Political Correctness Tag

“Yesterday Brandeis University decided to withdraw an honorary degree they were to confer upon me next month during their Commencement exercises. I wish to dissociate myself from the university’s statement, which implies that I was in any way consulted about this decision. On the contrary, I was completely shocked when President Frederick Lawrence called me—just a few hours before issuing a public statement—to say that such a decision had been made.... “What did surprise me was the behavior of Brandeis. Having spent many months planning for me to speak to its students at Commencement, the university yesterday announced that it could not “overlook certain of my past statements,” which it had not previously been aware of. Yet my critics have long specialized in selective quotation – lines from interviews taken out of context – designed to misrepresent me and my work. It is scarcely credible that Brandeis did not know this when they initially offered me the degree. “What was initially intended as an honor has now devolved into a moment of shaming. Yet the slur on my reputation is not the worst aspect of this episode. More deplorable is that an institution set up on the basis of religious freedom should today so deeply betray its own founding principles. The 'spirit of free expression' referred to in the Brandeis statement has been stifled here, as my critics have achieved their objective of preventing me from addressing the graduating Class of 2014. Neither Brandeis nor my critics knew or even inquired as to what I might say. They simply wanted me to be silenced. I regret that very much.

Jerry Seinfeld, the most successful comedian in the world and maker of comedy for and about white people, isn't interested in trying to include non-white anything in his work.

When asked why he featured so many white men in his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee during a Buzzfeed interview on CBS This Morning, Seinfeld seemed offended by the very question. "It really pisses me off," he said. "People think [comedy] is the census or something, it's gotta represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares?"

BuzzFeed Business Editor Peter Lauria seemed hesitant to pursue the frank answer, but the comedian continued on anyway. "Funny is the world that I live in. You're funny, I'm interested. You're not funny, I'm not interested," he said. "I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that." He seems to suggest that any comedian who is not a white male is also not funny, though he's also likely fed up with the amount of bad comedy he's been forced to sit through in his (waning) career.

Which is too bad, because Seinfeld is downplaying the work of everyone from Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby to Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, and Eddie Huang, who are all in various stages of their own sitcoms that just might turn out to be the next Seinfeld....

In conclusion: Yes, comedy should represent the entire pie chart of America, and the glorious, multicolored diversity pie should be thrown directly at Jerry Seinfeld's face.

No, you fool, Seinfeld isn't denigrating anyone.  He's saying that we should judge comedians by the quality of their comedy, not the color of their skin.

Where did I hear something similar to that before?  Definitely not at Gawker.

Clearly buffoons are in charge of the school and the district, but what does that have to do with Obama? The answer is that these buffoons are following orders from Washington. In April 2011 Russlynn Ali, then assistant education secretary for civil rights, issued a directive in which she threatened to withhold federal money from any educational institution that failed to take a hard enough line against sexual misconduct to ensure "that all students feel safe in their school." The directive's preamble declared: "The sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence, interferes with students' right to receive an education free from discrimination and, in the case of sexual violence, is a crime." ... "If a school knows or reasonably should know about student-on-student harassment that creates a hostile environment, Title IX [of a 1972 civil rights law] requires the school to take immediate action to eliminate the harassment, prevent its recurrence, and address its effects," Ali wrote. The music teacher and other school officials were faithfully if ridiculously executing that command when they investigated the tip from the kids who tattled.

In Vancouver, the doorknob is heading into a setting sun. Its future has been date-marked, legislated out of existence in all future construction, a tip to society’s quest for universal design and the easier-to-use lever handle. And as it goes in Vancouver, so will it go in B.C., Canada, and perhaps even the world..... And, as doorknobs go, so too will go those other ubiquitous knobs, the ones that turn on and off water faucets. For they too are being legislatively upgraded to levers more conducive to the arthritic, gnarled or weakened hands we earn with age. In September, Vancouver council adopted new amendments to its building code, effective next March, that, among other things, will require lever handles on all doors and lever faucets in all new housing construction.