't we name it after a sportsman? To my surprise, he agreed to second my motion, and we put a proposal to the UGM that the members vote on a possible list of new names. It was all nice and tasteful (apart from the guy that suggested naming it "Senna's Corner"), and suggestions were taken from the floor on the day.
Some trots decided that I was a racist, despite suggesting naming the bar after Brian Lara, who played for Warwickshire at the time. They put forward some sort of motion demanding that I be banned, or flogged or something. Amazingly, that failed to pass.
The day came, suggestions were made. My favourites were "Lara's Pad", "Senna's Bar" and "Lardoholics Place". What won? "Lynhams Lounge". It was democracy in action, and beautifully summed up the political apathy and studentiness of the time.
The deal was done, and the name was changed. We got a bit of coverage in the national press and on Radio 1 (I think), and my favourite bit of fallout was getting moaned at by the very nice, but very lefty General Secretary about the two hour haranguing he had from the South African embassy. The moustachioed frontman of BBC Sport didn't come to the official renaming.
I always swell with pride when I think of that. A tiny little reversal against the tide of Political Correctness.
As an Epilogue, about a year later, in my home town I was talking to a guy I had never met before, and who didn't know anything about me. The topic was political correctness. He mentioned that "you won't believe what they did at Warwick University - they renamed the Mandela bar after Des Lynham." My pride swelled a little more, but I didn't mention that it was I who had effectively changed the name. That would have spoiled the moment.
(, Mon 26 Nov 2007, 18:01, 1 reply)
We tried this too...Hatfield Poly also had a Mandela bar, which was barely ever used. One of my friends was expelled from the local chapter of the Students Union for asking innocently if it was called the Mandela bar because it was permanently locked up.
Anyhow, then they let Mandela out. So, as above, rename the bar. So they put it to a vote. They had the biggest meeting ever, and large numbers of people, like a 90% majority, voted to call it the "Rolf Harris bar". Sadly, not my idea, but I did rally another few dozen voters behind the proposal.
On finishing counting the votes, the ruling SU council... decided that the vote was invalid, because "we weren't taking it seriously enough", and named it after some other PC hero. We continued calling it the "Elehouse Pub" anyway.
(, Tue 27 Nov 2007, 3:16, closed)
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