P
resident
Donald
Trump
unexpectedly set off a political
firestorm when he allegedly
used a vulgar term to describe places
like Haiti and Africa during a debate on
immigration. The response was swift,
with the president’s critics lambasting him
for racism while his allies tried to frame it
as something else, like White House press
secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did last
week.
“Look, no one here is going to pretend
like the president is always politically
correct. He isn’t. I think that’s one of the
reasons the American people love him,”
Sanders said. “One of the reasons that he
won and is sitting in the Oval Office today
is he isn’t a scripted robot. He tells things
like they are sometimes, and sometimes he
does use tough language.”
I would find it regretful if the President
of the United States actually used the
term; anyone with a conscience would call
it racist. However, when vulgar language
becomes an issue of political correctness
rather than an issue of racism, it enters a
muddy field.
It reminded me of a quote that I’ve kept
near and dear to my heart from my days
as a rookie reporter. At a multiculturalism
and diversity panel hosted by a student
feminist organization I covered freshman
year, the host asked the panelists to define
“political correctness.” What came out,
I believe, was something that is often
overlooked; that political correctness, at its
core, is about respecting the other person
and not protecting one’s own image.
“Unfortunately, a lot of people are more
concentrated about being called racist,
being called sexist or giving off a bad
image than they are about really hurting
somebody,” the panelist said.
In this “s***hole” controversy, the
debate is whether Trump’s view could
be discredited on the basis of his racist
remarks (he did say he wanted more
immigrants from Norway, after all), or
whether liberals are overreacting to a
president who slipped up while trying to
tackle a thorny and complex issue that
not even Democrats want to take head on.
In the wider world, we must ask whether
political correctness really stifles free
speech and how we can discern between
controversial ideas and outright bigotry.
Encyclopedia
Britannica
defines
political correctness as “language that
seems intended to give the least amount
of offense, especially when describing
groups identified by external markers
such as race, gender, culture, or sexual
orientation.”
The word has its roots in Marxist-
Leninist vocabulary, but its modern sense
originates from philosopher Allan Bloom’s
1987 book “The Closing of the American
Mind.” In it, Bloom criticized universities
for what he perceived as sacrificing open
debate and discussion to not offend
certain
groups.
Political
correctness
joined the lexicon of the greater Culture
Wars throughout the 90s,
wherein
conservatives
attacked
liberals
and
higher education for what
they saw the other side’s
growing
intolerance
toward
controversial
ideas.
There
have
been
numerous
instances
Bloom would point to as
proof of his argument. A
speaker was disinvited
at Syracuse University
for
the
outrage
they
may spark, or a class at
Reed
College
became
dysfunctional over claims
that the content was
racist. At the University of
Michigan,
controversial
social scientist Charles
Murray was interrupted
by
protesters
who
found his theory on the
correlation between race
and I.Q. repugnant.
Pundits from the left
and right have argued
against actions performed by college
students like these essentially exclude those
who are deemed as offensive from campus
discourse. The direct and confrontational
attitude of these protesters, as well as their
refusal to compromise, have made them
a favorite target of conservative pundits
who point to them as proof that liberal
student protesters are wielding political
correctness as a weapon against opposing
ideas.
But this isn’t what it’s supposed to
be. Political correctness is meant to
enable civil discourse in an increasingly
multicultural society. Even the right
benefits from their own form of political
correctness – think religious freedom,
“freedom fries,” “blue lives matter” and
the like. If political correctness seems like
something that stifles free speech, that
means there are people abusing the word
to their own advantage.
Nitpicking apart what your ideological
enemies say and calling it oppression is not
a way to start a conversation; it’s a bad way
to persuade anyone except those who are
already on your side. We must also learn to
accept honest mistakes; I can tell you it’s
not only white people who ask me where
I’m “actually” from. As the philosopher
Karl Popper said about accepting extreme
arguments for political correctness:
“If we extend unlimited tolerance even
to those who are intolerant, if we are not
prepared to defend a tolerant society
against the onslaught of the intolerant,
then the tolerant will be destroyed, and
tolerance with them,” Popper wrote in his
book “The Open Society and its Enemies.”
So yes, there are legitimate ways to
debate immigration in this country, and
being tough is certainly an option. But
Trump must recognize the humanity in
the people he is going to affect, and calling
entire countries “s***holes” is not a great
start.
Ultimately, political correctness is about
recognizing the weight your words carry
in regard to history and institutions. But if
our leaders can’t find the issue in the racist,
colonialist and paternalistic attitudes
inherent in “s***hole” and defend it on live
television, maybe there’s a problem.
2B
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Wednesday, January 24, 2018// The Statement
Critical Questions: Political correctness
statement
THE MICHIGAN DAILY | JANUARY 24, 2018
BY ISHI MORI, COLUMNIST
Alec Cohen/Daily
A protestor interrupts Charles Murray’s talk at Palmer Commons on October 11, 2017.