Keep Your Hands To Yourself

This entry is basically a speech I gave in my Oral Communications class that has been added to a bit because I can add a bit because I have no time limit. To Seton Hill's credit, I was amazed I got away with this in a college setting, but then again, someone who did smoking as a topic had a cigarette as a prop...

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is afraid of its people.” When JFK spoke those words, things were very different. At that time people who had opposite skin tones had separate schools, restaurants, and water fountains. At that time women were paid significantly less than men. And at that time homosexuals were considered social outcasts and their right to marriage was not even discussed in a political arena.

Today, perceptions of these people have changed, and many of the shortcomings of our great government have been changed for the better. The groups that were then considered second-class citizens are now given the same opportunities as their straight white Christian male counterparts. But today we have a new problem. We face a new threat that seeks to unite and equalize, but in truth divides and skews. Its original purpose of goodwill has now disenfranchised more people than it has brought together. Political correctness has turned into a device that sets people apart, ignores social problems, sets a double standard, and takes away the thing that matters most to Americans, our personal freedoms.

In America, political correctness, or PC as it is more commonly called, set out to destroy social barriers set through years of oppression. PC speech replaced abusive and lewd language that made the subjects feel less than human. These terms would oftentimes refer to old generalizations that were completely derogatory toward the person it offended. I need not go into the pages of inhuman responses that ignorant people called different races, sexes, creeds, and orientations. Political Correctness set out to classify those people without using the lewd comments. This oftentimes would level the playing field for these people. Terms like “African Americans” replaced racial slurs and other uncomfortable euphemisms that offended the group. Women were no longer called “dolls, dames, or babes,” but were called terms that demanded respect. These terms provided a sense of national unity that these oppressed groups were getting equal treatment and all Americans had a fair chance.

However, political correctness has slowly spun out of control and become a monster that destroys most of the things it has built. Speech that is considered PC has really become a divisive speech. Instead of classifying on merit, people are lumped into and classified by a group. People identify with their label which becomes their defining factor, generalizing them. These people become separate parts instead of a whole. National unity is shattered when we have to identify people with groups instead of just considering them the more general, “American.” These groups frequently set themselves against their opposites, making hasty generalizations and destroying the progress made by uniting under that common term in the first place.

Political Correctness attributes to the avoidance of a discussion of Social Problems. Discussions of such topics are automatically considered “off limits.” For example, the discussion of Islam in the War on Terror is oftentimes bogged down by people who say that people who support profiling as racist and anti-Islamic. It is a fact that all 19 hijackers on September 11th were Arabic Muslims. However when six Imams boarded a plane, started acting suspiciously to other passengers, praying loudly, switching seats, and ignoring warnings by the flight crew, the crew took them off the plane. The Imams then sued the airline and the American people defended them. Although they seemed to pose a threat and acted suspiciously without cooperating, the people who did the right thing and reported the incident are considered villains because they profiled. Does this mean that political correctness can trump personal security? It makes a strong case. If we let this continue, we will reach a time that Americans can’t look sideways at a Middle-Easterner without being charged with a crime. The real crime is the ignorance that will come and the danger that the threat of ignorance will pose toward our national security.

People who are overzealous about Political correctness often exercise opposition labeling. Anyone opposed to a group in a political debate is quickly labeled a hate monger. Someone who opposes same-sex marriage would be labeled a quote, “gay-basher” or “homophobe” and their views immediately discredited. These are Americans with specific social values, and same-sex marriage is contrary to those beliefs. If you are among the people who do oppose this issue, you are among the 51% of Americans that are considered by others as “homophobes.”

And for this reason there is a double standard. People within a group can use a slur when others outside the group can’t. For example, Women can call their friends offensive and lewd terms and they consider them a statement of pride. African Americans in the rap culture use the N-word as a greeting as well, while people outside that group would be labeled as a bigot and a racist. It seems to me, (though I am biased because I am one), that the most oppressed group of people in America are the white middle-aged Christian straight men. Yet is we organized a party that furthered causes for these people, we will be called fascists, racists, sexists, and all other kinds of profanities. If people have fought to erase the term from usage, why are people using the term in their own circles? It is a disservice and a disgrace to those who have fought for the opportunities that we now have.

Most importantly, political correctness is a usurpation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The founders included this to protect against the governmental control over what people believed and said. They did not have this in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union where political correctness first was implemented as a way for the state to control their people. To quote William Orville Douglas, “Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”

It is clear to me that despite its good intentions, political correctness has gone too far. Government should have no say in what a person thinks or says, and to do so would border on an Orwellian scenario. If we allow ourselves to be bogged down when striving to be PC, we will never advance as a culture and as a nation. We have the right to free speech, so we should not legislate against something as imperative as a personal belief. We should instead teach future generations right from wrong so that they will have no desire to use these derogatory terms. This is a moral issue that should be taught in the home, the churches, and the schools, and only then will we overcome the labels that bring us down. In the end, it is better to EDUCATE than LEGISLATE.