From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Sat Dec 20 2003 - 21:23:01 GMT
Hi Wim,
> You wrote 16 Dec 2003 18:54:23 -0500:
> 'I long for the day when we can cut through both the liberal and the
> conservative PC crap ("social level power games") and have candid
> intellectual discussion.'
>
> You distinguish liberal from conservative political correctness. Do you
> recognize the political correctness that all Americans share?
I guess not. Can you help?
> How do we take into account the MoQ tenet that intellectual patterns of
> values are based in social patterns of values? Is something like 'political
> correctness' necessary to maintain a group with internally candid
> intellectual discussion?
I think that ideally public statements on government policy would be
evaluated on an intellectual (true/false) basis rather than a social (social
acceptability, social status of speaker) basis. Would you agree?
I take your comment above to mean that since intellectual patterns are based
on social patterns there will always be a social gate-keeping on ideas
before they are even thought. I agree, but think that we can convince
ourselves and one another to judge ideas once they are expressed based on
intellectual rather than social quality. Culture may evolve so that it will
be socially unacceptable to judge ideas on their social acceptability and
status of the speaker. Such a social pattern would result in greater
flourishing of the intellectual level.
Maybe you are suggesting that this is a lost cause and I should then focus
my energy on playing the social level power games if I want my ideas to win.
Thanks,
Steve
Example from my city of political correctness gone too far...
A white female principal was called on the carpet for using the word
"nigger" as an example of words that are offensive in the context of
explaining to a group of students (black) why they shouldn't be calling a
handicapped kid a "one-eyed Jack." The district ruled that there is no
possible justifiable context for a white person to ever use "the N word"
even as an example of offensive language. To me this is insane.
Posted on Tue, Dec. 16, 2003 by the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Principal who used epithet returns to South Phila. school
By Martha Woodall
Inquirer Staff Writer
A South Philadelphia principal who used a severe racial epithet while
talking to students was returned to her school yesterday after results of a
school district investigation confirmed her account of the incident.
District officials said Mary Rita Sheldon, principal of the Overbrook
Educational Center, would not be disciplined.
"We think she exhibited poor judgment and lack of tact," said school
district spokeswoman Cecilia Cummings. "And the entire school - all the
adults - will be going to diversity training."
Sheldon had been directed to report to the regional office Friday, pending
the outcome of the district's investigation of her use of the N-word in a
discussion with students last month. Sheldon, who returned to the school at
11th and Catharine Streets yesterday, could not be reached for comment.
None of the parents who attended last week's School Reform Commission to
demand Sheldon's ouster could be reached last night.
Sheldon, who is white, reportedly used the racially derogatory term while
explaining why it was wrong to call a visually impaired student a "one-eyed
Jack." Overbrook has a predominantly African American student body.
Cummings said district officials had spoken with seven teachers, a
counselor, two parents, and several students who were in the room.
"All the adults who were in the presence of the principal at the time
confirmed her story," Cummings said.
She said the decision to return Sheldon to her post was made by schools
chief Paul Vallas and Creg Williams, the deputy chief academic officer, in
consultation with other district officials.
Cummings said Sheldon made the remark after several earlier episodes in
which students had been admonished for teasing, harassing and making slurs.
"It was several incidents that came to a boiling point," she said. "And the
latest dealt with a child with an eye problem."
Cummings said that Overbrook's staff would receive diversity training next
month, and that the district planned to strengthen the diversity component
of its professional development training for all district staff.
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