Activity 4.5

As I read the Pinker (2002) article this week I found myself writing lots of notes responding to what he was saying.

"People have no trouble overriding a stereotype when they have good information about an individual" (Pinker, 2002, p.204). This statement is in direct opposition to what I've frequently learned about the nature of stereotypes. I was always taught that when we find an individual who does not fit our stereotype we think of this individual as an exception to the rule. This probably has to do with what James says, in that it's easier to fit these people in our categories rather than creating new categories all together.

Do we change all terms merely to freshen them or is there more purpose to the change?

"Give a concept a new name, and the name becomes colored by the concept; the concept does not become freshened by the name" (Pinker, 2002, p. 213). I used to struggle with name changes and what the current PC word of the day was. I have come to understand that although changing the name does not change the category or the stereotypes associated with them, it displays respect for the individual. Further, I believe groups who are discriminated against are the only ones to say what is or what is not offensive. In my opinion even though many such words do change there are some words that are always offensive and only ever said to degrade and hurt others.

Here is a clip of a very good example (or bad, depending on how you look at it) that changing terms is more than just "tinkering" with terms to reengineer people's attitudes (Pinker, 2002).
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/08/12/full-audio-dr-laura-schlessingers-n-word-rant/169161
*There is a very serious and offensive word spoken in this video so if you don't want to hear it please feel free to just read the article around the sound clip.