[Kerrigan]

Below are two bizarre displays of reverse racism, whereby the use of innocuous terms and expressions is interpreted as racist. Frankly I find it somewhat humorous that anyone would think black hole is a racial slur, and it demonstrates how the liberal doctrine of victimhood never ceases to produce depressing results.

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archiv...ck_hole_a.html

From the City Hall Blog at the Dallas Morning News:

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term.

Judge Jones should be very glad that the central collections office has not become a white hole, a theoretical object that ejects matter from beyond its event horizon, rather than sucking it in. It wouldn't be fun for Dallas to find itself so near a quasar.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/

I am a mediator, and not long ago I was delivering a training module on conflict resolution to the staff of a large government agency. In my talk, I included the time-honored saying, "the pot calls the kettle black." Afterward, the African American woman who was the leader of the training program (a good friend of mine, incidentally), came to me in something of a dither. "Do you realize what you said?" she asked. "That is very offensive to black people." I was taken aback. I explained to her that this little saying is from Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote, one of the most famous novels of all time, and that it is the perfect metaphor to use in discussing conflict resolution, in which a principal objective is seeing the other person's point of view. She was unmoved by my explanation, saying "I don't care where it came from, this is clearly a racist remark, and I know it offended many in our audience."

I wonder if this woman is Omarossa from the Apprentice . . . .

[Dork.]

That's because there's a hidden, extra amendment to our Constitution that specifies that everyone has the right (nay, the obligation) to be offended for any reason (even an illogical one), and that society has to respond instantly whenever any offense is taken. Didn't you get the memo?

[Uncle Doof]

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

So... ...umm... ...why isn't "white hole" racist then?

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Uncle Doof 

So... ...umm... ...why isn't "white hole" racist then?

Because it's impossible to be racist against white people. Everyone, no matter what, loves us.

[macdude]

I don't find it "humorous," but I do find it a bit bizarre.

[paul w]

I have nothing against Black people and their holes.

[Tiresias]

It's a black hole because light cannot escape it.

Where will it stop? Will whites decide that "white lie" is racist?

[Dakar the Fourth]

Wow, people are retarded. Maybe if those black guys had gotten an education they'd have known it was a scientific phenomenon.

[hyteckit]

The black judge and commissioner are a little ignorant of scientific terms.

[Tiresias]

I heard something along these lines about the word, "niggardly."

As I recall, a journalist had used it correctly ("meager; scanty") but after the minor furor actually went on air to apologize for any offense he may have caused.

To omit niggardly from our vocabulary, you would have to bowdlerize one of Shakespeare's sonnets. All in the name of misinformation and political-correctness paranoia.

SONNET 1
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory.
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be—
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

Wow, people are retarded. Maybe if those black guys had gotten an education they'd have known it was a scientific phenomenon.

They can't get an education because The (White) Man is keeping them down. Didn't you know we hate them almost as much as Indians?

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

I heard something along these lines about the word, "niggardly."

As I recall, a journalist had used it correctly ("meager; scanty") but after the minor furor actually went on air to apologize for any offense he may have caused.

To omit niggardly from our vocabulary, you would have to bowdlerize one of Shakespeare's sonnets. All in the same of misinformation and political-correctness paranoia.

There was an incident like this 6 or 8 years ago in Washington, DC. A high-ranking black city official--I think he might have been the city's finance director--used the term niggardly in a press conference and in the proper context for the word. Well, you should have seen how upset people got about that. Eventually, the black mayor of Washington, DC was forced to fire the black city official for properly using the term niggardly. Sigh!

It just goes to show you how stupid some people can be.


edited to add in regards to the OP: What government tax-collecting agency isn't considered a black hole?

[Tiresias]

^ I'm speechless.

[dcmacdaddy]

Tiresias,

You might find this article interesting. It just popped up on the front page of the Washington Post online edition.
Stolen Shakespeare Folio Retrieved

Enjoy. Cheers!

[Luca Rescigno]

Wow. That's insane.

I really think a lot of older civil rights activists are confused now that racism is so much less common than it used to be. They certainly did lots of good work in the past, and I commend them for it, but it's time to move on.

It's like when you're playing tug of war with a dog and let go. The dog has just "won," but he has no idea what to do now and wants you to keep trying to take his chew toy away so he can pull on it. Or you know how sometimes you think of a real zinger to use against a telemarketer and actually hope some poor sap calls you unsolicited so you can use it? Yeah. I think a lot of these guys secretly want others to be racist so they can get all wound up about it and go into full-on "LOOK AT ME I'M OFFENDED!" mode.

[auto_immune]

LOL! I live in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, and they were talking about that incident
on the Bo And Jim show this morning.

I am not familiar with Judge Thomas Jones or Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield,
but John Wiley Price is a total whacko nutjob who is about as close to looney
tunes as a non-cartoon character can be.

He has been a thorn in the side of Dallas city hall for years - he takes race baiting
to a level so high that it makes Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton look like rank amateurs
in comparison.

[Railroader]

Back in the early 90's when I was employed by Western Michigan University and we were on a "team building" retreat, and a bunch of us were playing cards. During one hand the other team reneged and I said that they were reneging. The director heard me and I was immediately put on suspension and told to clear out of the dorms. In front of everyone. She then stated that she would be presenting to the University discipline office that I used a racist term and exhibited hate speech. I attempted to explain to her that it was a valid card playing term and in no way was a racist term. She wouldn't listen and physically forced me out. I didn't put up any kind of a struggle, but laying her hands on me was uncalled for.

The next day I wrote a letter and took it to the university president's office. They stated that they had already heard about the complaint, explained the meaning of word to the director, and I was not to be disciplined or my employment affected in any way. I think the director ended up looking so foolish that she treated me harshly and unfairly the rest of the time I worked there.

It is ironic that false accusations of racism are based from the same ignorance as actual racism

[olePigeon]

Just so you don't offend more people, best to avoid "Spooky Action at a Distance" and "Dark Matter."

[cjrivera]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Back in the early 90's when I was employed by Western Michigan University and we were on a "team building" retreat, and a bunch of us were playing cards. During one hand the other team reneged and I said that they were reneging. The director heard me and I was immediately put on suspension and told to clear out of the dorms. In front of everyone. She then stated that she would be presenting to the University discipline office that I used a racist term and exhibited hate speech. I attempted to explain to her that it was a valid card playing term and in no way was a racist term. She wouldn't listen and physically forced me out. I didn't put up any kind of a struggle, but laying her hands on me was uncalled for.

The next day I wrote a letter and took it to the university president's office. They stated that they had already heard about the complaint, explained the meaning of word to the director, and I was not to be disciplined or my employment affected in any way. I think the director ended up looking so foolish that she treated me harshly and unfairly the rest of the time I worked there.

It is ironic that false accusations of racism are based from the same ignorance as actual racism

You must not have been playing the card game, "spades", or she would have filed 2 complaints against you.

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

Tiresias,

You might find this article interesting. It just popped up on the front page of the Washington Post online edition.
Stolen Shakespeare Folio Retrieved

Enjoy. Cheers!

Hey, thanks for the interesting read.

You're no niggard.

[Chuckit]

Everyone else gets to meet all the wackos. The closest I've come is a black coworker who was trying to convince another black coworker that the reason the second girl got fired was because of her race. But she knew we all liked her and the reason she got fired was because she couldn't hack it, so it didn't work and she let us know what the other woman was up to.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by hyteckit 

The black judge and commissioner are a little ignorant of scientific terms.

Why is everyone surprised by this?

Decades of perpetuating ridiculous levels of political correctness and humoring claims of perceived racism gives people like these three idiots license to cry foul all they want and at pretty much anything they want to label as prejudice.

This instance may give you a chuckle or solicit an eye roll but its completely expected and inline with a whole slew of other things that most individuals didn't even blink over much less tell the people who were making the ruckus over the events that they were wrong. Was Bill Clinton calling Obama's bio a fairy tale really a racist comment? Should that official in DC really have even been put in a position to be fired over using an innocuous albeit obscure word? Of course not.

Yet everyone went along with the cries of racism because it was easier to let the people feigning offense have their way than to slap them upside the head for being stupid. This story will be forgotten by tomorrow but the bandwagon of political correctness will keep on rolling because society feels too guilty to pull back on the brakes. You only have yourselves to blame for humoring people who see racism in every corner of the country.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno 

It's like when you're playing tug of war with a dog and let go. The dog has just "won," but he has no idea what to do now and wants you to keep trying to take his chew toy away so he can pull on it.
...
I think a lot of these guys secretly want others to be racist so they can get all wound up about it and go into full-on "LOOK AT ME I'M OFFENDED!" mode.

Of course that's what it is. When a segment of the population has had such great success at playing up being victimized what motivation is there but to keep playing that role until every last drop can be milked from the concessions of others.

[Dork.]

As I see it, the root of the problem is something along the lines of what Luca noted: there's been a lot of real progress in the notion of universal civil rights, and that all men (and women) are born with the same rights, regardless of other factors. There is, of course, more progress to be made. And now that the more obvious sources of racism are taken care of, the remaining "soft" sources of racism are going to be more subtle and harder to quantify. The intent behind not allowing blacks to vote is clear. But the intent behind a word or phrase can be harder to determine.

But like anything that is hard to determine and quantify, we look for shortcuts, and one of those shortcuts involves policing speech and not the thoughts behind it. Determining the intent of speech in the context it was given is hard to do, but it's something we have to do to be fair about things. Whenever we object certain words regardless of context and regardless of the actual meanings of the words, we oversimply things to the point of actually causing more harm. (Of course, there are words that only exist in a bad context. These are not the ones I am discussing here.)

What was so bad about all these situations cited in this thread? It wasn't the words or phrases that were uttered. It was that someone overheard them, and felt uncomfortable and offended. Once someone is offended, that's what takes priority, for some reason, even if the person is not offended for a logical reason. Logic or context doesn't mater anymore: all that matters is whether someone "feels" offended by what was said....