I had an experience in another forum. I posted a joke, I’m the jokes thread, about an Italian mafia boss. It’s a very common joke found everywhere online but a member had reported it, and I was warned I’m public. I told them that it’s such a common joke, and I didn’t know it would be deemed offensive by anyone. And I left the forum because it was such plain injustice.
Then the forum owner herself emailed me that they couldn’t help but warn me as a member had reported it, although “you haven’t done anything wrong.”
I mean, if I hadn’t done anything wrong why warn me?
Here’s a link to that joke I found now on some website. Don’t want to post the text here in case it would be offensive here too.
It is really difficult to figure out what is and what is not offensive, especially nowadays with political correctness and the sensitivities surrounding that.
I find lots of things that people post here in HO (and elsewhere) offensive, but I don’t necessary take offense personally, or call it out.
Why?
Because it’s not necessarily directed to me.
Oftentimes, you’ll see people talk about a restaurant as being “Oriental” which I find offensive, but if it is not directed to me (qua Chinese person), I let it slide, even though I think the term is offensive in the absolute sense.
Why?
Again, I am not the political correctness police (even as a moderator here on HO and certainly not in IRL).
If someone uses an offensive term, I just make a mental note that that person used such a term, and act accordingly vis-a-vis that individual going forward.
Live and let live, I suppose.
I personally would not use the N word on a public forum, even as an “inside” joke but do I think people should be forbidden from doing it? Absolutely not.
Ultimately, you do you … but at your own risk.
In life, we only have our name (and on HO we only have our avatar). So take good care of both.
Language is hard sometimes. When you referenced “the N word” my mind went one place, then had to transition to the “N word” being discussed here.
My mom (94 yo) always used the term “Oriental.” I’m not sure she gets why I always correct her, but I notice she doesn’t use it anymore. Just the way she was raised.
I recall as a kid we were driving by a building that had graffitied “Slur go home.” I innocently asked what a Slur was and my friends laughed–mom told them Slur was not a word I had ever heard in our household and was not a word she wanted to hear nice girls like us use
Time passes. Language evolves. People evolve (albeit some more slowly than others). I’m sure my grandmother (b 1893) used terms that she thought were polite that would earn her serious eyerolls today. Just as I’m sure I use words that my nieces, great nephews, etc deem questionable. Unless someone has shown me otherwise, I try to read\hear with the best intentions. (Perhaps I should change my screen name to Pollyanna
It seems to me that those who call others overly sensitive, or who decry “political correctness” seem to be themselves offended by the fact that people and their respect for others’ sensitivities evolve. Why go out of one’s way to offend someone? Why not err on the kind side? What is to be gained by possibly offending someone just so one can sound… dunno, cool? Edgy? … obsolete?
“Don’t be a dick” seems like such an easy and manageable way to go through one’s life, yet for some it seems a mighty big favor to ask.
FWIW, if I see something I find personally offensive posted by someone I otherwise respect, I will pm them and say why. I hope others would do the same for me.
6 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
28
I have an issue wuith the way Tripadvisor operates its forums. If an unknown number of contributors “report” a post, the system automatically removes it from view. Now, the theory is that, at that point, a real life moderator looks at the post and decides if there has been a breach of rules and, if not, the post is restored. The practice however seems to be that the post is rarely restored - unless you email the mods to ask for your own post to be restored. What this means is that a clique (or a single contributor with hideen multiple identities) can wreak havoc with a thread or the posts of a person they’ve taken a dislike to. It’s a regular occurance on the TA forum that I regularly follow and, worse, the mods do nothing to deal with the malicious “reporters”.
2 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
29
My late FiL would often use inappropriate terminology. Whenever he was challenged, he reply with some version of “I am old. I’ve always said that and don’t know any better”. Of course, he had not lived his life in isolation and most certainly did know better.
The offensiveness of “Oriental” has changed quite a bit over the years. It used to be fine then it was okay unless being used to refer to a person. Now it seems to be offensive in general if your opinion of it is common. Still, there are many restaurants that call themselves “Oriental”. Is this a case of it being okay for people who are east Asian to use the word but inappropriate for those who aren’t?
Why? I don’t doubt there are still some around. It’s not like it’s hard to find examples of terms that have fallen out of favor in most places. That’s how this thread got started in the first place.
At first I thought someone was saying that that was an example of something offensive here on HO, so I searched for it here, and each use was the name of a restaurant.
My only point was that I find it offensive (the term “Oriental”).
But, life such as it is, I really do not feel like it’s my place to tell a complete stranger (as much as one can be a complete stranger on a message board) what they should or should not say on a public forum.
Now, if @gaffk example, where it is a family member involved, that’s different. But unless people here are related to me, and just have not told me, I am not going to lecture someone else on how they should conduct themselves.
Like I said above, I will simply make a note of it mentally and act accordingly towards that person in the future.
Maybe this is wrong, but to me that is the most diplomatic way of handling things b/c as you imply there are uses of words or phrases that some will find offensive and others not. I, for one, do not feel like I am in the position to be an arbiter of who is right or wrong.
There’s a grocery store here named Carol’s Oriental Foods, so at least in my neck of the woods, it’s not just limited to restaurants. I’ve never met Carol. For all I know Carol may not even own the place anymore. It’s been called that for the 25 years I’ve been here and probably long before.
