Political correctness run amok?
By The Horse
@TheHorse (220275)
Walnut Creek, California
July 20, 2016 7:30pm CST
It doesn't bother me when bomb-clock-building kids get to visit the White house and I don't. And it doesn't bother me when a recent US Santa Cruz graduate tells me I'm racist because I call my black friends black, not African American.
But when political correctness undermines my gustatory pleasures, that's another matter. One of my great joys every week is visiting Everett & Jones BBQ in Berkeley after working at the preschool. It's some of the best BBQ I've ever had. I usually get a BBQ beef sandwich (with hot sauce) and a Coke.
The last two times I was there, I had a BBQ Beef sandwich and water. There were no soft drinks in the cooler. Today, I asked if the cooler was broken. The girl (so sorry--I meant "woman") behind the counter informed me that the City of Berkeley was imposing a tax on those who served soft drinks, and that they therefore had to stop serving Coke, A&W root beer, and 7-up. Berkeley wants its citizens to eat and drink healthier. Oakland is doing the same thing.
I launched into a The Horse-style angry rant about how that's fine at schools, but we're adults and should be able to make our own decisions about such things, and so on. My server (who knows me well enough to smile warmly and say, "the usual?" when I come in ) agreed with me. What next? Will Everett & Jones, a small, black-owned ma and pa business that is something of an institution in the Bay Area, be forced to serve only BBQ carrots and broccoli, because their current fare is cruel to pigs, cows, and chickens?
I love pigs, cows and chickens. But I also like to eat them. Has political correctness adversely affect your life at your own ground zero? I'm going to go to the store and buy a 12-pack of Coke after I write this. You don't mess with The Horse.
21 people like this
16 responses
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
21 Jul 16
One of the fast food chains in England stopped selling ham or pork because it was offensive to Muslims. This is outrageous because England is not a Muslim country.
The establishments that sell Halal food never worry whether it may offend Christians.
6 people like this
@TheHorse (220275)
• Walnut Creek, California
21 Jul 16
@Mike197602 And some butchers are 100% Kosher. Maybe they just changed because a lot of Muslims moved into their neighborhood (am I playing devil's advocate?).
1 person likes this
@Mike197602 (15512)
• United Kingdom
21 Jul 16
@TheHorse It is 100% true. I know this for a fact so you can believe it....coming from another UK person.
There are signs on the door saying halal and such.
2 people like this
@Mike197602 (15512)
• United Kingdom
21 Jul 16
I'll go back and re-read this but today seems to be mike's stupid day
So far I've seen @jabo say vignette and now you say gustatorial or whatever it was...I had to look both terms up.
Can't mylot members just use normal words so the less intelligent amongst us can understand them
So far I've seen @jabo say vignette and now you say gustatorial or whatever it was...I had to look both terms up.
Can't mylot members just use normal words so the less intelligent amongst us can understand them4 people like this
@TheHorse (220275)
• Walnut Creek, California
21 Jul 16
@Mike197602 I'm so sorry. I can't take your opinion seriously because you suffer from "white male entitlement issues." You have to take a training so you can be labeled "culturally competent," like I did at one of my jobs.
1 person likes this
@blitzfrick (2890)
• United States
21 Jul 16
Totes agree!
[Though I prefer being called a woman myself, you know, because I went thru at least 14 years to become one and then a there were all those years of monthly cramps, interrupted by two cesarean sections to have kids and then bunch more years of growing up and old to add to my womanhood resumé to earn the title of Woman.]
Still, in spite of the "woman" terminology argument, I feel that the incident you've reported is just going too too far! Also, I'm a bit incensed at the casual labelling of White People as racist just because we say Black instead of African American. It's just too hard to keep up with the "proper" terminology.
But messing with food choices of adults? Totally over the line. I think I will go now and get a Coke out of the vending machine here at the senior center. Cheers! 
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (220275)
• Walnut Creek, California
22 Jul 16
Atta girl! I mean, you are a strong woman who stands up for her rights. Oh, there's only apple and cranberry juice in the vending machine? So sorry.
The girl/woman thing is a funny one for me. I went to college at a hippy/liberal small college and called my college woman friends "women." When I got to UCSB for Graduate School, the students I TAed kept correcting me: "You mean girls, as in college girls?" Sigh. I have been a confused American man ever since.
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (220275)
• Walnut Creek, California
23 Aug 16
@blitzfrick I LIKE being called "hon" or "sweetie," even if the person doing it isn't a blue hard lady who just stepped out of a Tom Waits song. To me, it's kind of old school and fun.
1 person likes this
@blitzfrick (2890)
• United States
28 Jul 16
@TheHorse I is difficult to keep up with the trends. This morning a food service worker called me "honey". Oh how I detest that over-familiar term, along with Hon, Dear, Sweetie, etc. For me, it's a (very) personal thing to be recognized as a woman and not addressed in a diminuitive term. I have enjoyed terms of endearment from lovers in the past, though. Sugar booger? Bring it on!
1 person likes this
@PainsOnSlate (21852)
• Canada
21 Jul 16
Loved your rant but (sorry) I think pop, soda, any of that is poisoning North America.. I've never heard of a state taking that stance but with all the beauty in your state I can understand their fear that California will grow very fat if they let it continue...
3 people like this
@PainsOnSlate (21852)
• Canada
21 Jul 16
@coffeebreakwhatever I worked for weight watchers in the Us for years, I was amazed at the number of women that lived on soda, pop, with sugar. I know it was probably consumed with snack foods but it blew me away to hear anyone can consume 12 bottles , or cans a day. I was blessed, I can't drink, and never could consume anything with bubbles...
1 person likes this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
21 Jul 16
We are one of the healthiest of the states, partially because we are encouraging healthy behaviors. But making those who do not over-indulge pay more because others are gluttons, isn't the way to go, in my opinion. I no longer drink any soft drinks, so I won't be paying more, but good grief, most things are bad in excess.
2 people like this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
21 Jul 16
Wow. That is awful. I stopped drinking soft drinks at all, for health reasons. But, I think this is not the way to go. If they applied this to all beverages, I would have to stop eating Mexican food. I won't eat it without a Margarita. What would be the point?
2 people like this
@teamfreak16 (43418)
• Denver, Colorado
21 Jul 16
I haven't seen anything to that extent, but I'm sure it's just around the corner.
2 people like this
@Deepizzaguy (104192)
• Lake Charles, Louisiana
22 Jul 16
@TheHorse I have been called The Joker by some humanoids who never understood old school humor like the late Bob Hope and the late Red Skelton among other comics.
1 person likes this
@koopharper (7601)
• Canada
21 Jul 16
Things like this are happening more and more and it is getting worrisome. I'm an adult and I'm quite capable of making my own decisions.
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (220275)
• Walnut Creek, California
21 Jul 16
@coffeebreakwhatever It also hurts small businesses like Everett&Jones (which happens to be a black owned family business). All eating establishments make a large chunk of their money selling beverages with their food.
1 person likes this
@JamesHxstatic (29413)
• Eugene, Oregon
25 Jul 16
So why did they not do the usual business thing and pass the tax along to the customers? That is the usual course.
1 person likes this
@Bella128 (2471)
• United States
21 Jul 16
There's too much PC stuff out in the world and I know "black people" personally that have stated they don't like being called "African-American" because they don't consider themselves to be... they consider themselves to just be AMERICAN! It's at the point though you really can't hold a conservation with someone about someone's race... for an example trying to explain what someone looks like.... unless you know the person very well. We live in an over sensitive overly PC world these days!
1 person likes this
@TheHorse (220275)
• Walnut Creek, California
21 Jul 16
One of my black friends (who holds a Ph.D. in Biology from University of California at Berkeley) told me to call him black, not African American, if I had to describe him. He went to Africa to study snakes said the culture there is different enough from here that he doesn't identify as African. This was before I learned from my friend's (white) friend that I was racist.
2 people like this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
21 Jul 16
@TheHorse We should stop using adjectives in front of the word American. They don't appear in the Constitution and just cause problems when used.
2 people like this
@ElizabethWallace (12074)
• United States
21 Jul 16
@TheHorse That is a polite way of describing them. 
2 people like this
@Deepizzaguy (104192)
• Lake Charles, Louisiana
22 Jul 16
I cannot stand this politcial correctness garbage. We are all Americans not hypended Americans. It takes simple words that in my opinion are not offensive and makes them more compicated. I always tell my haters "This is not a dictatorship."
1 person likes this
@Deepizzaguy (104192)
• Lake Charles, Louisiana
22 Jul 16
@TheHorse I know what you mean. Author Mark Dice said many people have lost their jobs for telling the truth like Curt Schilling.
1 person likes this
@Hanyouyomi (2187)
• Dallas, Texas
1 Aug 16
Well Mr. Horse, I can safely assume that "No sir, you don't like this." And to be honest, I had forgotten this was happening. And it's like you said:"It's fine to do that at schools, but we're adults." The problem is the general person in America doesn't know how to avoid getting fat, so it seems the Government has taken it upon itself to impose measures to ensure people eat healthy.
So if you want someone to blame, blame the government for training the masses to be slaves to their whims.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
22 Jul 16
I had a black, yes, black, professor in my master's program, wonderful man and a doctor, anyways, told us he found African American offensive, it assumes African origins. He was Jamaican american, and was fine being...American. He said yes, he'd seen racism, but the day he used his skin to define himself, was the day he was also racist.
1 person likes this
