Political Correctness

Political Correctness. The concept of political correctness has enveloped our country. People are almost afraid to utter anything controversial or make any statements that may be considered unkind or offensive to any one particular group of people. It seems like every five minutes some kind of public figure, be it a politician or a celebrity, is in front of their respective press corps making an apology for a comment that seemed innocuous at the time, but after hearing it over and over again, has been deemed offensive.

Now don’t get me wrong, people should watch what they say. Making broad generalizations about any particular group of people is often misguided and insulting. Labeling one particular group of people responsible for ills is irresponsible and wrong. People like Don Imus and Mel Gibson who make racially insensitive comments and blame whole races of people for the world’s ills are vilified in the court of popular public opinion, and rightly so. So in cases like this, our obsession with political correctness is a good thing.

However, political correctness is also detrimental to the solving of a problem, or even just discussion of a particular issue. Very little debate on any major issue gets anywhere in this country because everyone is always so worried about offending someone else. Discussions of poverty and race (not just African-American, but any minority group) in this country often either get de-railed or don’t even happen because to suggest that people’s problems are even in the slightest bit their own doing is considered insulting. Of course that question is a multi-faceted one, and poverty is certainly not entirely someone’s own doing, but the suggestion that that could even be a part of it at all draws vehement opposition from people like Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and results in whoever said such having to apologize for what they said and it shuts down any kind of discussion that might have taken place.

Hopefully, the election of Barack Obama helps us move past the day of taboo subjects and unspoken topics and actually focus on things that are really wrong with not just the country, but the world as a whole.