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Political Correctness
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Political Correctness
Political Correctness
I thought we should have a disscussion about this because it'll be interesting. Do you think politcal correctness is okay to an extent? Here I present an example...
Thomas the tank engine. No laughing, but around 2006 they completely dropped the word Christmas and started a new "politically correct" approach. As in drop the word Christmas and keep all of the holiday's other aspects. Still Christmas trees. Still carols. Still presents. Still old St Nick. They just replaced the word Xmas (my arm is tired) with "winter holidays".
1) I think this is kinda demeaning, to Christians and to Jews and Muslims, because it is obviously Xmas, which makes it look like the HiT company thinks Jews and Muslims are stupid enough to not realize that it is Xmas they are talking about.
2) As a 12 year old with an affinity for Thomas, I could rant for hours and not shut up, which I'll skip thanks.
What do you think on the entire subject? And Admins can get in on the talk too!
Peace, love, and the winter holidays (NO)
Ronan
submitted by Ronan
(November 6, 2016 - 5:03 pm)
(November 6, 2016 - 5:03 pm)
As a Jewish person, I actually prefer it when they call it 'Winter Holidays' as opposed to 'Christmas'. I don't really love it when those 'Winter Holidays' have all aspects of Christmas and none of Hannakah or a Muslim holiday or any other religeon's holiday. But it really irks me when they actually call it Christmas, because it seems like they are saying that EVERYONE on this ENTIRE ISLAND celebrates Christmas. I wish that every public place there is a christmas tree there was also a menorah and something different for all the other religeons, too. Just to say, "Look, everyone, Jewish people exist, too. So do Buddhists and Muslims and Hindus and all the other religions."
If I am reading something, and they mention how the main character is getting excited for Christmas I kind of inwardly groan. There are so few books where a character just casually mentions a Jewish holiday. They don't have to make a big deal out of it, I just love it when they just mention that they are Jewish. It makes me so happy.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with a Christian main character! They are just as wonderful as Jewish/ Muslim/ Buddhist/ Hindu/ aethiest main characters. It just is extra special, to me, as a Jew, when the main character is Jewish.
(November 6, 2016 - 11:22 pm)
I know what you mean. Christmas gets a lot of positive press, but you hardly ever see stores decked out in full Hannukah celebration.
Personally, I think political correctness is a good thing... to some extent. Trying not to offend people and, as a society, attempting to choose our words carefully, would be great. However, a lot of people get offended easily or act offended when they feel as if they should be offended by something, even if they aren't.
Inventing millions of clunky, unwieldy, words and phrases that can be stuffed into a slot when you want to be extra-careful that someone won't take offense just doesn't make sense.
(November 8, 2016 - 10:21 am)
I actually enjoy reading books with Jewish MC's a LOT. At about Coco's age, I was OBSESSED with the All-of-a-kind-of-a-family series. I still love it dearly.
(November 8, 2016 - 8:08 pm)
I LOVE All-of-a-kind Family!!!!
(November 8, 2016 - 10:00 pm)
SAME!!! I've only read two of the books, though. My library doesn't have any of them. :'(
(November 9, 2016 - 3:35 pm)
I know, right? I'm Christian, but I think that Christmas is way over-commercialized. People have turned it into this huge BUY! BUY! BUY! season, when it is really the meaning of Christmas that is important. And then when they try to ignore other people's customs and religions? That's sad. It just shows how amazingly broken this world is.
But hey. We're CBers. We're different. We should do something. Get people to stop turing Christmas into a season of greed. Get people to respect Jewish, Muslim, and African holidays. Because, aren't hollidays just another way that people draw together?
(November 8, 2016 - 5:19 pm)
In the 1990s, there was a cartoon series called X-men The Animated Series. Season 4 Episode 1 talked a lot about God, his plans for us, and the Bible. Could you picture a mainstream cartoon network playing an episode like that nowadays? No, because of Political Correctness. Yes, it might offend some people, but it is part of a storyline and turned into what I think was a great episode :) If you decide to watch it (it's clean, cheesy, and online—beware, the sound is off from the picture), please tell me your opinion. Offensive or part of great plot?
Whether a person is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, or of some other belief, the Bible has many great stories. In fact, I had a professor in college who taught that all the great themes of literature can be found in the Bible: love, revenge, rivalry, good and evil, greed, compassion, suffering, etc.
Admin
(November 8, 2016 - 7:26 pm)
*smashes face into desk*
Y'know what I get upset with? No offense to anyone, but when non-Christians celebrate Christmas. it's a Christian holiday, yet so many non-Christians celebrate it.
Jews and Muslims don't usually celebrate Christmas (And those that do don't celebrate as Jesus' birth) because it is JESUS' birth. Muslims believe that Jesus isn't actually God. And Jews don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
They both say that they believe in the same God as Christians, but they don't. Christians believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Triune God. We believe that God is three persons. No, not three gods, three persons.
Jews in the Old Testement believed in the same God, because they believed in God(Yaweh), the spirit of God, and that the Messiah would come.
Sorry, I totally veered off track, but I felt the need to point this out. And even then, the seperate Christian denominations have different views. E.G, Baptists believe that they can "choose" to become God's child, whereas Lutherans believe that God chooses us to become his children. Very complicated, but yes.
(November 8, 2016 - 8:07 pm)
Just a point- Jews never call God what you called him. The thing that started with a Y. We can't. We believe that it is calling God's name in vain. We call him 'Hashem', which literally means 'The Name' in Hebrew. It is spelled phonetically how you said it, but we can't say or spell it that way. We also don't believe that Jesus is God, or that he is the Messiah. We believe that the Messiah hasn't come yet.
Also, it would be pronounced with a 'V', not a 'W' in the middle. ;)
(November 8, 2016 - 9:59 pm)
Jews in the old testament, not modern times.
:)
(November 9, 2016 - 9:02 am)
Actually, in modern times, too. I cannot pronounce God's name that way, and many of my friends can't also.
(November 9, 2016 - 8:36 pm)
Don't we call him Adenoi, or something like that, in all of the blessings?
(I'm an atheist Jew, which is why I don't know much about this stuff but can still say "we.")
(November 9, 2016 - 3:20 pm)
Jews have many names for God. I'm a pretty religious Jew - I'm studying for my Bat Mitzvah right now, in fact. God is not male or female, but God has male and female versions of God's name (so we don't use pronouns, like "he," "she," "it"). Adonai is a female version; Eloheim is a male version. There are countless other names for Adonai, too (Adonai is most commonly used, so I just refer to God as that). Jehovah's Witnesses actually came from a name for Adonai, which no one knows how to pronounce but COULD be pronounced as Jehovah.
And to clear things up otherwise, Christians (like from Roman times) USED to believe in the Jewish God, but that started to mean something else. Like for example, Jews are completely, a thousand percent against converting other people to Judaism. It's not the point of our religion... versus St. Paul, who tried to convert Jews and Romans to Christianity. (and yes, I feel entitled to share this bit of info since I'm half-Jewish, half-Christian by blood, but raised only Jewish. But feel free to correct me if I'm getting something wrong, since I don't want to speak about someone's religion for them).
@Cho Chang - Yes! I love comparing, say, the Bible and the Torah. They are actually very different, since the Torah (the Jewish "Bible") is written in Hebrew, and could be interpreted in different ways. Like the story of Adam and Eve, which has two chapters. In the first, the Torah says Adonai made man and woman as one, and then separated them so they could face each other. The second chapter says Adonai created man, and from man's rib Adonai created a woman. HOWEVER, the Hebrew word for rib also means "side," so the Torah could actually be reinforcing the first chapter of the story. My Rabbi was explaining that it comes down to who is interpreting; in this case, probably men who wanted power over women. Interesting, huh? :)
And the original topic of this - I like when they say Winter Holidays better, because I feel like it's more respectful of my religion. I feel that, if we can all understand each other's religions better, the world will be a better, more peaceful place.
(November 9, 2016 - 6:47 pm)
Huh, I never heard that about the male and female versions. It makes sense, though. When the letter hay or the letter tov is at the end of a word it makes the word feminine and when any other letter is at the end the word is masculin. The one that starts with an 'A' in English ends with a hay in Hebrew, making it feminine. The one that starts with an 'E' in English ends with a mem, a masculin letter. That's cool. I never heard that before! Thanks, shalom!
P.S. Shalom, shalom! (Sorry, I couldn't help myself!)
(November 9, 2016 - 8:48 pm)
Haha, Shalom, Cockleburr! (Shalom is my Jewish name :P)
(November 9, 2016 - 9:26 pm)