Political correctness to put simply is basically the usage of terms to widely describe social, political and educational varieties of topics. The common topics that these terms are used for comprise of gender, sexual preferences, class, and race. It aims to prevent feelings of individuals being hurt by making potentially offensive terms sound more appropriate in order to acknowledge “awareness” of differences and are what is seen to be the socially acceptable norm in the society of today.
It has many controversies that surround it that make it a widespread area of discussion on both ends of the argument. It has sparked topics of debate between many liberal and conservative sides of the political spectrum as well for these reasons.The topic I shall be discussing concerns the controversies that surround political correctness, and examples of how usage in today’s society have caused reasons for argument and debates.
One example of political correctness being used in context explains how political correctness aims to alter the language used for distinguishing the differences between humans, so as to not potentially offend the other. When a professor calls his female students “girls” he’s implicitly questioning their membership in the adult community. It is now a matter of basic decency to use another term. This poses a question of how necessary this has to be in our society. Nowadays professors have gotten into scrutiny for mentioning students with the wrong pronouns, specifically transgender students; which is also another area of the political correctness debate due to the vast number of pronouns in the LGBTQ community.
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It is also intended as a way of helping us communicate across our differences. If you want to communicate with a Japanese street vendor, you wouldn’t call him “Jap” which is now seen as an offensive term, a racial slur towards people of Japanese descent.
The point is we now live in a society where our everyday lives are affected by political correctness. People who are at work, at school, even at the comfort of their own homes may now have to worry about what they say because it could be potentially misinterpreted by somebody. When typing emails at work, people have to thoroughly review their words and content to avoid the fear of being fired or facing a lawsuit due to discrimination*. In this case it seems that political correctness has gone to the extent of being unnecessary in many cases as it is being used in ways unjustly and out of pocket. It can even be argued that political correctness is going against freedom of speech which is the first amendment of the Constitution with the Bill of Rights. Almost any word or phrase can be misinterpreted and offend anybody nowadays, and it is very frequently unintended but causes a lot of damage to the reputations of many. One should not be afraid to offend someone with their speech because of what others will say (Brady, National World)
Firstly, political correctness is based upon the assumption that discrimination and prejudice exists within society. Of course the goal of being politically correct is so that it affects communication in a positive way. It’s to prevent arguments and people from getting offended. What we are not trying to achieve is some sort of polite utopia – it would be a dull and dreary place to live. I believe people should use more concrete words when we are communicating with one another. That way, others will not misinterpret the message you are trying to get across. There has been so many times where I have seen on television, people getting upset because of someone else using abstract words. For example you will have a scene where a guy of a different race will walk into a room of African Americans and start to say a statement beginning with “You people”. Then the group will be taken aback thinking he was referring to their race and a huge conflict will arise and the guy will have a hard time defending what he meant by his usage of the phrase “You people”.
It is a requirement of today’s society for one to be politically correct in their words and actions. This has become a difficult task as the standards of political correctness have become more complex. Words which were considered to be correct only a few years ago are now considered to be unacceptable. For example, eight years ago Ellen Degeneres got a hostile reception for her TIME Magazine article that had ‘Yep, I’m Gay!’ across the cover. Now the word gay relates strictly to men. Using it to describe a lesbian is considered improper. Since lesbians are their own distinct community, it is important to designate that, of course. Homosexual is another term that is now politically incorrect.
People feel it surrounds the idea of sex, rather than a relationship, and is thought of as a negative stereotype. Retarded was once just a factual term to describe someone we recently would refer to as mentally handicapped. However, ‘mentally handicapped’ and ‘the disabled’ have recently been deemed offensive and are now to be replaced with ‘learning disabilities’ or ‘people with disabilities’. Why is it that the connotations of these words change so often? How is it that calling a woman gay is an insult when just a few years back a woman would proudly say she was gay? The terminology in regards to race and ethnicity has always been a controversial aspect in regards to being politically correct. Every February, America celebrates Black History Month, however it is considered politically incorrect to use the word black to describe someone? We now need to say, ‘African-American.’
Mostly every school has a Black Student Union, but using the word black in school and you will quickly be corrected. If African-American is used, why wouldn’t a person of Chinese descent but born in America be referred to as Chinese-American? Or if someone’s parents were from England, could they not be an English-American? If one has ‘white’ skin, regardless of what country their family was from, a person is simply ‘Caucasian’ when filling out any type of paperwork. Is it politically correct to use the terms black, brown, and white or not? Apparently the answer depends on who is saying it, whom it is being said to, and of course, it depends on the situation. I have determined it is nearly an impossible task to be completely politically correct.
I imagine that with the rapid changes in acceptable terminology, before we know it schools will be required to hold classes on political correctness. People dislike social labels, but also want to be correctly labeled. People want to be distinct individuals and distinctly grouped with others. The boundaries of political correctness are hard to determine. It only takes one person’s perception of an action or statement for it to be perceived as offensive. It seems one can’t relax when having to be concerned with political correctness and its consequences every time they act, speak and with every word they write.
