Not so bland please
Published by Yazad Jal February 13th, 2004 in Culture and Societylandlord, cowboy, brotherhood, yacht, cult, primitive, addict, alumni, American, elderly, illiterate, mankind, penmanship, teenager, third world, uncivilized, underprivileged, unmarried, widow or widower, masterpiece or mastery.
Just some of the words you won’t find in an American textbook because an anti-bias committee has airbrushed the literature.
It’s funny when a line Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” changes from “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” to “How many roads must an individual walk down before you can call them an adult.” Diane Ravitch chronicles these absurdities.
So here is how New York made itself an international joke. The state’s guidelines to language sensitivity, citing Rosalie Maggio’s “The Bias-Free Wordfinder,” says: “We may not always understand why a certain word hurts. We don’t have to. It is enough that someone says, ‘That language doesn’t respect me.’ ” That is, if any word or phrase is likely to give anyone offense, no matter how far-fetched, it should be deleted.Next the state asked: “Is it necessary to make reference to a person’s age, ancestry, disability, ethnicity, nationality, physical appearance, race, religion, sex, sexuality?” Since the answer is frequently no, nearly all references to such characteristics are eliminated. Because these matters loom large in history and literature–and because they help us to understand character, life circumstances and motives–their silent removal is bound to weaken or obliterate the reader’s understanding.
A question to these purveyors of politically correct crap. Have you ever thought of the hurt deletions of such words might cause? Those who read the censored versions might get hurt knowing that the real literature was masked. What about that? Or is that not “hurt”?
There was this discussion on a local Chicago radio station on this (conducted by UC professor, Milt Rosenburg). It was really shocking to hear that the education board is reconsidering using few Classics such as Adventures of Tom Sawyer etc. because they have some racially biased language and content. I think by trying to shield the kids from different biases, we are just building ignorance. “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”. Worse yet, if you do not know history!
I totally agree with you there, ripples! What next? Changing “Gone with the Wind” to remove the mammy scenes? I think acceptance and understanding of why things are the way they are is a lot more important than to pretend they never existed.
This is hilarious. Maybe the education board would like to give everyone a number to be identified by, like in Ayn Rand’s Anthem.
Yup, I remember being mildly reprimanded for using the term “manmade structure”
No ‘American’ in an American textbook! Well well… the saffron mob’s got competition!
It’s not just the saffron mob. Everyone is guilty. The Congress / Commies have played their own little censorship games.
I recently read about a ‘domestic engineer’. My bai here in Bombay would be downright angry if I ever called her anything like that ! is there no limit to this crap ?