America's #1 Online Cigar Auction
first, best, biggest!

Seattle officials call for ban on 'potentially offensive' language
Published August 02, 2013

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

KOMO-TV reports that the city's Office of Civil Rights instructed city workers in a recent internal memo to avoid using the words because some may find them offensive.

"Luckily, we've got options," Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights wrote in the memo obtained by the station. "For 'citizens,' how about 'residents?'"

In an interview with Seattle's KIRO Radio, Bronstein said the term "brown bag" has been used historically as a way to judge skin color.

"For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home," Bronstein said.

According to the memo, city employees should use the terms "lunch-and-learn" or "sack lunch" instead of "brown bag."

Bronstein told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens.

"They are legal residents of the United States and they are residents of Seattle. They pay taxes and if we use a term like citizens in common use, then it doesn't include a lot of folks," Bronstein said.

Seattle, however, isn't the only city with an eye on potentially disruptive words.

The New York Post reported in March 2012 that the city’s Department of Education avoids references to words like “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests because they could evoke “unpleasant emotions” among the students.

Dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to Paganism.

Officials said such exclusions are normal procedure, insisting it’s not censorship.

“This is standard language that has been used by test publishers for many years and allows our students to complete practice exams without distraction,” a Department of Education spokeswoman told the newspaper last year



Film at 11....

Oh, and did you Snopes this? Never mind, Victor will be along shortly.

Once again, you just gift wrapped this one for Victor. Can you make it any easier?

Screw Fox News. Everybody knows they are raciss and biased. I'm waiting for Chris Matthews to verify that news item.

^Where do you see any "outrage" in this thread?

I'm not saying they freeze up, but who knows how negative feelings brought up by connotations will affect someone taking on a test. It might only affect a small percentage of children with parents that have drilled in something about Halloween being the devil's holiday, or how Dinosaurs were never real, etc. It's not unreasonable to just avoid a possible issue (a student refusing to answer a question on religious beliefs, for instance) by omitting that language from a state-wide standardized test.

Sorry dp, I didn't mean to imply that this thread was full of outrage- only that, in general, people are overly concerned about political correctiveness. The euphemism treadmill affects every generation; it is not a new problem, if you can even call it that.

I don't use isom following a conversation with docrks. That's pc too. I quit using it out of respect and a new understanding.

In a related story, a generation of American young adults are in for a big freakin surprise when they first encounter a word that could potentially be deemed mildly offensive.

Film at 11.


You can say "film", right?

I mean, maybe I should have said video. Or visual documentation.
A little help please.

Le HockeyDad has not expressed outrage due to concern for all you people's feelings.

What the hell do you mean by "observation"? Are you saying he's some sort of mental patient? ****.

Hey me too! We should start a letter writing campaign.

I believe that douchebag is suspended but not banned yet, pending ARod's case. But douchebrownbag has been declared offensive.

Lol

And stuff

LMAO@sack lunch and "stuff"...
What a buncha hypersensitive cows we've become.

Agree with TW's overall assesment though. Thing is, one has always had to show a modicum of decorum and manners in order to effectively operate in polite society. Now, the world is upside down however, with folks adorned with body modifications who barely know how to hold an eating implement, dress appropriately, or even write a grammatically correct, declarative sentence, yet insist on the "proper" (pc) usage of words... A little common sense all around would be useful.

Only 102? You've got 94 or so (depending on who is doing the counting) to go. Barely halfway there.

You live in Canada?

Nope but I do occasionally work there.

Brownbag Please Outrage

Getting upset?
Uh, I didn't realize that posting an opposing viewpoint qualified as getting upset. And apparently we shouldn't even discuss the topic unless it affects us directly.
Thank goodness you set that straight.

And as for using "any" word? No. I can't.
But when those who make the rules go out of their way to look for perceived offenses, it is simply going too far.
And the fact that it was a government and not a PRIVATE organization?

You know it's ridiculous.

I'm sure someone, somewhere finds that offensive.

Obviously a lawyer thing...

Actually, that's this exact discussion.

The general public need to understand that we're not entitled to live life free of being offended.
We can discuss degrees of offensive behavior or verbiage, however, and on a scale of 1 to 10 the term "brown bag" likely falls between 1 and zero.

Yet we have a government body deem it necessary to eliminate this term from their vocabulary.
And we have some who support this decision.

They have the right to make these rules. I understand that.
But if they're not openly ridiculed then what's next? And where?
Because before too long it will be our own local politicians spouting the same stupidity.

I would have never know about the brown bag thing if it hadn't been brought up... I always thoguht it was away to take lunch somewhere....

I heard things. I dunno... I heard Drafter puts a price on guys' heads & whacks 'em and stuff.

Drafter either whacks 'em or get's 'em off with a stiff warning.