The first time I ran into political correctness was quite different. I was 
working with a group of disabled people in a series of online projects. I 
was also a special ed teacher and leading the way by having my students 
online back in the 80's before the web had been invented or the Internet had 
become widely known. A lot of the discussion I was in were with disabled 
people, especially those who were visually impaired all the way to totally 
blind. They were toying with how to more respectfully address themselves, 
and if I used the term "blind person" I was told it was politically 
incorrect - I must use the wordier "person with blindness", and so forth.

In later years, I joined a group that was supposed to be supporting the use 
of the web for disabled people. It was mostly made up of "people with 
blindness" and everything had to be said oh, so correctly to them. I was 
upset because they were developing "guidelines" on how to make web pages and 
were trying to get rid of all or most of the graphics. Well, the disabled 
kids I'd worked with were the learning disabled and mildly retarded. Guess 
what they needed most? The pictures! And the videos, and the animations - 
all the stuff that the "persons with blindness" didn't want to have to 
stumble over on the web. The very stuff that sighted people would say about 
blind users of the Internet (if they can't see, how can they use a computer 
anyway), were being said about the group I championed (if they are retarded 
or ld they can't use computers anyway), even tho I had successfully used 
computer, even before graphics, with these students, and pointed out how 
much more they could get with the  so-called "bells and whistles" which the 
group wanted totally banned.

Well, I spent two years being told regularly that I was "politcally 
incorrect" for having espoused the needs of the "wrong" group of disabled 
folks in a committee committed to making the web "assessable" to the 
"disabled". I finally decided there were more fish to fry, and resigned the 
committee. Since then, the idea of having "guidelines" for the "disabled" on 
the web has gone down the politically correct sewer. I hear nothing more 
about it.


Anne Pemberton
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http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org