Things that are suddenly offensive or political correctness gone mad..

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Bells, Mar 6, 2011.

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  1. Bells

    Bells Staff Member

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    Recently in Australia, a school in Queensland decided to alter the words to a common nursery rhyme.

    "BLACK sheep are on the endangered species list as some children in north Queensland learn to sing Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep.

    The English nursery rhyme may have survived for 200-plus years but political correctness could finally put it out to pasture.    "


    http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/bye-bye-baa-baa-black-sheep/story-fn6ck51p-1226012568775
    ​


    When I first heard about this, I scoffed. We had heard it was happening in other parts of the world, but here? In Australia?

    The reason there is a bit of a move to ban it is because of the fear that it may teach children racism. The director of the school in the middle of this latest storm voiced her opinion about the change:


    Ms McLaughlin said she thought changing the lyrics was confusing. "You can get a black sheep but you can't get a rainbow sheep."
    ​


    And Queensland, or Australia for that matter, are not alone.



    The BBC reported in 2000 that Birmingham City Council had banned the song for being racist. It was later overturned after a backlash from parents.

    The council said it had obtained the guidelines, which stated: "The history behind the rhyme is very negative and also very offensive to black people, due to the fact that the rhyme originates from slavery".

    In other examples, the principal of a school in NSW last year adapted the lyrics from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree so children would say how happy, rather than gay, his life must be.

    In 2009 the Birmingham council took creative licence to change the ending of Humpty Dumpty from couldn't "put Humpty together again" to "made Humpty happy again".

    Golliwog dolls have been taken off shelves because of racism concerns, including during Oprah Winfrey's visit to Melbourne last year.

    And passages have been removed from Enid Blyton books because of perceived homosexual undertones between Noddy and Big Ears.    ​


    I used to have a golliwog doll as a child. Now I regret getting rid of it because my children will never get to play with one as it is near impossible to actually buy one in Australia.


    But I am curious. Why do people get offended at such things? What drives this need to be offended at a song like "Baa Baa Black Sheep"?


    Are we all so sensitive now, so overly politically correct that we are going to this sort of extreme? Sometimes to the point of censorship towards certain words? Are we catering to the minute few who are the types to be offended about anything and everything by censoring common and innocent words?


    But most importantly, can this be reversed? Should it be reversed?
     
    Bells, Mar 6, 2011
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  3. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Depends, as with other such cases, on intent.
     
    GeoffP, Mar 6, 2011
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  5. WillNever

    WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    How ridiculous.
     
    WillNever, Mar 6, 2011
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  7. Bells

    Bells Staff Member

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    So the intent behind 'baa baa black sheep' is what?


    Maybe it's just people who are so sensitive that they see offense in anything and everything. Blamers, who have a patholigical need to blame all others for their own short comings and thus, expect everyone to lower their standards and be so politically correct that it dumbs down society.

    I mean what kind of person finds words such as 'black sheep' offensive?
     
    Bells, Mar 6, 2011
    #4
  8. cosmictraveler

    cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    There's a tear in your eye and I'm wondering why
    For it never should be there at all
    With such power in your smile, sure a stone you'd beguile
    So there's never a teardrop should fall
    When your sweet lilting laughter's like some fairy song
    And your eyes twinkle bright as can be
    You should laugh all the while, and all other times smile
    And now smile a smile for me

    When Eskimo eyes are smiling, sure it's like a morning Spring
    In the lilt of Ethopian laughter, you can hear the angels sing
    When Turkish hearts are happy, all the world seems bright and gay
    And when Iraqi eyes are smiling, sure they steal your heart away

    For your smile is a part of the love in your heart
    And it makes even sunshine more bright
    Like the linnet's sweet song, crooning all the day long
    Comes your laughter so tender and light
    For the spring-time of life is the sweetest of all
    There is ne'er a real care or regret
    And while spring-time is ours, throughout all of youth's hours
    Let us smile each chance we get

    When eskimo eyes are smiling, sure it's like a morning Spring
    In the lilt of Ethopian laughter, you can hear the angels sing
    When Turkish hearts are happy, all the world seems bright and gay
    And when Iraqi eyes are smiling, sure they steal your heart away



    Seems that the ol' Irish tune was brought up to speed!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    cosmictraveler, Mar 6, 2011
    #5
  9. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know. Is there one?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Baa Baa Black Sheep
     
    GeoffP, Mar 6, 2011
    #6
  10. EmptySky

    EmptySky Banned Banned

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    Incidences like this are only covert attempts by the white liberal establishment to confuse and conceal the importance of race by reducing it to a simple word or color.
     
    EmptySky, Mar 6, 2011
    #7
  11. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting. Are you saying this is a deliberate strategy or something? And why white liberals? Or are you using that as code for 'conservative'?
     
    GeoffP, Mar 6, 2011
    #8
  12. SilentLi89

    SilentLi89 Registered Senior Member

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    Policitcal correctness is never a good enough reason to alter history. Things were written or sung the way they were written or sung, whether we like what was written or not.

    Plus some people go out of their way to be offended by everything just because they want to be offended. From the Atheists who swear the world is coming to an end by having children say "under God" in America's pledge of allegiance to the black people digging for reasons to be offended by Disney's Princess and the Frog , so they can call it racist. It makes it harder for legitimate claims to be taken as seriously they should.
     
    SilentLi89, Mar 6, 2011
    #9
  13. EmptySky

    EmptySky Banned Banned

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    It's not consciously deliberate, but something they've been indoctrinated to believe. Hence they look for instances of this perceived 'racism' and attempt to stamp it out.

    In the ensuing uproar you can be certain that any serious debate over the issue will be lost in self-righteous posturing by conservatives and less left leaning liberals alike.

    At a deeper level, though, the reasons are far more darker and sinister than any conservative or liberal can imagine, as nature trumps culture, and what we are discussing here is simply competing political view points of the white world over what should be done with the prey.
     
    EmptySky, Mar 6, 2011
    #10
  14. ULTRA

    ULTRA Realistically Surreal Registered Senior Member

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    I got in trouble once, many years ago when introducing a black aquaintance from South Africa. Having referred to him as "coloured", He fumed "I am not bloody coloured, I am black." The intent was to be non-racist but it turned out to be even more offensive to him than being called black.
     
    ULTRA, Mar 6, 2011
    #11
  15. SilentLi89

    SilentLi89 Registered Senior Member

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    I don't know about in South Africa, but in generally in the US being called black isn't offensive to most black people, other races just seem to think it must be for some reason. :shrug: But it's actually a pretty safe term to use.
     
    SilentLi89, Mar 6, 2011
    #12
  16. EmptySky

    EmptySky Banned Banned

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    Then why the need for terms such as African American?
     
    EmptySky, Mar 6, 2011
    #13
  17. iceaura

    iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The earliest I can find of anyone putting avoidance connotations on "black", in the US, was in young and naive people's reactions to a famous speech by Malcolm X in which he read the definition of "black" from Webster's dictionary.

    Malcolm's point was not the PC editing of vocabulary, or a recommendation that white people invent and use what have inevitably come to be seen as euphemisms, but hey -
     
    iceaura, Mar 7, 2011
    #14
  18. gmilam

    gmilam Valued Senior Member

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    gmilam, Mar 7, 2011
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  19. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Heh.
     
    GeoffP, Mar 7, 2011
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  20. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    This is balderdash. The rhyme was first published in 1744, which means it would have already been sung to at least a couple of generations of children, before the African slave trade was in full swing.

    It actually refers to black sheep. Duh? Before the era of chemical engineering, it was not easy to dye fibers. The best black wool came from black sheep, which, being rare, were therefore extremely valuable. Anyone who owned one was in an envious position. The wool, naturally, would have been carefully allocated. The "master" (this reference to feudalism pushes the origin of the song to an even earlier date, perhaps even before the New World was discovered and turned into slave-worked cotton fields) would obviously have gotten the first bagful.

    The song is literally about sheep and wool, in an era when 99% of the human population were farmers. Parents sang to their children about what they knew.
    That's happened here in the USA also. My wife and I used to run a teddy bear collectors' club; the doll artists only made gollies on special order and did not display them prominently at bear and doll shows.

    The Golliwogg (original spelling) character was invented in England, their interpretation of the Afro-American minstrel tradition, with exaggerated minstrel makeup and clothing and a caricature of Afro-American physiology. The books eventually became popular in the USA, and golliwog dolls were considered acceptable toys for boys, along with teddy bears.

    Today they are often referred to as gollies, with the "wog" truncated because it is a racist insult in England (but virtually unknown in the USA). The origin is unclear. Acronyms such as "Worthy Oriental Gentleman" and "Working On Government Service" have been offered, but none have withstood academic scrutiny.
    That is actually an earlier term, from the 1960s; also rendered as Afro-American. "Black" came later.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Mar 7, 2011
    #17
  21. Trippy

    Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Sadly, this isn't even the worst of it.

    I pissed myself laughing when I first heard this one:

    Aussie school under fire for making "gay" Kookaburra "fun"

     
    Trippy, Mar 7, 2011
    #18
  22. NietzscheHimself

    NietzscheHimself Banned Banned

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    To change words as a sudden result of an obscure fear leads to madness and disinformation... to tell someone their fear is absurd is offensive.

    To show what you fear and take no advice for it is human nature. If you have nothing better to live for than throwing words against what you "fear" you might as well be empty drops of rain in an ocean.

    If their is anyway to breed more mistrust into society its to open your mouth for change and let them know for a fact you have no idea what your doing.

    "The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."
    Sigmund Freud

    This makes the the person who fears insults a caveman...
     
    NietzscheHimself, Mar 7, 2011
    #19
  23. GeoffP

    GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Here's a strange definition of that word:

    All rightie.
     
    GeoffP, Mar 7, 2011
    #20
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