Political correctness

From RationalWiki

The term political correctness or "PC" usually refers to upholding a social taboo against language and attitudes that might be considered offensive. This term has become a boogey-man for the radical right who use it as a stand-in for government intrusion gone wild. In fact contemporary use of the term is restricted almost entirely to pejorative use by right wing nut jobs extremely conservative eclectics. Most people substitute the term civilized speech for politically correct. The term originally applied simply to pragmatic and civilized practice of avoiding offensive speech based on race or gender.

[edit] Language

Political correctness is associated with specific terms that are attempts to describe people in the most neutral and objective way possible. Some examples include:

• "African American" instead of "Black"
• "Little Person" instead of "Midget"
• "Person" instead of "Man" when the gender is unknown ("Congressperson", "Chairperson", "Personhole Cover", "strawperson")
• "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible" instead of "I spent three decades constantly tweaked on cocaine"

[edit] More insidious examples of PC

• Calling a rape victim an "unwilling sperm recipient"
• Using the Metric System instead of the more complicated U.S./U.K. system of measurements
• Calling it "SI" which I think is some French thing, instead of the Metric System
• Using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) unless one is actually in England
• Calling it "UTC" (Universales Temps Coordinaire or some such French abomination) instead of GMT
• Pronouncing them "Ih-Rahk" and "Ih-Rahn" instead of the correct American English pronunciations, "Eye-Rack" and "Eye-Ran".
• Making a fetish of pronouncing the names of South and Central American countries in Spanish even when one is speaking English: calling Nicaragua "Nee-ka-ha-gua" and Chile "Chee-le" are the most grating and obnoxious examples. ("How do these people say 'France?'" - P.J. O'Rourke.)
• "Pah-kee-stahn" instead of "Pack-i-stan".
• The ridiculous use of "gender-neutral" pronouns like "sie", "zir", or whatever.
• Inability to make up your mind about just one name to use, and therefore using both because you are a sensitive wimp who doesn't want to offend anyone. "Kosovo/a", "He/she", "Latino/a", "Dear Sir/Ma'am". (But not "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia" - that one's not PC. You get the difference?) Also, the inability to decide whether to call it F.Y.R.O.M. or Macedonia (who cares since it's not in the United States anyway?)
• Worse, always putting the more "oppressed" one first: "Sisters and brothers" instead of "brothers and sisters", "She/he" instead of "He/she". (But not "ladies and gentlemen" - that one's not PC. You get the difference?)
• Ridiculous mis-spellings. "Womyn", "Wimmin", "Femal", "The/rapist", "Xianity" or "Xtianity", etc.
• "All Things Considered" devoting 80-90% of their airtime to news items from Pakistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Somalia, Sudan, China, Kosovo, ad nauseum. Yawn, who cares? They give precious little coverage to news from within the United States.
• News interviewers in the field in third world countries interviewing "poor wimmin of colour" and translating her annoying stacatto voice on the air, instead of interviewing an English-speaking white male expert on the subject
• Having an American Sign Language interpreter present at any event
• Special parking spaces, ramps, and automatic doors for the crippled, infirm, and lame
• Calling them "differently-abled" or "physically challenged" instead of crippled, infirm, lame, or genetically-lacking
• "Diversity"-this and "diversity"-that
• "Global"-this and "global"-that
• BCE and CE instead of B.C. and A.D which imply that Jesus was Christ and Lord.
• Saying "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas", calling it "Winter break" instead of "Christmas break", a "Holiday party" instead of a "Christmas party", etc. Dammit, the Baby Jesus is really pissed off about this one.
• Saying "sexual orientation" instead of "sexual preference"
• Saying that there is such a thing as a "sexual orientation"
• Any use of "queer" in a positive context
• "Mt. Denali" instead of Mt. McKinley
• "Companion animal" instead of pet
• "Homeless" instead of bums and tramps
• "Holocaust denial" instead of "Holocaust revisionism"
• Capitalizing the H in holocaust
• "People of color" instead of colored people. This is supposed to emphasize that they are primarily people instead of primarily colored, by putting "people" first. Ridiculous!
• Allowing Spanish language media to be granted broadcast licenses in this country when they obviously serve no public good. WTF do we even have an FCC for if they are going to allow that?
• Advertisements always depicting a minority woman, if only one person is shown. Look at any cell phone ad and say it ain't so. If more than one person is shown, the token male is always a minority and the token white is always female.
• Plastering your late model riceburner with bumper stickers like "C03x1$7", "FIGHT RACISM", "My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma", "Free Tibet!", "Just Say No To Sex With Pro-Lifers", Darwin fish, or anything in any way referencing Bob Marley
• "Andre the Giant Has A Posse" and "OBEY", whatever that incoherent drivel is supposed to mean
• Any use, in any context, of images by Keith Haring. I don't exactly know why but they absolutely reek of P.C.
• Drinking organic-grape-chocolate-oatmeal ale instead of cheap swill
• "(fill in the blank) is a social construct"
• "The bad old days". A PC oxymoron!
• Applying the social standards of today to the past and therefore arguing that, for example, older editions of the Encyclopedia Brittanica were marred by racism and sexism.
• The belief that racism is "system" of "oppression" based on institutionalized white supremacy, instead of it being prejudices held by individuals.
• The shift from using "prejudice" to the term "racism" as the canonical term, which is a subtle and insidious way of promoting the above belief. Don't think we haven't noticed. When's the last time you heard "prejudice" used in the media or academia? The 1970s?
• Related to both of the above, the belief that only whites can be "racist". Nobody else can be since "racism" is by definition the institutionalized system of white supremacy.
• Any use of "white supremacy" to refer to society as a whole, especially America in the past, rather than limiting its use to groups like the Aryan Nations and Klan.
• Changing the names of major world cities overnight just because some PC globalist group says to. The city is called Peking, dammit, not Beijing.
• "Rainforest" instead of jungle
• Calling men "penised people", This one takes the cake.
• Children's records that teach that it is okay for boys to cry and play with dolls. You know the one I'm talking about.
• People thinking Jack Chick tracts are funny, over the top, and hip in an ironic way, instead of taking their message deadly seriously and immediately falling on their knees to repent before the LORD
• Pretending that you care about swarthy people or furrigners
• "Mouse" instead of "[rat]"

[edit] Backlash

Today, Political Correctness is used more ironically than it is earnestly. It is generally looked upon as a synonym for censorship. More celebrities try to be edgy and risqué by being politically incorrect than try to promote being politically correct.

[edit] Boogeyman

Many bigots and xenophobes claim to be the victims of "The PC Police" so they can claim to be persecuted when faced with the consequences of hate speech.

[edit] There is a cure!

To fight political correctness, start young. Buy childrens books and albums for your kids that were written before about 1970. In particular, make sure you buy Little Black Sambo for them. Even there you have to watch out with some older books - all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books were rewritten starting in the 1950s to make them PC, so get only the old out of print original editions, which have pre-1950 copyright dates on them.

Also, it is vitally important to buy only appropriate books and toys for their gender. For a boy, a Red Ryder BB gun is a must, and toy Cat 'dozers and other heavy construction equipment is always a good choice. What, you're afraid he'll shoot his eye out? You PC wimp, he's supposed to shoot his eye out, because adversity builds character and exposing the young boy to danger prepares him for life and ensures he will not grow up to be an effiminate geek. For a girl, get them dolls and anything related to princesses, but beware! The Disney princess stuff coming out today promotes multiculturalism! Be sure to get them only princesses and dolls that existed before 1970 and haven't significantly changed their design. Barbie dolls are always a good choice. Girls should not be allowed to play with things like fireman helmets and Thomas the Tank Engine, and boys should not be allowed to play with any toys that look like they may involve cooking, clothing, babies, cleaning, or the color pink. That's just asking for them to grow up gay.

Avoid Teletubbies, who promote effiminacy and homosexuality. Perhaps even worse, Teletubbies are set in a totalitarian world in which a creepy sounding loudspeaker orders them about, and thus looks like the show was consciously designed to prepare toddlers to accept the New World Order. Also avoid Barney the Dinosaur, which is pure social engineering with its "I like you, you like me, we're a happy fam-i-ly" nonsense (a dinosaur can't be happy! It doesn't have a soul!) Come to think of it, avoid all toys and cartoons in which a main character is any pastel color, especially purple or lavender.

Sesame Street is an especially insidious PC social engineering tool. Note the subtle promotion of multiculturalism. The show is even called Sesame Street instead of Sesame Road, a dead giveaway, and the buildings look like some nappy-headed inner city housing project. That show even includes a bum living in a garbage can portrayed as a cute and cuddly muppet, instead of a pathetic layabout who has earned his fate.

If you catch your boys watching Teletubbies or Sesame Street, turn off the TV pronto and send them outside to play Cowboys & Indians. The future of Western Civilization depends on it!

Whatever you do, do not get them that god-awful 1974 children's album that teaches that it is okay for boys to cry and play with dolls.

This is often overlooked, but if you catch your child looking like they might start writing with their left hand, you need to take action fast. There is a definite correlation between left-handedness and left-wingedness! Spanking has proven to be a successful form of D.I.Y. aversion therapy to set children on the path to righteousness.

Probably the most important single step you can take to fight political correctness is to homeschool your kids, so they are not exposed to the PC social engineering and brainwashing rampant in today's public and private schools alike. Use the McGuffey Readers, which are excellent books and notably free of any PC influence. Since one particularly insidious PC social engineering tactic was to take phonics instruction out of schools and replace it with the "whole language" approach which is rooted in moral relativism, use phonics material exclusively. You can find some good ones sold via mail order ads on your favorite AM talk radio station.

[edit] See Also

• Politically incorrect