Have we been socially engineered to be So tolerant to alien cultures that we've lost our own by stealth.?

Question

What straw could break the camels back and people demand the freedom to say whatever they like not matter which culture feels offended. We all know the jokes about the Scotsman, the Englishman and the Irishman, the bishop and the pope. Like them or not , they are funny and nobody rants in the streets with their plackards. Now you can't say Boo to a Goose because it might be ofended. So has tolerance gone to far.

Answer 1

As a American person of Anglo-European descent via immigrants who came here from the 1600's and 1800's I definitely feel that we have made a very wrong move when it came to melting into the pot called the United States in light of what is going on today.
We gave up our music, food, culture, languages, and social activities so easily and eagerly. Today, whether you're from Finland, Ireland, Italy, or Bulgaria, you're just "white."
Our very different cultures have been ground down to a single box on a form, yet if you are Hispanic you get to keep your culture and even get your own history month and have your language and culture subsidized. There is even a town on the Texas side of the Mexican border that voted to make it mandatory to do its official business in Spanish and no English!

Yet how can we fault the Hispanics? We all did this to ourselves and in the haste to become "American," whatever that means today. Our grandparents forbid native languages and forced our parents to speak English to get ahead. Today, more and more immigrant parents don't even try to speak English themselves and why should they? Even my voting card is also in Spanish. Older waves of immigration are forgotten . . . To be Irish is to drink green beer on St. Patties and wear green, if that. My Greek friend mourns the fact that her Grecian heritage seems to only exist on one festival weekend per year and her ornate church is surrounded by billboards, all in Spanish. I'm thankful we still have Amish communities, Octoberfests, Japanese cherry blossom festivals, St. Patrick's parades, Native American pow-wows, etc, by they seem to have become tourist attractions and less celebrations by their native communities many times.

Maybe it's just that I live in the southwest US and Texas now, although when back in NYC I saw so many areas where store and business signs weren't even translated into English anymore and you could hardly even see English to tell what country you might be in. After Katrina, a huge influx of illegal immigrants from south of the border make some there wonder if the unique African-American and creole flavour of New Orleans is due to become a quaint footnote in history I've read.

I just think that we would all feel less overwhelmed by rampant immigration from any one country if the rest of us had more of our own cultures evident in our lives and weren't so much of a boiled down stew being overcome by just one spice, so to speak.
I don't mean this in a racist way- I'm just as proud of my culture as many who come here lately are and wish my ancestors had not abandoned our roots- and yes, jealous that many from Mexico have felt so free to retain their's so completely.

Answer 2

You can't get respect unless you can give it. In addition, the USA is a melting pot, an amalgamation of other cultures, each ethnic group coming here adding its bit to the whole. Think of meeting someone from a different culture as a chance to learn something about your own. That said, I am quite in favor of the Philadelphia "steak" house posting a sign asking the customers to order in English, although it could have been expressed so as not to be as confrontational. Someone serving cheese steaks should not be expected to be a polyglot. Similarly, when I am overseas, I make an effort to pick up a few words of the local language, although longer conversations usually take place in French or English. One of the two is likely to be the only language that a diverse group has in common.

Answer 3

Absolutly to the extreem. It kills me when I read stories in the paper.

2 people shot to death in South Side neighborhood. The suspect was a man about 6'2" and fled in a red car. If you know anything about this crime please call police.

vs

Walgreens at the corner of x&y street was robbed last night. There were no injuries but 2,000. was taken from the register. The suspect fled the scene in a blue 2006 Ford Explorer. The suspect is a 6' white male of german decent with curly blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a navy hooded sweatshirt and jeans and white Nike tennis shoes. If you know anything about this person or have any information, please call police.

It gets old when it's "offensive" to even physically describe a person and not be able to say if they were black or hispanic or asian or any other give away that might discribe them more clearly.

Loved it when the lady that stole the baby was "white" and then when they put the sketch up you could see she was hispanic. And she was......but in the same breath it's "kill the Gringo" and Latino rights. I mean make up your mind. It's getting sickning. I mean there's things said to hurt people that aren't nice, but I'm tired of just about having anything said, even in humor or just a description not being PC.

My dad just told me to toughen up and grow a thick skin because everyone isn't gonna go through life without their feelings being hurt at one time or another.

Answer 4

Tolerant to other cultures? You must be joking. If we have it certainly isn't working. You only have to look around in here and see all the Muslim bashing that goes on.

A few years ago in my country a school bus with primary school children going to a Muslim school was stoned. That's right, adult people threw rocks at little kids. I am Australian and this is just about the most un-Australian act I could imagine.

If there is any socially-engineered tolerance going on I would like to know where it is so I could go there!

Answer 5

Political correctness is not tolerance. It is suppression of free speech. PCness is about conformity.

Tolerance happens when people are able to live with each other and genuinely accept differences.

PCness is all about people feeling too embarassed to tell stupid racist jokes because they might offend someone. But if the same people still do not want people who look different living next door to them then they are not tolerant, merely silent. It is not the same.

Answer 6

I'm fed up of all the pussyfooting around Muslims that goes on.

Non-Muslims only have to make a single racist remark about Muslims ands they get arrested. But noone arrests the Muslims who stand on soapboxes in London screaming about "Death to the West" and Jihad.

The reason people dislike Muslims is 9/11, 7/7, the recent bomb plots, Muslim policemen refusing to do their duty, Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri, Muslim taxi drivers refusing to carry guide dogs, all this fuss over veils, need I go on?

You open your mouth to criticise Islam and you get dragged over the coals. But they can criticise us.

Its s double standard.

And yes we used to be able to tell Englishman, Irishman, Scotsman jokes. These days you'd get arrested for racism!

Answer 7

It's the illegal aliens using our laws against us. When Americans really just ignored everyone before.

The Latinos sue at the drop of a hat.

They learned they can get money when they sue. If we breath sideways or say one word to them it's considered a Hate Crime.

We need to deport their illegal butts back to where ever they came from!

Answer 8

I have been writing about this for quite a while, and I totally agree any one who has spent any time among blacks have heard them say to one another "hey Niger do this or that, and so many other things, Mexicans say hey gringo, hey whitey, and other things, other races say the same things, yet, if a white says any thing that is not completely P,C, his butt, is in trouble, many whites have had their careers ruined because of the slightest so called offense, Tell me when the last time you heard a black, Mexican or any other race reprimanded for the most insulting offense, even on T,V, or the news media, when said against a white??
please keep this in the forefront and hope enough people will get the message, thanks

Answer 9

I am in total agreeance!!

It seems that things are more socially accepted then anothers.
People who smoke are now denied entry to places because they can't smoke inside, People ask smokers not to blow smoke near them, What about obese people? No one ever tells them to stop eating and go for a run, What is socially acceptable has changed and twisted so much now that if you " beaner" is more of a racist word then " gringo". And why is it ok for people to call white and black people " niggers"?
Tolerance has gone too far, Bring back good olden day respect!! Especially for our elders.

Answer 10

i agree, everyone is too easily offended, even if someone mentions their race, religion anything even their occupation.

to ditto:
the question was a general question about having to be too politically correct to different groups. and that latinos 'sue at the drop of a hat' is a statement with no foundation. most immigrants who come here don't sue for stupid things because in their country they weren't made believe that they deserved compensation for some small way they were wronged like we in the U.S. do.