Friday, November 11, 2016

The Irony of Political Correctness

For a long time now many people have been complaining about our overly politically correct society. I usually hold my breath and try to keep my eyes in place. Most of us see politically correct speech as simple common decency, good manners, and respect for others' feelings.

During this election, there was certainly an underlining pushback against political correctness. "Donald Trump tells it how it is," said so many people who were relieved to finally not worry about their language.

So how is it?

Turns out, telling it how it is means calling Latinos rapists and drug dealers. Telling it how it is means assuming anyone who practices Islam is terrorist threat. Telling it how it is means encouraging people to punch those who disagree with your opinion. Throw political opponents in jail. Screw political correctness (common decency and the law) time to tell it how it is.

So now, we find ourselves in a place where the very people who wanted political correctness thrown out the window are being lumped together and labeled bigots, misogynists, racists. Those are hard labels to swallow for sure. But the irony is if you've ever complained about political correctness, you wanted people to have the privilege of saying whatever they felt, regardless of your feelings. You wanted the privilege of labeling people however you wanted, with complete disregard to how they wanted to label themselves.

Donald Trump's victory signaled a victory over political correctness. So don't act surprised that the people who's requests you ignored for more than a decade are now using terms to describe you in derogatory light.

Of course, as you see from my post yesterday, I refuse to be a part of that. I refuse to label all Trump supporters as misogynist or racist. But a long time ago I also stopped using words like retarded or gay when what I actually meant was stupid. I even finally found the courage to speak out against people who do use those words (or others that are much worse: fag, nigger, wetback, etc, and so forth).

I believe in political correctness. I believe in good manners. If you didn't want a world where everyone was aiming for political correctness, you have to live in a world where people call you names. If you didn't speak up and speak out against Donald Trump when he used derogatory language, it feels insincere that you are just now asking for the name calling to stop.  

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