The Politics Around Political Correctness

Respect. It’s hard to give. It takes time, patience, and it takes understanding. If it were easy Aretha Franklin never would have had to demand it. If respect was applied equally to everyone we would not have so much disparity. Political Correctness was a movement for respect. The spirit of P.C. is to understand where we fit on a tangled web of power and oppression. It should not surprise me that an idea like P.C. would be co-opted and morphed by those who are so afraid of what they will lose that they cannot see how much they have to gain. So the only response to that fear is to grab on tighter to the control, so tight that even liberals begin to grasp onto the bandwagon against P.C. in order to protect whatever place of power they have. The word transforms into a word that is wielded as something dirty or an insult. It is used in the way the word feminist is against women, to completely deny and discredit individuals who have legitimate concerns.

The negative response pounds against efforts for respect. I did a web search on the phrase “politically correct”. The search produced all but two (out of about 40) “politically incorrect” links. Upon opening one I found a discourse on race difference. This ignorant, racist website claimed that P.C. denied their (false) beliefs that differences in intelligence along racial lines is do to some kind of inherent white superiority, totally denying the tight grip whites hold on resources, land, money, and access to education.

Many other websites argued that political correctness is about censorship. That’s absolutely ludicrous. P.C. is partly about understanding how the language we use can seriously undermine communication as well as alienate those who might be different from us. To claim that it has a chilling impact on language or actually censors language is ridiculous. I will not deny that an aspect of political correctness contains a social pressure to stop wielding words as a form of violence and harassment. P.C. was a 90s version of societal pressure to be polite and respectful of everyone. The reality is we shouldn’t have to put up with people embracing ignorance. Every attack I have ever heard about political correctness is based in one of two things: A true belief in the inferiority of the things P.C. vocab tries to protect or laziness/comfort in ignorance.

But it’s not just those who would live in a world where hate and ignorance run rampant respond with hostility against being too p.c. Many a moderate or liberal has curled up with politically incorrect shows like South Park. Enjoying the humor and excusing its deliberate offensiveness because it makes fun of everyone equally. Not only do I seriously doubt that, for I’ve never heard of a character who embodies white upper-class male privilege, but even if it does, why on earth does universal offensiveness make any of it okay?

The backlash that seems to have swept up so many people causes me to wonder whose agenda is served by a backlash against political correctness. It’s not beneficial to any of us fighting against oppression and prejudice, regardless of the oppressions we’re fighting. It’s beneficial to those who are pissed off at having to share a piece of the pie. Those who have been used to getting the entire pie and not about to sit quietly while someone tries to help themselves to a piece of it. It is a defensive mechanism to those of us who are used to the privilege and the benefits that are based in the oppression of others. These privileges opened access to many opportunities, while denying it to others.

Maybe the backlash and the tokenism associated with the word have made it so the word must be abandoned. It feels like a waste of time to argue about semantics and to try and somehow convince people that political correctness isn’t some overbearing burden. No matter what happens with the words, the spirit of political correctness is what is important to keep in mind. Respect is the essence of that spirit. Respect of others in the way you talk to and about them. Take the time to understand the context they exist in, including any limitations they may have, the beliefs they hold, and the hurdles that must be leaped because of how they or society defines them.

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