Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Excuse me while I remove my foot from my mouth

Has anyone else noticed how easy it is to stick your foot in your mouth these days? Its only been made easier by the level of political correctness that modern day America requires. Lately, I feel the news has been bombarded with examples of famous people having to apologize for saying relatively innocuous things. And even if it is offensive to you why not just ignore it and move on?

Now I'm not in Dick's fan club or anything, but I did feel bad for the guy when he joked that he had Cheneys on both sides of his family and he wasn't even from West Virginia. All of a sudden West Virginians were outraged about this slight to people from their state. If it it isn't true why care, I think one could say they object too much (because its true?).

Today I noticed there were at least two main stories both about people not being as politically correct as some would prefer. First, there was Don Imus who apparently insulted a black NFL player on his show. I read the entire excerpt from the show as opposed to the section conveniently clipped by most news orgs and it didn't seem to be in bad form, except for maybe using the word "color" to describe a person. Then again other people are offended by race, some by ethnicity and even others by nationality, so go figure what is the appropriate term for talking about anything of this nature. Check out what the Lede blog from NYT said here.

The other was about Michelle Obama and her image problem. Ever since her infamous "Today is the first day I feel proud about my country" bit everyone has been hammering into her. I for the record loved the fist pump she gave the night of the announcement of his official candidacy, I only wish she had blown it up like my friend Betsey taught me to do. Now lately she's been accused of being an angry black woman and now needs a full-time staff just to fend off all the flack from her non-political correctness. Luckily she went on the View and chatted it up about kids' clothes and Target so we can all sleep safely at night knowing that one of our Presidential candidates' wives is not a terrorist.

Given the recent passing of George Carlin who said the truth and loved political incorrectness it made me realize how much I enjoy getting away from watching my Ps and Qs and saying whatever I feel like. Its partially why I love the Office: no censorship. "If it's Stanley's car, call my lawyer and find out if he does hate crimes." Classic and funny and no one was hurt during the making of that episode, except a few watermelons.

3 comments:

betsey said...

It is so true! If Osama bin Laden appeared on the View and talked about Target and how expensive grocery's stores and gas are, I know that I personally would feel better about him. It's like that section in Us Magazine, "Stars: They're just Like Us." It makes the world a better place to see Angelina Jolie pick her wedgie or Jennifer Lopez take her garbage to the street (note: These are not action titles from US Magazine, I doubt that either of these events have ever happened). It would do much for the terror suspects to appear in like columns.

Unknown said...

I LOVED the shout out to Betsey about blowing it up.

And I am so glad that Michelle Obama went on The View to prove that she loves puppies and flowers and kittens and the color pink and she's a MOM, y'all. Why is it campaigns are STILL trying to put a box around the candidates wives and solely label them as wives and mothers? I mean, I think she went to, I dunno, Harvard Law or something.

DRE DAWG said...

Political incorrectness is fun when you mean it to be fun. I was stitting at a table with friends when one was looking at the features on an iPhone. This person asked what the feature Jive Talk was and I immediately responded it was for black people. This person gave me a smack on my arm and everyone else had a slightly horrified with a small smile attached face on. Being an avid fan of the movie Airplane and just loving that scene where the two black passengers speak jive to each other, I thought nothing of my comment. I can't stop laughing right now. I love it when June Cleaver acts as translator between the stewardess and one of the guys speaking jive. If iPhone had a feature called Hommie Talk I would have said it was for gang bangers. Spanglish Talk - Mexicans. Dirty Talk - Mexicans again...ay..Just Kidding!!!!!