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

Managing Statement Editor:

Brian Kuang

Deputy Editors:

Colin Beresford

Jennifer Meer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Photo Editor:

Amelia Cacchione

Editor in Chief:

Alexa St. John

Managing Editor:

Dayton Hare

Copy Editors:

Elise Laarman

Finntan Storer

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.

