The ultimate politcal correctness was in the OJ trial when a witness described an unidentified black man as an African-American. If he was unidentified, he could of been a black man of any place of origin.
I had a white friend who was born in/grew up in Africa, buy all technical meaning he was indeed African-American. But he was white! So Black
man it remains for me.
Some time before 1889; the term “Hyphenated American” was used as a term of insult and derision by 1904.
Interestingly, while the metaphor of a “crucible of races” was in play from the beginning of the Republic, the actual common use of “Melting Pot” as a commonplace dates from 1908 or so — so the term “Hyphenated American” was in use twenty years before “Melting Pot”.
As you can tell, that tension between the ideas of a homogeneous America (“unity”) and a heterogeneous America (“diversity”) has been a fundamental issue of national character since we’ve HAD one. It’s for that reason that “E Pluribus Unum” is such a good motto for the United States — we are always trying to negotiate both the “Pluribus” and the “Unum” parts of our country — we’re both United as well as being States, plural, and that ambivalent characteristic applies all the way to the individual level, too.
Nothing of value is every easy. We have all these antagonism in our lives and communities: Diversity vs unity, individualism vs collectivism, etc.
In biochemistry, it is the antagonism, the negative feedback loops, that keep positive feedback loops in check. It’s the antagonism that keeps the system balanced and working. I strongly suspect the same effect works on macro scale of society as well.
Arguably, America escaped the perils of both Communism and Fascism because of our internal antagonism. Region, race and ethnicity trumped class so Communism’s class based world view never had very wide appeal and the racial diversity made it impossible for a doctrine of racial purity to really even get started. One can just imagine the meetings. “Are German, English and French the same race or not. They sure aren’t in Eurpoe. Wait, are Irish white this week or not? How about Pollacks and hillbillies? Shut up in the back there Billy Bob Kowalski!”
One of the reasons I prefer the term “midget”. It’s a lot more specific.
I consider myself a little person at 5′ 4″. Everybody’s taller than me and I can’t reach the top shelves.
Also, I personally think “little person” sounds more insulting than “midget”.
What if you were a midget, though? I mean, if you were a midget, and you wanted to be called a dwarf, that’d be just weird.
(“Dwarfs” have normal adult-sized torsos and heads, but smaller limbs, like Peter Dinkledge. “Midgets” have proportions that are similar to those of other adult humans, but are under 4′ 10″. Which doesn’t seem all that short to me, actually…)
In Northern Ireland, in the town of Dungannon, my in laws reside. During the hot summer months (in-between the rain) a plague of little blood sucking insects start hatching. They are, in the rest of the world called ‘midges’, but here everyone calls them ‘midgets’. And so I laugh every time I hear ‘Close the fuckin’ door, you’ll let the midgets in (so you will)’.
This one reminded me of the “Pit Boss” episode where they hired a new girl to handle the talent agency side of the business so Shorty and his little peeps could focus on the dog rescue side. She thought the people he wanted to represent were “little” like Kristen Chenoweth while Shorty meant “little” like Debbie Lee Carrington. (Not clients of theirs, just celebrity examples of what each meant by “little people.”)
Do I sense an inconsistency? I recall in a previous strip’s comments you said that they were measured in meters which would mean that they are taller than buildings. Now they are measured in feet, meaning they are human sized. What’s the deal?
I’ll post a link to that previous strip if I can find it.
Just so everyone knows – midget is a derogatory term for somebody who has dwarfism. It was never used to differentiate between dwarves of different heights or with different types of dwarfism, i.e achondroplaysia, pituitary, etc. They are all dwarves and you REALLY shouldn’t use the term midget. Rant over! ^_^
Oh? And who decided that? Did we have a language election I missed?
Being called a midget, or any other group label, isn’t inherently derogatory unless you yourself believe that there is something degrading about being in that group.
Call me a midget or any other natural human state, group or peoples and I won’t even notice because I don’t see anything wrong with anyone being who they are, especially if they were born that way and I wouldn’t mind being associated with them. On the other hand, call me a Nazi or a Communist and you’ll wake up on the floor.
So, claiming that calling a dwarf a midget (or vice versa) is insulting implies that dwarfs/midgets consider being a midget/dwarfs a degrading state i.e. they’re bigoted themselves against midgets/dwarfs.
There’s to much ego centrism today, with people expecting the entire world to know the minutia of their individual lives and subcultures and reacting with indignity when innocent and well meaning people transgress on some language category they never knew existed.
It’s often just plain bullying with dishonest people arbitrarily shifting naming conventions and attacking the others for using the term the dishonest people themselves once advocated. They use people’s desire not offend against them. It’s pretty sinister behavior.
Mumble-mumble decades ago I had the surreal experience of being lectured to the effect that “colored people” was a racist term while “people of color” was not…by a person working the National Association of Colored People booth. Apparently, the secret congress of language had voted that “colored people” was racist but not enough for the NAACP to pay the rebranding cost.
The idea that renaming people’s or states e.g. midget –> “little people” will alter how people think about this a dangerously elitist idea. It rest on the preposition that the majority of the population are so feeble minded that they can have their cognition seriously altered just by a little marketing spin. It’s the viewpoint of a group of people who view the rest of us a little robots they can program.
It’s a false idea anyway. History is clear that realty shapes language more than language shapes our perception of language. Prior to the 1850s those with subnormal intellects where called poetically “touched.” Since touched was used as an insult, the nascent scientist of the day reached into their greek and coined the term, “idiot” (mind, little) as a shiny new scientific term. 20-30 years later idiot had mysterious become an insult so they shifted to latin and coined “moron”. Then “retarded”, then “mentally handicapped”, then “challenged”, and now “special.” At each stage the objective/nice term rapidly became the insult because the state of existence is undesirable for most and they will insult you with whatever label you slap on the state.
It also corrupts society. As Confucius observed, the first step to funcitoning society is naming things honestly. As Bug demonstrates, obscuring terms leads to confusion, mistrust and corruptions.
Woes of being 6’6 (200 cm for everyone else)
I know how you feel…
Reminded me of an old joke:
What’d the headlines say about a convicted midget psychic who escaped prison?
“Small Medium at Large”!
KJ – That’s great!
At the risk of being risque: What’s the difference between a women’s track team and a gang of midget thieves? One’s a bunch of cunning runts.
The ultimate politcal correctness was in the OJ trial when a witness described an unidentified black man as an African-American. If he was unidentified, he could of been a black man of any place of origin.
Worst yet; when a truly African person is called African American…
Kofi Annan was/is called this often.
It’s even worse when black person that lives in Poland is called Afroamerican/African American.
That’s just sick.
I had a white friend who was born in/grew up in Africa, buy all technical meaning he was indeed African-American. But he was white! So Black
man it remains for me.
Nobody’s ever called me a European-American….
What ever happened to the Melting Pot concept of America? When did we stop being American and started adding hypens?
When people started getting their feelers in a knot about it.
Some time before 1889; the term “Hyphenated American” was used as a term of insult and derision by 1904.
Interestingly, while the metaphor of a “crucible of races” was in play from the beginning of the Republic, the actual common use of “Melting Pot” as a commonplace dates from 1908 or so — so the term “Hyphenated American” was in use twenty years before “Melting Pot”.
As you can tell, that tension between the ideas of a homogeneous America (“unity”) and a heterogeneous America (“diversity”) has been a fundamental issue of national character since we’ve HAD one. It’s for that reason that “E Pluribus Unum” is such a good motto for the United States — we are always trying to negotiate both the “Pluribus” and the “Unum” parts of our country — we’re both United as well as being States, plural, and that ambivalent characteristic applies all the way to the individual level, too.
A cogent observation.
Nothing of value is every easy. We have all these antagonism in our lives and communities: Diversity vs unity, individualism vs collectivism, etc.
In biochemistry, it is the antagonism, the negative feedback loops, that keep positive feedback loops in check. It’s the antagonism that keeps the system balanced and working. I strongly suspect the same effect works on macro scale of society as well.
Arguably, America escaped the perils of both Communism and Fascism because of our internal antagonism. Region, race and ethnicity trumped class so Communism’s class based world view never had very wide appeal and the racial diversity made it impossible for a doctrine of racial purity to really even get started. One can just imagine the meetings. “Are German, English and French the same race or not. They sure aren’t in Eurpoe. Wait, are Irish white this week or not? How about Pollacks and hillbillies? Shut up in the back there Billy Bob Kowalski!”
One of the reasons I prefer the term “midget”. It’s a lot more specific.
I consider myself a little person at 5′ 4″. Everybody’s taller than me and I can’t reach the top shelves.
Also, I personally think “little person” sounds more insulting than “midget”.
If I were a “little person,” I’d make it known that I preferred dwarf. I’d also grow out an awesome beer and learn to properly quaff.
What if you were a midget, though? I mean, if you were a midget, and you wanted to be called a dwarf, that’d be just weird.
(“Dwarfs” have normal adult-sized torsos and heads, but smaller limbs, like Peter Dinkledge. “Midgets” have proportions that are similar to those of other adult humans, but are under 4′ 10″. Which doesn’t seem all that short to me, actually…)
Just don’t call them leprechauns. ESPECIALLY when your groin is at headbutt height…
St Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, just sayin’ 😉
I like big bugs and i can not lie…
*Like!*
I love the frustrated squint on Bug in the last panel. Reminds me a lot of Pearls Before Swine.
In Northern Ireland, in the town of Dungannon, my in laws reside. During the hot summer months (in-between the rain) a plague of little blood sucking insects start hatching. They are, in the rest of the world called ‘midges’, but here everyone calls them ‘midgets’. And so I laugh every time I hear ‘Close the fuckin’ door, you’ll let the midgets in (so you will)’.
You can tell it’s not just kid-bug, because his antennae are longer. Apparently bug’s head-sprouts keep growing with age. Interesting…
This one reminded me of the “Pit Boss” episode where they hired a new girl to handle the talent agency side of the business so Shorty and his little peeps could focus on the dog rescue side. She thought the people he wanted to represent were “little” like Kristen Chenoweth while Shorty meant “little” like Debbie Lee Carrington. (Not clients of theirs, just celebrity examples of what each meant by “little people.”)
I am a huge fan and supporter of Bug…but today’s bold script is looking a little Comic Sans with the rounded ends.
Also, what happens now if we want the original art?
Do I sense an inconsistency? I recall in a previous strip’s comments you said that they were measured in meters which would mean that they are taller than buildings. Now they are measured in feet, meaning they are human sized. What’s the deal?
I’ll post a link to that previous strip if I can find it.
Here you go: http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/out-of-the-picture/
Of course, if you take an singular comment from a cartoonist seriously … you may be missing the joke.
Just so everyone knows – midget is a derogatory term for somebody who has dwarfism. It was never used to differentiate between dwarves of different heights or with different types of dwarfism, i.e achondroplaysia, pituitary, etc. They are all dwarves and you REALLY shouldn’t use the term midget. Rant over! ^_^
Oh? And who decided that? Did we have a language election I missed?
Being called a midget, or any other group label, isn’t inherently derogatory unless you yourself believe that there is something degrading about being in that group.
Call me a midget or any other natural human state, group or peoples and I won’t even notice because I don’t see anything wrong with anyone being who they are, especially if they were born that way and I wouldn’t mind being associated with them. On the other hand, call me a Nazi or a Communist and you’ll wake up on the floor.
So, claiming that calling a dwarf a midget (or vice versa) is insulting implies that dwarfs/midgets consider being a midget/dwarfs a degrading state i.e. they’re bigoted themselves against midgets/dwarfs.
There’s to much ego centrism today, with people expecting the entire world to know the minutia of their individual lives and subcultures and reacting with indignity when innocent and well meaning people transgress on some language category they never knew existed.
It’s often just plain bullying with dishonest people arbitrarily shifting naming conventions and attacking the others for using the term the dishonest people themselves once advocated. They use people’s desire not offend against them. It’s pretty sinister behavior.
Mumble-mumble decades ago I had the surreal experience of being lectured to the effect that “colored people” was a racist term while “people of color” was not…by a person working the National Association of Colored People booth. Apparently, the secret congress of language had voted that “colored people” was racist but not enough for the NAACP to pay the rebranding cost.
Every term becomes derogatory eventually. The euphemism treadmill.
The idea that renaming people’s or states e.g. midget –> “little people” will alter how people think about this a dangerously elitist idea. It rest on the preposition that the majority of the population are so feeble minded that they can have their cognition seriously altered just by a little marketing spin. It’s the viewpoint of a group of people who view the rest of us a little robots they can program.
It’s a false idea anyway. History is clear that realty shapes language more than language shapes our perception of language. Prior to the 1850s those with subnormal intellects where called poetically “touched.” Since touched was used as an insult, the nascent scientist of the day reached into their greek and coined the term, “idiot” (mind, little) as a shiny new scientific term. 20-30 years later idiot had mysterious become an insult so they shifted to latin and coined “moron”. Then “retarded”, then “mentally handicapped”, then “challenged”, and now “special.” At each stage the objective/nice term rapidly became the insult because the state of existence is undesirable for most and they will insult you with whatever label you slap on the state.
It also corrupts society. As Confucius observed, the first step to funcitoning society is naming things honestly. As Bug demonstrates, obscuring terms leads to confusion, mistrust and corruptions.