Hacker News Reader

Comment by weberc2 | Hacker News Reader

Clarifying question: What do you mean by "fear of being PC"? I'm a bit confused about the scenario you're describing.

Not the GP, but referring to the more broad anti-PC movement... Lets say The War On (the war on) Christmas. Fear of being PC in a context like that may work out as somebody avoiding the term "Hanukkah", even while speaking about / to a Jewish person, for fear of papering over Christmas, or looking like they're trying to change the name of the holiday.

Some other anti-PC things, like use of the term "black people" in preference to "people of color" or "african-americans"; Or describing men and women in drastically different terms, or painting them as inevitably vastly different (to avoid papering over the differences or making them look non-existent) are their own kind of cultural sensitivity. Or in some cases, even a similar sort of language policing that has long been attributed to political-correctness, just on avoiding terms that people view as originating from it.

Thanks for explaining that. Is this a thing that happens? I've heard of Christians grumble when the PC crowd demands that some business/school/etc stop using Christmas-specific greetings/decorations/etc. I've also heard white people grumble when the PC crowd insists everyone use a new designation for 'African Americans', but I've never heard of anyone actually exerting social pressure on others to use un-PC terms. In other words, I've never heard of anyone being told off for saying "African-Americans" or "Happy Holidays". Perhaps my experiences are atypical?

My experiences (including through the American mass media) are the reverse of yours where Christmas is concerned. I've literally never seen someone attacked for references to Christmas, but i have seen a larger faction complaining about a "War on Christmas" and attacking people and institutions for using genetic holiday greetings, etc., and not specifically acknowledging Christmas, even sometimes attacking, on this basis, institutions which do specifically acknowledge Christmas out of hypersensitivity.

Wow, this surprises me, as I've been surrounded by Christians most of my life. I'm less surprised by the media, however--they're not very charitable in their representations of Christians (e.g., the Starbucks cup fiasco was literally one guy complaining about the cup design, but the media made it out to be some sizable portion of Christians). At any rate, do you perceive anti-PC pressure to be so prevalent as to be a legitimate concern? Do you think it would sway the speech of the average person toward legitimately offensive terms?

"black people" isn't necessarily anti-PC. Lots of people identify that way in preference to African-American. (And PoC is a wider group, not an equivalent alternative.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com