The importance of political correctness

The very mention of the phrase "political correctness" makes a lot of people express displeasure in a variety of ways (smirk, laugh, get angry). They tend to favor open and genuine conversation rather than nuanced "correctness." There is definitely something to be said about such open exchange. It can often build bridges and foster understanding between different groups of people. While it may sound painful, often it can, in the long run, be more constructive than just being "pc" - which really makes sure that nobody hurts anybody for the length of the immediate interaction - specifically through the inappropriate use of language.

However, there is a lot more to it than that. I recently had a couple of unpleasant experiences, which have made me think. In one, I had a student, A, say something to me - that she perceived to be funny - but I found offensive. I knew she did not intend any offense, and was just being clumsy with words. It lead to her apologizing and we had a really good talk afterwards, about the importance of language and how words take on different meanings in different situations, thus requiring us to be careful with usage - even when we are sure about what we are saying and intend no harm.

Ironically, that very night I landed up being the perpetrator and made a statement to a friend - which within the very nuanced context of our conversation was not at all offensive. We were discussing "class" and the inequalities and differential treatments that follow from the perception of this elusive quality - especially if a group of people pride themselves in having class and are in no perceptible ways any better than their peers. It is true that the word "class" is closely associated with history and heritage, but exploiting history and heritage (what many will call cultural capital) does not seem reasonable in a meritocracy. On the contrary, we associated the "lack of class" with a down to earth, no nonsense, approach to hard work. Achievement that stands for itself without the crutches of history to lean on.

Hence, when I made the statement to my friend "Group X does not have class" it was meant mostly as a compliment rather than an insult. It so happened that a member of group X, W', was close by - overheard my comment and . . . to make a long story short, was not at all pleased and was exceedingly rude and hurtful to me. My efforts at explaining to her the nuance of the conversation and the intention were ignored by her. A little more research into "group X" showed that they were a very class conscious society - viciously proud of and protective of their lifestyle. I had unknowingly stepped on a land mine, buried beneath generations of local and social tensions in a town that can be sliced and diced along many lines. Interestingly I had a similar conversation with another friend of mine, K', from the "group X" earlier that day and we had both heartily agreed that there was no concept of "class" among them and we had even laughed about it.

Needless to say, I caused pain, and was quite hurt by the woman's behavior. None of this would have happened if I had just been more pc and avoided constructing a statement that associates what is commonly perceived as a bad thing (lack of class) with a group of people, without quite knowing their history. Irrespective of my intention. Now of course, I did have the same conv. with K. Clearly, K and I, and A and I, have similar assumptions and even though we have different racial and ethnic heritages we share similar assumptions which allow conversation. W and I, unfortunately have different heritages and no similar assumptions - add to that our mutual ignorances about each other, and we have a politically incorrect pudding pie!! Hence, we need to be politically correct with each other, while K and A and I can afford to be communicative ad frank.

This was a painful lesson for me.

For the time being, I have planned to apologize to W, though I don't intend to interact further with her till she apologizes to me for her extremely rude reactions.

The bigger question is, should we avoid people who don't share similar assumptions to spare ourselves the pc stuff. Instead is it a better idea to mix and work more with the Ks and As of the world where there may be points of conflict, but almost always solutions of interest.

Moving

One slow step at a time.

Your 19" TV and my bookshelves fit in together to form our entertainment center. My plants are happy in their new perches and with their new friends who have arrived. Now we can take turns watering them. Your red vase seems to have been made to enhance my red couch - and for us to marvel about. The kitchen is looking charming and in spite of all your stuff that has come in, our kitchen seems to have so much more space than it ever did.

Moving - the slow steps from mine and yours to ours.

Back after a long hiatus

Hello everybody ...

Its been a long while since I posted. Somewhere in the middle of keeping up with my life, work, and play, my writing slipped from my list of things to do. Anyway, I do miss my blog and at least one (and may be only) of my readers has informed me that she has missed me too. So I will try to do a quick recap without boring details.

Its late summer now. The shadows are getting longer sooner and the sun is dipping earlier every day. But last month, when we were still at the peak of summer things were different. We spent long evenings on the local brewery deck. Dusk tiptoed in - around 9pm - and we watched the color of our pints of beer change as the last lingering rays of the sun shone through. And as the beer changed color, flocks of birds flew over us to seek rest, and the friendly bat appeared from a nook in the old building down the street - flying over us and swooping ever so low every time. It was still light at last call (11pm), and the western horizon had a hint of an orange glow as we lingered outside the friendly neighborhood pub - our pub - goofing around and bidding cheerful goodbyes before finally going home at midnight. And then there were days when we sat out on the deck and dark clouds gathered as an angry mid-west storm brewed with a brilliant play of thunder and lightning. We sat there and welcomed the first drops of rain - cooling our brows after a hot day, enjoying our beer, sometimes getting drenched, sometimes laughing at the passing clouds . . . and always the sun shone forth, through the darkest cloud.

But now . . . its pitch dark by midnight and a couple of nights back there was even a slight chill in the air. We are still sitting around and watching our beer change color, but we linger around less and every once in a while the conversation turns to syllabuses, new class prep, work, the new semester . . . An imperceptible sense of panic passes through us at the thought of a new semester, and the rush of all its demands. Its a short, but sure shudder. And as the shadows start growing longer sooner, the shudder lasts longer and we call it a night earlier. Alas! it definitely is late summer.

Its been a summer of promises and beginnings . . . What can be more exciting than finding love in a person you always desired and felt like you knew from long ago. You never considered there to be any promise of a relationship. Now you wonder why? You ask yourself why you wasted two years, and thank the lucky hand of fate - i.e. a gin and tonic, a crazy friend, and a sequined purple shirt - that made it all happen. And of course, how can you not thank Bach and his wonderful fugues. Because, had it not been for those loopy tunes what would you have spoken about - maybe nothing. Maybe if it wasn't for Bach, you would have simply stood around and blushed and felt silly about hovering around a "well established crush" who barely recognized you. Then again, would you have ever done that if it wasn't for a crazy friend with a self-declared expertise at "picking up men."

What a beautiful night it was ... and I did all of the above. Soon after there were dinner dates and pub dates and soon I was helping him vacuum and wash his car wondering what kind of a date that was - it wasn't - we had started to grow old together! A snowy spring and a brilliant summer later there is a relationship and a promise for the future.



. . . and I'll leave you on that note.

Memories

Its a cold snowy night. The woods in my backyard are still, yet strangely alive. Its silent but not dark. The blanket of snow is reflecting the light it absorbed all day - a memory of a day gone by. Tomorrow morning, when I will look out of my window, I will see footprints of deer that pranced around silently all night while I slept - memory of a night out.

I lie in bed watching the snow glowing on the bare branches outside my window - like cotton balls waiting to be picked. My thoughts stray. I think of the short summer nights when I'd be lulled to sleep by the wind - as it whispered sweet nothings to me at my window - while it gently rustled the million leaves on the very branches that - now stripped of all foliage - have fallen silent.

I reach for the phone.

The screen on my phone lights up in the dark, as memories of spring flash by. Love? Friendship? What was it? Maybe all it was, is the pain I feel. May be I do feel like crying and can't. May be ...

May be its just the glass of wine after dinner.

I put down the phone and continue to look at the still branch counting the memories of spring and the sweetness of a summer gone by.

Snowy afternoon

Its been a very hectic and depressing week. Hectic is expected... its that time of the year when school is drawing to a close and everybody is scrambling to get stuff done.

Depressing ... Sigh! No reason for it, nothing happened, it'll pass as it always does, after lingering for a bit. May be its just the weather. Its been snowing continuously for the last 3 days. The pictures on the left and right are taken from my living room window (the front street and the tree peeping in) and my bedroom window (looking at the woods behind my back yard) respectively.

Anyway, I decided to not be depressed and realized that there was a ton of fruits in my fridge that if not tended to soon would be heading to the trash. So out came the strawberries and blueberries and the apples. The berries got washed and sliced, and the apples got peeled and cored. I got out my baker's hat and within an hour the oven was baking a berry pie and an apple cider pudding cake :) (See pictures below). Now the whole place is smelling of apples and baking. That made me happy!

And then to make myself happier, I put up my Christmas Tree. See picture below. So now I have a tree lighting up my room with pretend gifts under it and a pie and a pudding sitting on my table with no one to eat them.

Oh well! At least I tried to cheer myself up.

Core 2 Duo

Well maybe getting 2 core 2 duo machines (one for my lab to run Redhat and the other on my MacBook Pro) this early, was not a great idea. Reasons:

* Redhat still has not come up with a stable version for core 2 duo - there is a beta version 5 - but its extremely unstable.

* Apple has a huge manufacturing back log and their delivery dates are getting more and more delayed. My purchase on 10/31 is yet to be shipped from Singapore.

So I have bought 2 new computers in the last three months, neither of which I can use. The Mac is yet to be delivered and the lab machine will have to wait to be used till Redhat version 5 becomes stable (Fedora has a semi-stable version for core duo 2, but my support does not want anything other than Redhat!!)

So if you are planning on buying a machine, hold off for a little bit on the core duo 2s.