Saturday, April 05, 2014
A provocation in Texas
A news channel used a foreign term that would not have been understood by most listeners. Protesting about that was "racist", allegedly
On March 11, KCBD News Channel 11 in Lubbock made a Facebook post announcing that a haboob was approaching the city. The post was responded with an uproar from enraged Texans who were offended by the use of the word “haboob,” rather than “sandstorm.”
One of the many irate comments read, “Since when do we need to apply a Muslim vocabulary to a good ole American dirt storm? I take great offense to such terminology! Go back to calling them dirt storms!”
Luckily, this clamor did not go unacknowledged, as fellow Texans responded and fought back with responses such as, “You realize your racist comments made are going viral and brought down Lubbock as a whole? You people are really just intolerant and racist.”
With that being said, the uproar on the KCBD Facebook wall reflected poorly on not only the lone star state but America. Feeling insulted by a term used more frequently in other parts of our world makes one appear uncultured.
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12 comments:
Know your audience. If you are a local paper and locals call it a sand storm, then call it a sand storm. I think the point of the article was to warn people of the upcoming weather event, not to have a global vocabulary lesson.
Intolerance in the name of tolerance, what a concept.
MDH
Hmmm. I wonder if those buffoons in Texas have a problem with algebra. After all it is from the Arabic al-jebr. I suppose once they realize that, they will call it that numbers thingy that I failed in high school.
The word "alcohol" is also derived from Arabic, so Texans better call it "fire-water".
What is the purpose of using a term that is not understood by most people ? Is that some sort of multi-cultural theme ?
The point that seems to be missed here is that when using an unfamiliar term it's a good practice to tell people what it means instead of leaving it open to misinterpretation.
The question is why did they use that term? What was the purpose? They may as well used Chinese or Russian. If the TV station ignores their viewers, they do so at their own expense.
Have to be careful using words people misunderstand. Remember the Washington, DC official because he used the word "niggardly"( means stingy or miserly) and a significant percentage of the town's population thought it meant a derogatory term for black people. I hate when people won't use a dictionary
It is not a matter of being uncultured you judgmental sanctimonious asshats. First off, since when do you need to be an expert in foreign languages to be able to understand an important weather alert? The coming of a sand storm is important information in Texas. It is not the time to try to make themselves seem more worldly and erudite, or to "broaden the horizons" of their audience. As for being "racist", Texas is a minority majority state. Our immigrant population is the least likely to understand the word haboob, but I guess since they are so uneducated and unworldly they just don't deserve to know a weather event is coming. The people who are least educated are the ones who are the most likely to be affected by a sand storm. Get off your high horse and YOU broaden your mind a bit to understand that we have reasons instead of just going with the stereotype of all Texans being racist hicks. You might learn something.
Just read the comments, and until I got to Liz's comment, I was getting wound up to post about the same thing that she said. Of course Texans are "ignorant", after all they are southern you know. The same liberal, down-their-nose-looking asshats had not problem crawling all over a Republican candidate who referred to a heckler as a "macaca", and tut-tut over the usage of the perfectly good English word (of scandanavian origin) "niggardly".
I have to admit, though, it is so much fun to catch liberal ignoramuses pinched between the two sides of their ever-present double standard.
WHO CARES?
Could it have been because it has BOOB in it and the people scared of anything vaguely sexual were freaked out?
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