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is the term " third world" racist
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Anonymous
| The recent rant post about airlines remind me about a situation a few years back when I said something was 3rd world. One of my coworkers informed me that the term was racist. I didn't think so at the time because as a white male some people will say that anything I say is racist. Is there a new and PC term we should be using instead of "third world"? |
Anonymous
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"Developing country". Of course, some people will get their knickers in a twist over that one, too.
You can't please everyone. Try not to say things that you know to be offensive. Let your sincere niceness buy you forgiveness for the rest. |
Anonymous
| Interesting. When I think of 3rd world flying I think of a scary flight I had in Eastern Europe, with smoking passengers, lots of booze flowing, and lax flight laws. A lot of those people had blonde hair. Wonder if that's racist. THing is DCUM is the paragon of PC, you have to watch every word here. |
Anonymous
| I don't think it's racist so much as elitist. The other problem associated with it is that people tend to describe minor inconveniences as rendering their neighborhoods, flights, etc. "third world." -- that Pepco outage really made Bethesda a third world country! We had no cable TV for 48 hours and the kids were driving me nuts! |
Anonymous
| it's outdated and no longer carries any meaning. |
Anonymous
| I don't love 3rd world but I can't stand it when missionaries talk about the dark continent to mean Africa. I don't have a problem with missionaries per se, but saying "Dark Continent" is like wearing an "I'm a moron" shirt in my book. It's like because black people live in Africa, its a black hole of horrific danger. There is so much normalcy in Africa. |
Anonymous
Whole lotta races in the "third world".
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Anonymous
I dunno... looks pretty dark to me. 
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Anonymous
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I used that term once and some lady in a class got all upset saying her country was just like ours, I asked then why are you here at our university, she said her country didn't have them.............
I said oh I see how much they are alike........ sorry lady your 3rd world get over it |
Anonymous
And you are third class - or no class. |
Anonymous
wow that was rude of you. Why did you do it? |
Anonymous
| REALLY RUDE.. |
Anonymous
Reminds me of my conservative Rush Limbaugh listening cousin. We were sitting around having a couple of drinks, and talking about politics (I know, bad idea). Somehow the topic of England came up. After a few minutes, and a couple of requests for clarification, I came to the following realization: he honestly did not understand that the US was not considered the only "first world" country. There are just some fairly cossetted, pig-ignorant folks out there. |
Anonymous
| Does no one here remember what it means? During the cold war: US and allies: first world, USSR and allies: second world, everybody else: third world. Pp was right, it's just outdated, not racist. |
Anonymous
| It is definitely an outdated concept, but whether it is inappropriate or rude depends on how the term is used. To said that airline travel has become "third world" (meaing crappy, inconvenient and uncomfortable) is certainly inappropriate because it uses the term in a pejorative manner that has no connection to the traditional concepts of the first, second, and third worlds. If used in a more neutral manner - e.g., "a nonprofit that makes microloans to entrepeneurs in third world countries," I still think it is an antiquated term, but not rude. |