British media stalwart, The Guardian, is reporting that Viacom are making final preparations to launch a European version of their 'Black Entertainment TV' network. Due to begin later this year, the channel will be based in London and have original content, supplemented with American shows including College Hill, 106 and Park, and Lil' Kim.
One thing it mercifully won't have is the infestation of Political Correctness that could be expected if this expansion was reversed. The American media is [thankfully] isolated in its retentive obsession with conversational sensitivity. Europe has no euphemism for 'black.' People to whom the term applies are referred to as such...and no-one complains. Other examples of 'PC Speak' have fared equally badly; Schools have 'blackboards', people make 'mistakes' and 'History' is spelled the same way now as it was throughout...well, history.
Political Correctness is an onanistic preoccupation practiced by an unelected minority of self-appointed moral guardians who have nothing more productive to do with their echoingly empty lives than indulge their narcissistic desire for importance and validation by trying to dictate other people's. In his famous 'I have a dream!' speech, Dr. Martin Luther King used the word, 'Negro' at least a dozen times, and not one member of the predominantly black audience registered one flicker of offense.
To go from such sanguine acceptance in 1968 to the incessant reiteration of the loathsome epithet that would be substituted today can hardly be seen as progress. And any social practice that demands the use of an invented label to avoid the [perceived] offense caused by a word that had no previous detrimental connotations whatsoever is both witless and demeaning.
Contemporary American culture is a radiant melange of influences from every major civilization in the world. The sooner this includes the relaxed, European view of this topic and the self-absorbed inadequates who practice 'PC' are banished to the unheeded obscurity that is their rightful reward, the better for all concerned.
One thing it mercifully won't have is the infestation of Political Correctness that could be expected if this expansion was reversed. The American media is [thankfully] isolated in its retentive obsession with conversational sensitivity. Europe has no euphemism for 'black.' People to whom the term applies are referred to as such...and no-one complains. Other examples of 'PC Speak' have fared equally badly; Schools have 'blackboards', people make 'mistakes' and 'History' is spelled the same way now as it was throughout...well, history.
Political Correctness is an onanistic preoccupation practiced by an unelected minority of self-appointed moral guardians who have nothing more productive to do with their echoingly empty lives than indulge their narcissistic desire for importance and validation by trying to dictate other people's. In his famous 'I have a dream!' speech, Dr. Martin Luther King used the word, 'Negro' at least a dozen times, and not one member of the predominantly black audience registered one flicker of offense.
To go from such sanguine acceptance in 1968 to the incessant reiteration of the loathsome epithet that would be substituted today can hardly be seen as progress. And any social practice that demands the use of an invented label to avoid the [perceived] offense caused by a word that had no previous detrimental connotations whatsoever is both witless and demeaning.
Contemporary American culture is a radiant melange of influences from every major civilization in the world. The sooner this includes the relaxed, European view of this topic and the self-absorbed inadequates who practice 'PC' are banished to the unheeded obscurity that is their rightful reward, the better for all concerned.
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