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Obama's 'sweetie' is a pickle. "The Democratic presidential candidate's use of the term 'sweetie' with a female television reporter hit a sour note with people who considered it offensive and sexist. By her own account, the reporter, Peggy Agar of Detroit's WXYZ-TV , was not among them. But the videotaped inciden—which swiftly ricocheted through cyberspace, not to mention the national press—raised the question of when, if ever, such terms may be used appropriately with people with whom one is not intimately involved."
Oh, man --- so many things come to mind when a story like this hits the news.
I recall a woman ophthalmologist, far younger than I, who referred to me and (I presume) her other male patients as "Darlin'," a term that I could certainly not have used had our positions been reversed, but also a term that endeared her to me, coming especially with that charming souther accent ...
But more than that I recall over thirty years of being a trainer in the corporate setting, filling up many hours of training, beginning in the turbulent '60s and ending only a few years ago, hours devoted to raising awareness of how careless and casual speech can cause offense even where totally innocent or even (!!) intended to be kind or caring.
We DO need to be sensitive to implications, intended or un-, but it's also a good thing that the law pretty much requires there to be either egregious offense OR a steady pattern of clearly undesired behavior or speech. Surely Obama hasn't stepped over either of those lines with this offhand remark ...
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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