More professional victims whinge (20 Feb, 2019)

[aardvark_admin]

This column is archived at: https://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2019/0220.shtml

Less than two weeks ago I highlighted how being a "victim" was now becoming very popular.

Today, as if to make that point even more strongly, the news media contains another couple of examples of people or groups who seem to be "shocked" or outraged that they can't have everything their own way. Poor wee snowflakes!

What's the difference between "No Dogs" and "No family staying over"? Given that this is one area where Maori culture differs significantly from many other cultures,was it unreasonable to restate this restriction to someone who identifies as Maori?

And how about the great Whittaker's/Plunket campaign to upset the gender-fluid and intersex communities? Sigh!

Seriously, does anyone else remember the good old days when "men were men... and women were men too!"?

[Muscular Jam]

I saw the article about the chocolate and considered sending it to you. The stuff article also had a vote response and I noticed when I voted that 90% were saying it was no big deal

[par_annoyed]

That chocolate story got me a telling off.... why ? Because I started to read the story and exclaimed "FOR F**K'S SAKE !!!" rather loudly.

The Maori story also seems quite reasonable to me - given the circumstances, I don't see why it's racist at all.

Some people are of the opinion that all this 'snowflake' stuff is really about control (1984 style).
The way things are going, I wonder if those people have a point. It's ridiculous to me.
Next thing we'll be like the US and demand removal of statues somehow deemed 'offensive' by the snowflakes.

Last week one of my friends was saying how you can't ask a woman at a job interview whether she plans to have a family.
My response was that it should be fine if you ask the men as well, but apparently not. Why ?
Isn't it good planning (or even necessary for small business) to ask if a potential employee may have a long term absence ?
No ? Um...O.K.

I have a big problem with "them" as a genderless pronoun.
Why? I can't get over the fact that 'them' is plural, and it sounds to me like you're referring to a schizophrenic.

[Malcolm]

Well the landlord certainly screwed up. They only told her those rules after finding out she was Maori. If the landlord had stipulated the rules from the beginning without inquiring about ethnicity it wouldn't be an issue. It seems in this case it is the landlord being the snowflake. Especially in the wider context of the discrimination Maori people face in day to day society, both historically and today.
As for the Chocolate, the simple solution would be for Whittakers to have a small number of the blocks be an indeterminate colour. Maybe yelllow or a mixture of pink and blue. Also How many babies in Plunkett's care are not identified as male or female?

[hagfish]

If someone were ever to mis-gender me, I'd correct them, then rush off and grow a beard and/or bedeck myself with a few more masculine signifiers. It's never happened yet, so it's not something I lose any sleep over.

I've met people over the years where guessing their preferred pronoun is something of a line-call. Generally speaking, these people have gone out of their way to appear androgynous. I'm not going to be rude, but neither am I going to shrivel up from shame if I guess wrong. Throw me a bone! Put on some lippy

I can't see myself ever meeting someone for the first time, and straight-out asking zhem "what pronoun do you lead with?" or whatever today's ortholexia* is, but intersex people are tricky. As they become more prevalent and visible, society will have to sort something out. Sometimes it takes a few firebrands on the fringes to move the centre, but sometimes those firebrands risk pushing the centre away.

*don't bother looking it up - I coined it just now

[aardvark_admin]

Well the landlord certainly screwed up. They only told her those rules after finding out she was Maori. If the landlord had stipulated the rules from the beginning without inquiring about ethnicity it wouldn't be an issue.

Would that be any different to the landlord seeing an RSPCA sticker on a prospective tenant's car and asking "you do realise that we don't allow pets?"

It seems in this case it is the landlord being the snowflake. Especially in the wider context of the discrimination Maori people face in day to day society, both historically and today.

How do you figure that? The landlord has a right to impose conditions on the tenancy and the "no family" doubless applies to people of *any* race so he's not being discriminatory at all.

As for the Chocolate, the simple solution would be for Whittakers to have a small number of the blocks be an indeterminate colour. Maybe yelllow or a mixture of pink and blue. Also How many babies in Plunkett's care are not identified as male or female?

Seriously? Whittaker's should make special blocks of indeterminate coloured chocolate just to avoid offending the easily offended? Hell, even at the end of summer I'm only lightly brown (not white but nothing more than beige) so should I expect them to make a block that represents me? Of course not.

What's next, will someone complain because Whittaker's peppermint chocolate is brown with a white centre -- perhaps implying that all Maori are somehow pakeha inside? LOL. Oh the outrage!

[hiscoca]

I dont really care about all this twisted gender stuff but if they make it compulsory then I will be reaching for the ammo box ahead of the soap box or ballot box

[Malcolm]

Well the landlord certainly screwed up. They only told her those rules after finding out she was Maori. If the landlord had stipulated the rules from the beginning without inquiring about ethnicity it wouldn't be an issue.

Would that be any different to the landlord seeing an RSPCA sticker on a prospective tenant's car and asking "you do realise that we don't allow pets?"

It seems in this case it is the landlord being the snowflake. Especially in the wider context of the discrimination Maori people face in day to day society, both historically and today.

How do you figure that? The landlord has a right to impose conditions on the tenancy and the "no family" doubless applies to people of *any* race so he's not being discriminatory at all.

They didn't impose the condition until they learned the prospective tenant was Maori. Given the fact that she had friends face racial discrimination in the past, to the point some had resorted to using anglicized names to avoid it. It is not surprising people are seeing this as a racism issue.
Also pet owner is not a protected class like racial background is.

[phill]

Well the landlord certainly screwed up. They only told her those rules after finding out she was Maori. If the landlord had stipulated the rules from the beginning without inquiring about ethnicity it wouldn't be an issue. It seems in this case it is the landlord being the snowflake. Especially in the wider context of the discrimination Maori people face in day to day society, both historically and today.
As for the Chocolate, the simple solution would be for Whittakers to have a small number of the blocks be an indeterminate colour. Maybe yelllow or a mixture of pink and blue. Also How many babies in Plunkett's care are not identified as male or female?

short of adding mega clauses as to what could be a problem for them living with a boarder / tenant of unknown age / origin / religion / ethnicity or culture what and how they addressed it was reasonable
to call them racists when they had already had a 'maori' tenant before is to me a logic conflict

as for the chocolate
pink means girl .. blue means boy
multicoloured means doubling at least the cost of manufacture
to be tasked for this when its a special one off for a beneficial charity is to me a cause desperately searching for some way to be offended so they can get press column space and to hell with who or what they destroy in the process`
also as gender reveal occasions are pretty much always done before the baby is born .. the answer normally comes from a scan which doesn't have any guarantee of complete accuracy anyway

[greven]

Is the outrage actually a sneaky marketing campaign?