Aug

29

NYT Op-Ed: Should ‘Ugly’ Be a Protected Class?

Filed Under Law, PC, Politics | 31 Comments

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There’s another op-ed in the New York Times that gives The Onion a run for its money. The column is entitled, “Ugly? You May Have a Case.” In it, the author, a professor of economics (naturally) at the University of Texas, Austin, argues that it’s time for ugly people to be recognized as a protected minority:

Why this disparate treatment of looks in so many areas of life? It’s a matter of simple prejudice. Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers’ refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects.

How could we remedy this injustice? With all the gains to being good-looking, you would think that more people would get plastic surgery or makeovers to improve their looks. Many of us do all those things, but as studies have shown, such refinements make only small differences in our beauty. All that spending may make us feel better, but it doesn’t help us much in getting a better job or a more desirable mate.

A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?

Making “ugly” a protected class? Now there’s a law that would sail through that freakshow of a Congress we have.

Life on this earth will never truly be fair until that day when ugly people — people so ugly that when they were born the doctor slapped their parents… people so ugly that their mothers had to get drunk to breast feed them… people so ugly that strip clubs pay them to put their clothes on… people so ugly that when they were kids their fathers took them to work every day so they didn’t have to kiss them goodbye… people so ugly that when they visit the haunted house they’re handed job applications — can take those bags off their heads and shout from every mountaintop, acne ointment aisle at Wal-Mart, Star Wars convention or NOW meeting, “free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last!”

Comments

31 Responses to “NYT Op-Ed: Should ‘Ugly’ Be a Protected Class?”

  1. SignPainterGuy on August 29th, 2011 3:47 pm

    Beauty is skin deep, but ugly is to the bone ! What`s needed here folks, is not more plastic surgery, but a change on the inside. A good attitude won over more employers and never broke a mirror !

    You cannot legislate un-broken mirrors !

  2. zillaoftheresistance on August 29th, 2011 3:55 pm

    SPG's right, I've known people whose faces (at first glance) could stop a clock, but who were beloved, because there was something so special about them inside that no visible imperfections could hide for very long at all.

  3. Ken in Texas on August 29th, 2011 3:58 pm

    …so ugly his parents used to leave him in his baby-buggy in a tow-away zone; so ugly he was given a kiddie-car with a bomb wired to the ignition' so ugly he had to tie a pork chop around his neck so the dog would play with him. And on and on! Anyway, now you know why UT Austin is referred to by Texas Aggies as "tea sippers."

  4. SignPainterGuy on August 29th, 2011 4:01 pm

    My favorite "waitress" at Burger King here looks so pitiful (she`s not pretty anyway, but bless her heart, she`s never been near a dentist) that you could honestly ask,"How can they allow someone so ugly to work the drive thru or inside counter ?" But she`s a blast !

  5. Rosalie on August 29th, 2011 4:06 pm

    You're right. As I was reading and laughing, I was thinking about this good-looking woman in my neighborhood when I was a kid. Her handsome boyfriend had to leave town and he left his homely friend in charge of taking her out while he was gone. Well, the homely friend won her over with his great personality, and they eventually got married. He also did quite well for himself as a teacher and coach.

  6. Hyperfobea on August 29th, 2011 4:06 pm

    Alrighty then … *who* defines what constitutes "ugly"? Will that be left up to the infinite wisdom of our legislators, or perhaps the NOW gang (few of whom I've noticed would eke past the number 4 on that 1 to 10 beauty scale)? In other words, will ugly people be telling the rest of us who qualifies for the protected status? Obviously no one will really *want* to be in that class because then the ugly truth of their uncomelines will have to be faced. Take for example that buffoon in the photograph captioned "Protected"? Who goes around sporting fake glasses with the phony rubber nose attached to the bridge and novelty buck teeth?

  7. Granny55 on August 29th, 2011 4:07 pm

    Lordy, lordy Doug – you would have to post Waxman's pic with that article knowing it was lunch time – thanks a lot.

    Now the million dollar question – who gets to determine who is ugly? Would that fall under Odummercare? So Sebilius can determine if you are ugly? Can you be reclassified from mentally handicapped to ugly or perhaps physically handicapped to ugly? How about a war veteran coming home with disfiguring injuries – ugly too?

    The dufus that wrote this article should be taken to the out house and flushed.

  8. Hyperfobea on August 29th, 2011 4:09 pm

    (Come to think of it, people with liver spots on their balding heads should be a protected class as well.)

  9. zillaoftheresistance on August 29th, 2011 4:09 pm

    "people so ugly that when they were kids their fathers took them to work every day so they didn’t have to kiss them goodbye"
    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Butt seriously, the problem with such silly 'protection' is the simple fact that beauty truly IS in the eye of the beholder. Look at some of the people the media claim are attractive, little pasty faced effeminate "men", big hulking scowling "women" like First Sasquatch, horse faces like Sarah Jessica Parker, etc., who will make the final determination of what qualifies as "ugly" when there are so many hideous people who are deemed "hot"?

  10. viking on August 29th, 2011 4:10 pm

    I live in Florida, and I'm sorry, but "ugly" is not in the minority.

  11. zillaoftheresistance on August 29th, 2011 4:12 pm

    It ain't inn the minority in upstate NY either, where the mullet is still a popular hairstyle – for women.

  12. Marshall_Will on August 29th, 2011 4:22 pm

    Funny… I was kind of touching on this in the "Is Rick Perry DUMB!?" thread. My approach was really one more of awareness of our prejudices, not legislating yet -another- Protected Class.

    Then there's people like SJP that were perfectly attractive when younger and then accelerated their aging and appearance slide by well, refusing to AGE! Her face wouldn't look nearly so horse-like if she hadn't starved/dieted herself half to death all these years.

    One Whoopi quote I actually liked was: "I'll NEVER wind up getting to look like Halle Barry ( but I'm pretty sure she'll wind up looking like ME! )"

  13. Hyperfobea on August 29th, 2011 4:22 pm

    Either UGLY will become a protected class (more social engineering) or the gubmint will mandate that we all have beer-goggle laser surgery.

    Seriously, whatever happened to virtue being the benchmark of beauty?

  14. Dexter_Alarius on August 29th, 2011 5:15 pm

    This has to be stopped right NOW!
    Imagine an affirmative action-type ugly quota is put into place.
    Now imagine Rosie O'Donnell in a Hooters uniform!
    Sorry for the image, but this is serious!!!

  15. Marshall_Will on August 29th, 2011 5:15 pm

    Hyper,

    And what about all the celebtards that 'look' perfectly hawt ( until they open their freaking mouth! ) Then The Ugly takes over.

    We can't do a thing about how we're born, but look at all these younger and YOUNGER people that are simply letting themselves GO? If I weighed 300 lbs. how could you even pick out my HS yearbook picture?

    Does this include self-inflicted morbid obesity too?

  16. johnt55 on August 29th, 2011 5:49 pm

    I remember what comedian Red Foxx used to say about ugly people. If you ever wonder where all the ugly people come from, follow somebody ugly home a see if someone ugly doesn't open the door for them.

  17. Jimbo on August 29th, 2011 5:53 pm

    My eyes should be a protected class, as they are oppressed by looking at ugly.

  18. SignPainterGuy on August 29th, 2011 7:09 pm

    Wax Man personifies the classic IRS agent who loves his job a bit too much ! Now that spells U-G-L-Y ! I for one think he`s been swimming in taxpayer money for way too long !

  19. EdF on August 29th, 2011 7:15 pm

    I used to joke when gays and lesbians started to campaign for special treatment that it was about time that Assholes united. Why should someone be allowed to be fired for being an asshole? Or denied service? Why shouldn't they be predicted since their plight is just as bad, if not worse? Besides, I'm sure there's a DSM-IV classification for it. I was born an Asshole, it is not my choice!

  20. EdF on August 29th, 2011 7:16 pm

    Protected, not predicted. And I'm ugly too. Ha!

  21. Marshall_Will on August 29th, 2011 9:46 pm

    DSM-IV..?

    Acronym Power Rangers Unite!

  22. OK_Loyalist on August 29th, 2011 10:28 pm

    Every time I see Waxman … this plays in my head …. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCM-dDQSM8g

    Big man, pig man, ha ha charade you are.
    You well heeled big wheel, ha ha charade you are.
    And when your hand is on your heart,
    You're nearly a good laugh,
    Almost a joker,
    With your head down in the pig bin,
    Saying "Keep on digging."
    Pig stain on your fat chin.
    What do you hope to find.
    When you're down in the pig mine.
    You're nearly a laugh,
    You're nearly a laugh
    But you're really a cry.

  23. Doug on August 29th, 2011 11:32 pm

    Oh man, that's the perfect theme music for Waxman.

    Love that album… great Animal Farm concept.

  24. Anonymous on August 30th, 2011 12:53 am

    [...] [...]

  25. Hyperfobea on August 30th, 2011 8:34 am

    The professor wrote a very stupid (sarcastic) article that was intended, I think, to be a provocation. it worked. Just look at the comments here. Totally absurd.

  26. Konrad on August 30th, 2011 10:30 am

    Everybody is missing the obvious jab…..people so ugly they have to be protected by federal law!

  27. Divin’ for The King Penguin….30 August 11 | adeliemanchot on August 30th, 2011 5:37 pm

    [...] NYT Op-Ed: Should ‘Ugly’ Be a Protected Class? Making “ugly” a protected class? Now there’s a law that would sail through that freakshow of a Congress we have. [...]

  28. ReaganiteGOPer on August 30th, 2011 6:33 pm

    The picture above represents 'fugly'

    That's a function of 'ugly', but squared

  29. BeeKaay on September 1st, 2011 4:19 am

    Leftist women would be the first beneficiaries of such legal protection. So many of them are puke-a-rama.

  30. This Week in Automotivators, August 29-September 4 | Right Wing News on September 4th, 2011 1:07 pm

    [...] Link: Doug Powers. [...]

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