L.A. County Bans Use Of "Master/Slave" Term

SlashChick writes "In an interesting twist on political correctness, L.A. County has banned the use of the terms 'Master/Slave' (commonly used to denote hard drive arrangements.) According to Snopes.com, 'someone within the County bureaucracy... had taken offense at "master/slave" references and complained to the board.' L.A. County now requires that vendors working with the county remove all 'master/slave' references. Incredible. Read the full story."

Comments

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[Jhon]

They've got all the ideas they need. Our city government (I live in LA) has gone over the deep end. This is worse than their ban on "Lap Dances" at the local "mens clubs". The same solution used by the "Gentleman's Clubs" should work. Get enough signatures on a petition to force a ballot measure and FORCE the City Council to either spend dozens of millions of dollars to put it up for a vote or STFU about the issue.

Their job is to make sure the cops get paid and the street lights work. It is NOT to re-invent Think-Speak.

Thank God for the referendum.

Life Imitates Jokes

[noddyholder]

I've joked about this a few times at work when the (military) instructors I work with discuss the latest in command directed PC nuttiness. They can't use the term cockpit, it's a flight deck. Neither can they say white board or black board. Those are now officially marker boards and chalk boards. I used to joke that we can't use master/slave anymore due to a NAACP lawsuit against the computer industry. Guess it ain't a joke anymore.

Fed up with PC speak?

[pyite]

Orwell wrote an interesting piece entitled Politics and the English Language which shows how much more concerned people are with how things are said than successfully delivering the actual content of the message. It's an interesting read, check it out.

This isn't new.

[kaszeta]

Shows how patently ridiculous this story seemed at first.

Strangely, I didn't thin this was a farce, since I've lived through exactly this nonsense once before.

The year was 1993, and I was working as an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in their High Flux Isotope Reactor. While I was there we got visited by the Secretary of Energy (Hazel O'Leary) and her "Science Advisor" Jim Hall (who later went on to chair the NTSB). The tour was notable for two reasons:

1. Jim Hall made a comment about how he was surprised that spent nuclear fuel assemblies from the reactor looked almost exactly like the new ones (aside from the inner and outer assemblies fresh out of the reactor, which were still glowing), since he thought "they'd look all black, like burnt wood."
2. A week later we got an official memo from Jim Hall, mentioning that during the visit "Hazel was disturbed by the use of the phrase 'Master/Slave Manipulator'" and suggested that "we shouldn't use that phrase anymore." I've still got a copy of this memo somewhere (along with the "radioactive frog" memo of some notoriety), if I find it I'll post a link to a scan as a followup.

Much lunchtime discussion over the next week resulted in a variety of alternative terminologies, including "master/bitch", "pimp/hoe", and "indentured servant." The last of these actually made it into some drawings, and the Powers That Be were not amused.

So no, I'm not surprised. Not one bit.

One example is one too many

[Hogwash McFly]

Being a resident of England (or should I say 'United Kingdom' in order not to alienate my Irish/Welsh/Scottish compatriates?) I have seen more than a lions share of political correctness. It seems like every week that I open up the newspaper to find a half amusing/half irritating article written about a particular group of people who seem to have a beef with the way they are 'labelled'.

Example Old Age Pensiors (OAPs) - 'We are offended by the name given us and see it as ageist. Therefore we would like to be known as Senior Citizens' (um, cause that doesn't refer to your age?)

I'm sure everyone out there in /.dom has has experienced the mailman/mailperson debacle.(milkman, garbage man etc. are all also valid)
Hey while we're at it, why not plurally refer to ourselves as Personkind! One small step for a person, one person-of-irregular-height leap for Personkind!

And it doesn't stop at there! A school in this banned sportsday because it is deemed as unfair to those who don't win. Aww boohoo so your little snotty kid lost the egg and spoon race, we better give 'em all a medal, cause 'EVERYONE'S A WINNER!'

Mothercare have, or were going to, release an updated version of Humpty Dumpty in which the poor egg shaped fellow was put back together and lived happily ever after in order to protect children from a perilous dilemma. I know I'm taking this political correctness thread off on a bit of a mollycoddle tangent, but they're all related to one thing - The Bubble Wrapped Society.

Truth is stranger than fiction

[unassimilatible]

Will we not be able to have male and female ends on our 1/4" audio cable for fear of offending the transgendered?

Courtesy of yesterday's opinionjournal.com Best of the Web Today (which also reported on the master/slave controversy):

Meanwhile, the Chicago Maroon reports the University of Chicago is facing a problem with students who aren't potty-trained. Nate Claxton, who appeared on a panel at the university's Center for Gender Studies, said that, in the Maroon's words, he "knew people who had contracted bladder infections because choosing a gender bathroom bothered them so much that they did not go to the bathroom all day." Here are some more highlights from the panel:

Members of Feminist Majority, Queers & Associates, and the Center for Gender Studies organized the panel as part of the Coalition for a Queer Safe Campus. "Going to the bathroom is a moment where definition is very important in choosing a door," said Mary Anne Case, one of the panelists.

She pointed out that many women's restrooms have a caricature of a person in a dress on it. "Going into it implies that we are willing to be associated with that image. There are only two [images] to choose from. This moment involves an act of self-labeling."

The feminists, "queers" and gender studiers want unisex bathrooms:

Ana Minyan, the moderator of the panel, said that bathrooms will be called gender-neutral, rather than co-ed, because, "this terminology is generally used to refer to two sexes while the gender-neutral tends to be associated with more diversity and fluidity within the sex-gender continuum. As our aim is to make everyone, no matter what their gender and/or sexual persona is, more comfortable, we are using the term gender-neutral."

One Roger Simon thinks it's a great idea: "I believe that if all parts of the body were treated equally, and there was not so much emphasis on genitalia, than people could move beyond gender differences and grow mentally and socially." Well, call us small-minded, but the idea of going to the bathroom and having a girl at the next urinal doesn't exactly put us at ease.

Political correctness, like other totalitarian ideologies, demands absolute purity.
-- James Taranto

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[Zeinfeld]

The Civilian Conservation Corps.?

Concerned Citizens Councils. They had a similar relationship to the KKK that Sinn Fein has to the IRA. They are basically two sides to the same coin, the public acceptable face is used for recruiting and the other side of the coin does the threats and murder.

BTW The reason why Senator Byrd is not attacked by Democrats or the NAACP for having been a member of the KKK is that 1) it is now a VERY long time ago and 2) he has publicly and repeatedly repudiated both the KKK in particular and the idea of racism. Compare this to Senators Thurmond and Helms, neither of whom ever repudiated their seggregationist positions, they merely downplayed them.

As for the reason why the Democrats and Republicans changed places? It was a short term political gambit by Nixon. In the aftermath of the civil rights act Nixon launched the 'southern strategy'. This was centered on wellcoming segregationists into the Republican party. The result was that Nixon got elected and the Republican party became the party of pandering to racists.

I have no idea why they wanted to do that, long term it is a major handicap. Population trends are not good for the Republican party. There are not too many homophobes, racists and other bigots in the 21 to 40 age group.

Re:For the love of all that's good and holy

[Experiment 626]

The result was that Nixon got elected and the Republican party became the party of pandering to racists. I have no idea why they wanted to do that, long term it is a major handicap. Population trends are not good for the Republican party.

I disagree. I think that on the whole, if you were to take a sampling across the political spectrum and ask whether people should be treated the same regardless of their race or color, you would get a lot more "yes" replies from Republicans. Democrats, on the other hand, would reject this philosophy in favor of an affirmative-action approach, swinging the pendulum of discrimination the other way instead of putting it behind us once and for all. Unfortunately for them, I think the former position has broader (though perhaps less vocal) support among mainstream voters.

So if by "racists" you mean Nazis and Klan members, then perhaps they do vote Republican, but if you look at racism in the broader sense of basing the treatment and opportunities you give to people on the color of their skin, then the Democratic party would certainly be the larger bastion for racism in America.