12-05-2003, 06:06 PM
I read this in my paper yesterday and found it interesting.
Quote:Cracker. Chink. Spook.
They're just words. They have definitions; the ones you'll find in the dictionary. And they can also be used as ethnic slurs; words hurled to hurt.
Used the wrong way at the wrong time, in front of the wrong people - or the media - these slurs can be career-enders, and rightfully so.
But somehow we've gone from being sensitive about race to downright touchy.
The list of words we dare not speak grew recently, thanks to a few hypersensitive souls in California.
The words "slave" and "master" are now verba non grata in Los Angeles County.
The county has asked suppliers to remove those words from computer equipment, saying they're offensive.
In the computer world, "master" is the primary hard disk drive, and "slave" is the secondary drive.
"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," wrote Joe Sandoval, the county's division manager of purchasing and contract services, to county vendors.
Sandoval's memo came after a worker saw a videotape machine labeled "master" and "slave" and filed a discrimination complaint with the county's Office of Affirmative Action Compliance.
"We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment components that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature," the memo said.
According to Reuters News Service, Dennis Tafoya, director of the affirmative action office, said in an another memo that the county had done an "exhaustive search" to find all such labels and replace them with more "appropriate" ones.
What's next for the chopping block? Motherboard - for fear some people will think the computer is talking about their momma?
I cringe when other people say this, but I'll say it anyway: This is political correctness run amok.
Usually when white people say political correctness has gone too far, they're lamenting the death of a day when the sins of prejudice and bigotry could be committed without comment.
Behind the complaint is a pout and a stomped foot, as if to say, "How dare I be forced to expand my small mind?"
But this time the PC charge fits.
It was equipment that was labeled - not people. There was no sale, real or pretend, of humans, no college kids in blackface, not even a reference to "you people."
Just computer equipment, named to describe the relationship between the two disk drives.
This injection of race into issues that have nothing to do with race, it kills any hope of candid discussion between black and white people.
Somehow, our diligence at ridding the workplace from discrimination and bias has disintegrated to a place where mere computer labels have become targets.
PCs shouldn't have to be this PC.