Tag: political correctness

Woke Doctor Apologizes for Using Term ‘Pregnant Women’

A physician teaching a course at a woke University of California system medical school apologized to his class for using the “offensive” term “pregnant women,” Common Sense with Bari Weiss reported Tuesday.

“I said ‘when a woman is pregnant,’ which implies that only women can get pregnant and I most sincerely apologize to all of you,” the doctor said, according to a medical student’s recording obtained by writer Katie Herzog.

The doctor reportedly added:

I don’t want you to think that I am in any way trying to imply anything, and if you can summon some generosity to forgive me, I would really appreciate it. Again, I’m very sorry for that. It was certainly not my intention to offend anyone. The worst thing that I can do as a human being is be offensive.

The medical student explained to Herzog that, at her medical school “acknowledging biological sex can be considered transphobic.”

During a class on transgender health, an instructor reportedly said, “Biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender are all constructs. These are all constructs that we have created.”

But, as Herzog observed, the idea that medical students are being taught biological sex is “a construct” matters when it comes to issues about health since “refusal to acknowledge sex can have devastating effects on patient outcomes.”

For example, the medical student noted that “abdominal aortic aneurysms” are “four times as likely to occur in males than females, but this very significant difference wasn’t emphasized.”

“I had to look it up, and I don’t have the time to look up the sex predominance for the hundreds of diseases I’m expected to know,” she said.

Most medical school instructors, the student continued, “are probably just scared of their students,” likely because of online forums in which students can chastise instructors for saying “breastfeed” instead of “chestfeed,” and petitions that “name and shame” instructors for “wrongspeak” and misuse of preferred pronouns.

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Humorless EU report: It’s not funny anymore. Far-right extremists’ use of humour

Humour has become a central weapon of extremist movements to subvert open societies and to lower the threshold towards violence. Especially within the context of a recent wave of far-right terrorist attacks, we witness “playful” ways in communicating racist ideologies. As far-right extremists strategically merge with online cultures, their approach changes fundamentally. This trend has been especially facilitated by the so-called alt-right and has spread globally. This predominantly online movement set new standards to
rebrand extremist positions in an ironic guise, blurring the lines between mischief and potentially radicalising messaging. The result is a nihilistic form of humour that is directed against ethnic and sexual minorities and deemed to inspire violent fantasies — and eventually action. This paper scrutinises how
humour functions as a potential factor in terms of influencing far-right extremist violence. In doing so, we trace the strategic dissemination of far-right narratives and discuss how extremists conceal their misanthropic messages in order to deny ill intention or purposeful harm. These recent developments pose major challenges for practitioners: As a new generation of violent extremists emerges from digital subcultures without a clear organisational centre, prevention strategies need to renew focus and cope with
the intangible nature of online cultures.

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UK law commission recommends making speech offenses based on “likely psychological harm”

Recommendations unveiled by the UK’s Law Commission are seeking to establish a new offense by criminalizing communications that could cause “likely psychological harms.”

Another offense that is recommended in the document concerns “knowingly false communications.” This is a serious threat to freedom of expression, and a chance for the authorities to get the last word on what is perceived as true and false.

The recommendation defines “harm” as something that causes “serious distress,” while “psychological harm” is also being mentioned. As for defining “serious distress” – the Commission refers to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

The proposed reforms are aimed at protecting victims of online abuse, but there are fears that the vague language and prioritizing subjective perception of speech over objective content could have dangerous consequences.

And the fact that identity and characteristics of the recipient of a communication is also given center stage leaves the door wide open for censorship based on identity politics.

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Olympic opening ceremony director fired for Holocaust joke

The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee fired the director of the opening ceremony on Thursday because of a Holocaust joke he made during a comedy show in 1998.

Organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto said a day ahead of the opening ceremony that director Kentaro Kobayashi has been dismissed. He was accused of using a joke about the Holocaust in his comedy act, including the phrase “Let’s play Holocaust.”

“We found out that Mr. Kobayashi, in his own performance, has used a phrase ridiculing a historical tragedy,” Hashimoto said. “We deeply apologize for causing such a development the day before the opening ceremony and for causing troubles and concerns to many involved parties as well as the people in Tokyo and the rest of the country.”

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Woke language: Orwell’s ‘newspeak’ is here

Have you noticed how our language is changing?

At a congressional hearing on “Birthing While Black,” nearly every politician used the words “birthing people” instead of “women” or “mothers.” Asked why, Shalanda Young, President Joe Biden’s budget director, said, “Our language needs to be more inclusive.”

Activists have also changed “equality” to “equity” and “affirmative action” to “diversity.”

The Associated Press no longer uses “mistress.” It tells reporters to use “companion, friend or lover.”

Worse, certain speech is now labeled “violence.”

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UK City Council Suggests Local Cake Might be Racist Because it Contains Sugar

Leeds city council is concerned about the origins of local produce such as Parkin cake because it may have once included sugar imported from the Caribbean and is therefore racist.

Yes, really.

The gingerbread cake was flagged in a Labour council document as part of a white guilt audit performed to satiate the Black Lives Matter mob and uncover “examples of how racism continues to be prevalent in everyday life.”

“Historically, some of the ingredients used to make these ‘local’ products were gained through the triangular slave trade (for example, sugar),” states the document.

The crucial investigation, which the document confirms was conducted “in relation to Black Lives Matter,” laments “how local products such as Yorkshire Parkin and Yorkshire tea are, in fact, reliant on global trade.”

Oh no, the horror.

Where it gets more insidious is that this information is all being prepared for schools so primary-age kids can be taught how much they should hate themselves and their own country.

The document bemoans the fact that the sugar in Parkin cake, as well as ingredients for Yorkshire Tea, “would have been sourced from around the empire and would have involved the labour of enslaved people as well as exploitation of resources and communities around the world.”

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Invasive Asian carp will be renamed to remove the term’s ‘horrible, xenophobic connotations’ in the wake of anti-Asian hate crimes

The invasive Asian carp species will be renamed due to the term’s ‘horrible, xenophobic connotations’ in the wake of a surge of anti-Asian hate crimes.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has now joined state agencies in Minnesota in referring to the species as ‘invasive carp’, despite critics ridiculing the move as misplaced political correctness.

Officials claimed that calling the fish ‘Asian’ and advocating their culling had xenophobic connotations – but the move sparked mockery on Twitter where users pointed out that the term referred to where the fish were originally imported from. 

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“Sensitivity readers” to proofread books so they don’t offend cancel mobs

New, widespread phenomena inevitably create new economies, and new job titles; the strong push to align content, including books, with what can be summed up as “woke values” is no different.

The Spectator writes about a new brand of copy editors – “sensitivity readers.” The term is appropriately Orwellian in itself, given what these people get hired by publishers to do: make sure that stories that don’t represent a writer’s “lived experience” are “corrected” to better reflect that.

And the “sensitivity authority” who decides what is authentic is the freelancer given the job. It sounds fairly arbitrary, like many other things happening in society these days that flirt with some form of censorship or suppression of content.

And it continues to sound arbitrary even when it is explained that in order to “qualify” for a “sensitivity reader” you have to advertise your status as a member of an ethnic or cultural group, somebody who has experienced trauma or abuse, or just be a self-declared expert in a hobby.

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The Entomological Society is renaming a moth species and an ant species to avoid a word deemed to be a “racial slur”

The Entomological Society of America is removing the names for a moth and an ant from its Common Names of Insects and Related Organisms List because they include a word deemed a racial slur.  Those are the “gypsy moth” and the “gypsy ant.” The decision is a part of an effort by the ESA to identify and change traditional names that include negative ethnic or racial stereotypes.

“The purpose of common names is to make communication easier between scientists and the public audiences they serve,” explained ESA president Michelle S. Smith in a statement on Wednesday. “By and large, ESA’s list of recognized insect common names succeeds in this regard, but names that are unwelcoming to marginalized communities run directly counter to that goal,” she added.

“That’s why we’re working to ensure all ESA-approved insect common names meet our standards for diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The ESA Governing Board voted in June to remove the common names of the moth Lymantria dispar and the ant Aphaenogaster araneoides because the word “gypsy” is considered a racial slur against Romani people.

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Why Saving Comedy Is So Crucial To Saving America

Conan O’Brien did his final late night show last week, after 28 years on air. He’s stepping away at the right time. Whether you liked his comedic style or not, he really was trying to make people laugh.

When was the last time you watched “The Late Show” in order to laugh? That’s a trick question — nobody who watches Stephen Colbert is laughing. Laughter is entirely beside the point; Colbert’s show is political catechism in nightly hour-long installments.

One of Colbert’s masterworks in June was a song “parody” titled “500 Vials,” which didn’t even have a joke — it was just telling everyone to get the vaccine. It may be the least funny video ever created, and after the female-empowerment version of “Ghostbusters,” that can’t be said lightly (but remember: Anyone who didn’t laugh is sexist).

Increasingly, though, Colbert is the norm for late-night shows. For four years, limited big-tent political comedy got replaced by an aggressive churn of anti-Donald Trump “Resistance” theater barely papered over by jokes.

Some have just about given up the ghost entirely: John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” is pretty much nothing but lectures on what a liberal is supposed to be mad about this week.

And remember “The Daily Show”? While certainly steeped in sarcastic vitriol, it’s impossible to say it’s been relevant since Trevor Noah took the reins nearly six years ago.

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