And by the way, what is this “hair” they were discussing?
Really, creating this kind of singled-handed, one passenger Ethics Train Wreck takes some kind of talent; I’m just not sure what to call it.
Here is how Atlanta CBS affiliate morning show host Michelle Burdo managed to turn a hair care segment on her morning broadcast into a controversy for the station, a self-proclaimed racial incident, a pathetic example of political correctness groveling, and, on top of it all, a demonstration of the lack of courage, skill and candor that now infects her profession:
1. In a hair treatment feature on Monday’s installment of Better Mornings Atlanta, Burdo said to her African American guest, “Let me tell you something. I’m not a colored woman but I have kinky hair just like her and when you straighten it every day, it’s…” I’ll let you guess what it is; I don’t really care. The point is that she said the dreaded “colored woman” phrase that was the approved genteel and sensitive word for African-Americans by the 1920s at least. The phrase was out of favor by the Sixties, although blacks and whites of earlier generations would still use it, like older Americans today will still call women girls, gals, broads and similar anachronisms of a less gender-sensitive time.
2. There was considerable criticism of Burdo for this in e-mails to the station and social media. These people, every one of them, are “gotcha!” obsessed political correctness Furies. It was obvious that Burdo meant no disrespect or animus. No harm is done by the use of a word that is only dated, not loaded. But either she was unwilling to shrug these silly complaints off, or her station told her to get groveling. Ratings, you know.
3. So she apologized, saying…
“Yesterday, I made a pretty insensitive remark during one of our segments here on Better Mornings Atlanta. I apologize. Once again, I truly want to say from the bottom of my heart that I really am sorry about that comment. I made that comment in reference to my hair color but I used an inappropriate term.”
The remark was only “insensitive” if one accepts the most restrictive definition of the term. The successive rejection of culturally accepted words for African Americans (which itself is due to expire and be declared “insensitive”) is a classic variation of the political correctness game. There was coloreds, then colored person, then Negro, then negro, then Black, then black, then (the ridiculous) “person of color,” then black again, and finally African American. Every one of these meant exactly the same thing: “I’m calling your race what the spokespeople for your race claim it wants to be called, in respect for your sensibilities.” It also meant, at least in my case, “Now for God’s sake make up your minds, and forgive anyone who misses a memo.”
“Colored,” however, is a great topic right now, if Burdo had her wits about her and was willing to, you know, practice journalism. The outspoken, forever race-baiting, late stage racial justice advocacy organization (late stage as in the great re-engineered Eric Hoffer quote—he said something like it, but not the words attributed to him– “Every great cause begins as a movement, degenerates into a business, ends up as a racket.”) the NAACP includes, in the CP, the term “colored people,” and in my view, they are estopped from complaining about anyone else who uses the term. Anyone who supports the NAACP is similarly a hypocritical to heep abuse on someone like Burdo, who was not using the term as any kind of disparagement.
Moreover, the NAACP’s keeping the C and the P is exactly like the Washington, D.C. NFL team maintaining the name of “Redskins.” Both terms were common once and not seen as disparaging; now they are, at least by some. Both are being retained as a matter of tradition, history and pride in the organization involved. Both terms, as currently used, do not reflect any form of disrespect or racial animus. Yet the NAACP actually has the gall to be among those attacking the use of Redskins. Burdo could have and should have used the incident to raise this issue, which reveals what political correctness is really about: posturing, power, and double standards. She might have, for example, noted that if “colored” is so offensive that she has to apologize for a completely innocuous use of it in a hair treatment segment, shouldn’t the Patent Office yank away the NAACP’s registered trademark on the same (unconstitutional) grounds that it dinged “Redskins?”
Instead, she issued a dishonest, ridiculous, on the air Level 9 apology on the Ethics Alarms Apology scale. “I made that comment in reference to my hair color” is such an obvious lie that it simultaneously marks Burda as cowardly, untrustworthy, and either an idiot or someone who thinks her audience is idiotic. Really, Michelle? Really? You routinely refer to people with colored hair as “colored”? All of Fox’s female newsreaders are “colored”? Marilyn Monroe was “colored”? Lady Gaga is “colored”?
Burdo’s apology was offensive. Her use of”colored” was just a meaningless and benign mistake.
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Source: Mediaite
Ethics Alarms 
Not all of Fox’s news readers are bottle blonds. I doubt Harris Faulkner could be called that. That said, I guess it’s a good thing I was never ambitious enough to be well known. I’d be apologizing every day for SOMETHING. I wonder if anyone has ever considered exhuming Mark Twain and trying to make him apologize for using the “N” word in Tom Sawyer and/or Huck Finn?
It’s interesting to me that the debate about the word “Redskins” becomes a debate about Black people. I saw this on the O’Reilly Factor once, too.
It’s not a debate “about black people”. It’s a debate about the logic or lack of logic of PC based arguments as well as the general inconsistency in the race grievance industry and in their arguments. The black grievance industry, the most prominent of them and the one that has profited most from racism, will naturally get drawn into any discussion involving race grievance.
texagg04,
Your response appears to confirm my point, especially when you claim “the black grievance industry” has “profited most from racism.” Again, it sounds to me like you look at a debate over the word “redskin” and see the problem caused by “the black grievance industry.”
I’ve seen where a lot of people online try to understand black people without understanding black history. For example, we can talk about how we’ve gone from “Colored” to “Negro” to “Black” to “African-American” to “People of Color” and how the constant change is just a big pile of PC crap; or we can consider that if people from Africa hadn’t had their identities stripped from them in by the tragedy of slavery and then followed by the degradation of segregation, i.e. being told who they are and how and where to live their lives, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. To me, this issue is not how “stupid and frustrating” it is to wonder why people can’t seem to make up their minds on what they want to be called. It’s about why historic preservation and heritage are so important.
Nope. It’s still a discussion about “race grievance”. It’s not about “black people”. But to your other point: I don’t know a black person alive who’s had their identity stripped by other people (except maybe the Democrat party). I do know a bunch who have willingly surrendered their identity to the race grievance industry.
You talk about “race grievance” and then “the black grievance industry” and I wonder what you see the difference between the two is.
I’m a historian and I see people today connected to the people that came before them. But as I said, for some reason, some people want to disconnect black people from their past. I don’t think that should be done. If we can disconnect people from their past, then maybe we should start getting rid of historic sites and monuments that are just taking up valuable real estate.
Who is separating anyone from their specific past? No one.
Who is separating them from their heritage? No one.
Who is trying to leverage their heritage to curry favor, protectionism, and wealth redistribution, which can only hope divide the nation further and perpetuate injustice? They are.
Your objection doesn’t address the issue and is a strawman.
Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t make my objection a “strawman.” The bottom line for me is always history and the challenge to remember it and look at it honestly… the good and the bad.
How would you teach American history?
I assumed, making the comment “But as I said, for some reason, some people want to disconnect black people from their past.” attached as a response to me, was an implication that I believed such. If the assumption is accurate, that’s a strawman at me. If not, it isn’t a strawman at me, but could very well still be a strawman if that isn’t the prevailing attitude held by those who oppose the race grievance industry.
But, you’ve avoided the response to your point about “separating people from their ‘past'”.
How would I teach American history? Probably extremely rigorously, there’s a good bet students who think the purpose of school is hang out with friends and party would not want me as a professor / teacher.
I like this professor’s philosophy. His other links are quite enjoyable as well.
I didn’t avoid the issue about separating people from their past, or in this case, their heritage. And by this, I mean our collective American heritage. I already pointed out that some people seem to want to talk about issues concerning blacks but don’t want to take black history into consideration… in other words, history to me is about coming to an understanding of how we got here. If you have personal problems and you went to go talk to a counslelor about them, they would look at your history- what kind of family you grew up in, what happened to you as a teenager, etc. This is pretty much the same thing I’m talking about.
Now, when people say things like, “I was never a slaveowner and you were never a slave,” of course, they are right. But, when we call ourselves Americans, that to me is about owning the country that our forbears left behind for us and all of the good, bad and ugly history with it…. the stories of their lives. As a historian, my mission is to understand their stories to better understand our story. One of those stories that fascinates me most is what I’ve learned about the world that free blacks carved out for themselves during slavery… a world where they were landowners, voters, farmers, soldiers, whalers, mechanics and craftsmen, established Churches, and workers in the abolition of slavery. These are stories that also need to be told. Still, the main story of slavery cannot be forgotten or glossed over.
As far as modern politics or the “race grievance industry,” I don’t really care about that when it comes to being a historian. I don’t confine myself to one party. You can vote for whomever you want. I just hope you can accept someone else’s right to vote for whomever they want, too.
First, people who claim a knowledge of history ought to demonstrate it. Slavery has existed for several thousands of years, and still does. The ancient Chinese practiced slavery, Indians, both Asian and American, practiced slavery, Europeans practiced slavery through many cultures, at one time selling people into slavery to settle a debt. Indentured servitude was a form of slavery, with a contractual “out” that was generally unreachable. I, personally, have never owned a slave, have never known someone who has been a slave and was not yet alive when slavery ended in this country. This leads me to some questions:
1) Why would a practice that ended 150 years ago continue to effect the population it effected then?
2) Why should I be held responsible for the actions of people who are long since dead?
3) What is it about slavery as it was practiced in this country that makes it so reprehensible, as apart from the admittedly reprehensible practice of slavery for the thousands of years prior?
4) What is it about either black people or the United States version of slavery that makes either unique and worthy of comment or punishment?
5) Why are few black people incensed at the continuing practice of African and Middle Eastern black-on-black slavery?
I’m seeing an a deliberate intention in what is commonly referred to as the “euphemism treadmill,” the “black people” version of which Jack enumerates in the post. Euphemisms are designed to allow people to avoid referring directly to something that is unpleasant and may cause people close to the issue to feel emotional pain. It appears that humans often have resentment towards others who are luckier than they are, especially when it comes to circumstances of birth. Conversely, more fortunate humans do not like to look at such chance disparity directly because they feel guilt for not helping, not being able to help, not taking full advantage of their luck because they take it for granted, or simply not feeling the pain another person feels. Human culture does not teach the emotional maturity that would allow people to deal with situations like these in a manner that isn’t awkward or even hostile. Thus anything that implies a chance disparity in inherited advantages is unpleasant and must be referred to with euphemisms.
It may appear that the euphemism treadmill advances merely because the old euphemism starts being a synonym for the unpleasant concept and becomes too close of an association, but the common euphemisms for “death” (passed away, et cetera) have not changed for decades, if not centuries, despite there being enough for a decades-long cycle.
Thus I postulate that euphemisms for historically underprivileged groups are changed periodically because they want to separate their group label from the unpleasantness and awkwardness that the group itself doesn’t seem to escape. It seems to me that people might be better off without the labels. If you don’t want people to care that you’re black or white, it might be best to stop referring to yourself as such. Just be a person who looks like whatever you happen to look like. Come up with a name for your culture that doesn’t hinge on your physical appearance, so people who don’t look like you don’t feel like they can’t join in. Irrelevant semantic and emotional connections between people’s physical appearance and culture are making all these problems worse, and almost no one sees the crossed wires.
Moreover, the NAACP’s keeping the C and the P is exactly like the Washington, D.C. NFL team maintaining the name of “Redskins.”
“Exactly?” I don’t think that’s the case, and I’d wager that a reasonable person, comparing the two, can think of at least one or two differences that may be significant.
The most obvious one is that the NAACP is an organization that was founded with significant participation from black people, exists for the express purpose of advancing the civil rights of the people originally referred to as “colored people,” and is run mostly by people who would have fit into that category.
The Washington Redskins was founded by white people, it has included American Indians/Native Americans among its ranks only by coincidence (if at all), and it exists for the purpose of entertaining people by playing football and selling merchandise. It is currently owned and run mostly by people who would never have been described by the term “Redskins.”
Additionally, “colored people” was, at one time, considered to be the most polite term to use to refer to the people to which the phrase referred. Whether or not you believe that “redskins” constituted a slur in the 1940s, it has always been a slang term.
I’m not writing this to argue that the Redskins name must therefore be offensive or that the NAACP’s name is therefore completely fine. I’m just making the point that the two situations are not exactly the same; it isn’t reasonable to say that they are.
2. As has been pointed out many times and elsewhere, the term redskins was originally created by Native Americans themselves, in reference to war paint. Oklahoma is an Indian term meaning “redskins.”
1.The founders of the Redskins, when they adopted that name, were using a term that was not regarded as denigrating at the time, in a non-denigrating manner, as a double entendre designed to merge the image of “Braves,” the original name, with the host of their home games in Fenway Park, the Red Sox. I don’t see the “difference” you cite as material except to those who maintain that there is some kind of ownership over words, which is at the crux of the controversy. Nobody owns words is the presumption of my analogy, which is based on two organizations using a word/phrase to name itself that is deemed appropriate by the founder and inoffensive by observers for decades, with both organizations retaining the name even after neither organization contains any individual who would use the term to describe anyone or thing other than the organization. Here’s the only distinction: one of those organizations hypocritically wants to deny the other the same privilege it assumes for itself.
Great start on your blog, Phil: Hey everyone, check out Phil’s thoughtful blog at teethwherenoneshouldbe.blogspot.com
I’m coming back at you on the Truro story, which I had missed.
I don’t think ownership (of language) is the correct metaphor for what’s at issue here. Context is different depending on who is using a word, and that doesn’t change just because you assert that it does. If you call my mom a “bitch,” for example, I may be justified in taking offense–even though you have a legal right to use whatever word you want. If my mom calls herself a bitch, the context is different, and I don’t have the same justification in taking offense. My mom doesn’t “own” the word bitch. She “owns” herself.
Thanks for the compliment. I started a blog years ago, and decided that having a blog meant I should actively comment on other blogs I read. I kept up the latter activity even if my blogging has slowed a bit. 🙂
A bit.
“Great start on your blog, Phil: Hey everyone, check out Phil’s thoughtful blog at teethwherenoneshouldbe.blogspot.com”
I don’t get it… the most recent post I can see is from 2006. Is this a jab of some sort?
No. It shows that if a commenter has a link to a personal blog, I foolishly assume its a live one, particularly when the most recent post says “July.” His blog did have a great start, though.
And while we’re at it, what’s the story with YOUR blog?
I’m abusing the WordPress system of notifications. Makes it easier to respond and keep track of discussions. I really only started the profile to keep track of discussions here.
If I had the time I would. But, most successful bloggers blog as an adjunct to their profession. I don’t think blogging about landscaping would be a useful focus of my time, and considering my philosophical attention and hobby education is constantly split between history, military, architecture, politics, etc, it would be a schizophrenic blog at best.
I wait in eager anticipation for other people to step into this politically correct morass that the Redskins “controversy” has raised anew. Many teams across the country have an American Indian associated logo, as has been pointed out. These were intended as an honor… obviously. Should black people in America actually be denouncing as discriminatory the fact that no African themed nicknames are in evidence? (Zulus, Ashantis, Mandingos…) Contrariwise; should certain European derived folks be upset over “Vikings”, “Fighting Irish” or “Spartans”? Apparently, “Crusaders” and “Rebels” are already on the hit list… but not because Christians or Southrons object! Just how far and for how long will this “divide & conquer” ploy be allowed to continue?
SMP, I hate to say this, but probably forever. The inmates are now in charge of the asylum, and few, if any, of the Doctors are objecting. All you have to control to OWN a country is the media outlets and the educational system. Was it Hitler who said “Give me one generation of the children, and I shall rule forever” or something like that? In any case, we’ve given them way more than a generation.
dragin_dragon, are you familiar with Godwin’s Law?
Heard the term, from Jack…do not, at the moment, remember it.
Ah, yes, I see. Please be aware that I am NOT calling anyone a Nazi…the quote could have been Stalin, Churchill or Charlemagne (not actually a quote, but rather a poor effort at paraphrasing), the meaning is the same. If Pope Francis said it, it would mean the same. Liberals have owned the educational system for over 50 years. This does not make them Nazis but it does make the system an indoctrination field for them.
Godwin’s Law, as I understand it, goes something like this: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” It does not require you to compare your opponent to Nazis, and to “compare” does not necessarily mean “to equate.” Godwin’s Law could have been about Stalin or Churchill, except that those aren’t the go-to examples in (nearly) every Internet discussion in the history of the Internet. It’s Hitler and the Nazis.
I’m not criticizing you or your comment. I’m just pointing out that Godwin was right.
That is an accurate description of Godwin’s law. But for practical purposes, it has been skewed to:
“Your argument is immediately invalidated by comparing my side to Hitler or the Nazis because of Godwin’s Law”. Which is incorrect. If your side essentially advocates for totalitarian methods similar to those of Hitler or the Nazis, then a comparison is quite valid. What isn’t valid is just comparing an opposing view to Hitler/Nazis because you disagree.
2)
I still don’t know who said the quote, but if it was Hitler, it occurs to me that referring to anything he said, valid (unlikely, that) or invalid will then be turned aside and/or ignored because of “Godwins Law”. In his particular case, what he said IS valid, with the proof being that secondary and higher education has been in the hands of liberals for some 50 years, the media probably longer than that, and look where we are today.
There is nothing wrong with using Hitler as a comparison or to quote, if the use is appropriate and fair. Godwin’s Law is often misapplied.