This P.C World

      I know many good people. The good people in my area of the rural South are usually self-professed Christians, go out of their way to help one another, wouldn’t say an unkind word to your face for anything, will bring deviled eggs and potato salad to a funeral gathering, and pick you up on the side of the road after you’ve had a flat tire. Salt of the earth people, good people. People who visit shut-ins, people who babysit in emergencies, people who wave to you in town, people who will give you $1.60 when you’ve come up short in the checkout line, people who go to church every Sunday and pay their tithing without complaint, people who rescue stray dogs, people who hug you after a loved one has died.

But these same good people sometimes have a problem with tunnel vision. They are unable to see the world from anyone else’s perspective from their own. They take their own experiences and their lives and superimpose them over everyone else. This is especially true if they live in a very homogeneous society. If you live and work, and go to church and school, and socialize with people exactly like you, then there’s never any opportunity for dialogue on how it might feel to look though the world though another set of eyes.

If you aren’t a white woman, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a young black male in an urban setting, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a Muslim man, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a young teen with two children out of wedlock, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a family seeking political asylum in the USA because it is too dangerous in your country to live, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t gay and had to struggle all of your life for some kind of acceptance, from not only yourself but from society, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t an older woman on a fixed income who lives in an apartment in the city, then you have no idea what its like.

If you aren’t a victim of sexual abuse, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a black woman, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a teenager coming to age in 2018, then you have no idea what its like.

If you aren’t afflicted with a serious illness or chronic condition, you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t Asian, you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a fifteen-year-old scared girl who has just found out she’s pregnant, then you have no idea what it’s like..  

If you aren’t a school age child who was in school during a mass shooting, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a young white male, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you’ve never experienced generational poverty, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t handicapped, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a person who has no health insurance, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you don’t have a mental illness, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t indigenous to this country, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a young couple trying to raise children today, then you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t confused about your sexual identity, you have no idea what it’s like.

If you aren’t a member of a particular group of people, then you have no idea what it’s like.

           

I’m going to go in another direction right now, but I assure you that it ties in which the above narrative. Bear with me.

The term “politically correct” gets thrown around a lot, But if we were break the term down, what does politically correct mean? Some synonyms, words that mean the same as politically correct are: unbiased, neutral, appropriate, nonpartisan. So to be “politically incorrect” is the opposite: biased, partial, inappropriate, and partisan. Those sound like negative attributes to have. Wouldn’t it be more positive for everyone to want to be unbiased and appropriate, and therefore actually want to be politically correct? To be politically incorrect is to be a person who doesn’t care about who they offend in society. Which are you? Politically correct (unbiased and appropriate) or politically incorrect (biased and inappropriate)? Believe it or not I’ve actually heard people brag that there’s no way in hell they’d ever be politically correct. They’re politically INCORRECT and damn proud of it. These are the so-called “good” people I started this essay talking about. The salt of the earth people.  Is there juxtaposition here? How can good people want to be inappropriate?

           

Why are some people going around yelling and complaining that the country is just too politically correct? Do they think being unbiased is a negative quality? I have a theory. The people stomping their feet and making snide remarks about how awful it is that “everything has to be politically correct nowadays” can’t get used to the fact that polite society no longer sees humor in jokes or comments that are racist, homophobic, xenophobic, or sexist. If a joke or comment or meme is mocking an entire group of people, then it is not appropriate and should not be posted or said. In other words, just be polite. We don’t get to tell people what they should and should not be offended over. It doesn’t work that way.   

             

As for the people who make fun of and deride the women marchers or the football players who kneel, you have no right to say what is right for that group of people either. You have no right to say how they choose to make their voices heard. You have no right to tell them that their fears and experiences are not real. The Civil Rights marchers of the 60s were beaten, killed, mocked, cussed, and murdered.  History now teaches us that the rights the Civil Rights marchers were fighting for, were the CORRECT rights to be fighting for. In other words, rights that any human being should have. And just like the Civil Rights movement, history will judge us for where we stood at this moment in time, but it will judge us harsher, and some of us, through the magic of digital social media footprints, will be found woefully lacking.