Believe Me --

In this day and age, it is exceedingly significant to protect the feelings and well being of persons who may – or may not – be affected by the verbal or written representation of our speech. As a consequence of this growing demand, it is no surprise that the idea of Political Correctness (PC) has rapidly managed its way to us.

PC is actually a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, disability, and age-related contexts (Aufderheide, 19). As you can see, the word ‘correctness’ here is not used in its literal sense; instead, it has this particular reference to language – whether verbal or unspoken – that might be considered offensive or discriminatory. According to Richard Bernstein, an American columnist in the International Herald Tribune and New York Times, being “politically correct” – with its suggestion of a Stalinist orthodoxy – is spoken more with irony and disapproval referring to excessive deference to particular sensibilities at the expense of other considerations. The converse term “politically incorrect”, on the other hand, came into use as an implicit term of self-praise, perhaps indicating that the user was not afraid to give offense (Bernstein, “The Rising Hegemony..”).

Looking back, I know I haven’t been caught up with any serious PC situation – not yet. But to be honest, I find PC-related instances ridiculous. For example: in the politically-correct world, we cannot call blackboards ‘black’boards and whiteboards ‘white’boards because we might all end up racists even if we do not intend to. Several Primary and Kindergartens are changing nursery rhymes such as ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ to ‘Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep’. Why? Because ‘black’ sheeps might offend the black people. What if ‘rainbow’ sheeps offend the gay community? Then what color of the sheep shall we sing about? “Baa Baa Black Sheep” has been one of the most well-known nursery rhymes for generations, and for people to come along and fiddle with it is just ridiculous (Blair, “Why Black Sheep Are..”).

I have read enough number of PC instances on the web and magazines. But I would like to share you one anecdote that struck me the most: increasingly, in many kindergartens and schools, people can no longer celebrate our mainstream cultural tradition of Christmas. The excuse? Those from different cultural backgrounds may disapprove of it. In these environments, the word “Christmas” and the things associated with it – from nativity plays to christmas carols – are banned. I guess I have to agree with John Midgley, a contributor in The Politically Correct Scrapbooks, that this undertaking is indeed the tip of the iceberg and symptomatic of the wider malaise of political correctness that is affecting the society.

They make it seem that in order to not offend people from other cultures, we have to give up most of our culture. Yes, PC may somewhat be a gift to the society since it is another way to avoid friction among different groups in it. But I think it is not right to give so much compliance to it to the detriment of other considerations such us our culture. It is actually not a dispute over racism, but instead a matter of multi-culturalism (Anderson, “We’re Not Losing..”). The latter suggests preservation of different cultures; meaning, it does not require us to lose our beliefs or even our culture. Rather, we should just accept and respect everyone in this nation’s culture, as they should accept ours. It makes sense – if we are going to continue as a nation to mark Christmas, then we as a nation should mark other religious festivals too.

Still, Political Correctness is, for me, good in one way or another. In fact, I thank the PC pioneers for their efforts to maintain equal opportunities and anti-discrimination practices in our society. But sometimes, PC fails to reveal its true demands because, let us admit it, no one can actually dictate and talk of a “correct” and an “incorrect” use of language. There is no structural determinism that would enable anyone – even linguists! – to categorize language as appropriate and inappropriate in the first place. I strongly believe that we are free as linguistic agents, but then again (thanks to my Theology professor), we must remember that we live in social contexts which function to a large degree by “restricting the free exercise of our voluntary actions” (Skutta, “Linguistic Politics..”).

Then what could be the best way to save our community from even more trouble? Think before speaking. Complete understanding of the context of the words we use and why they might be harmful is the best contribution we can give to preserve the soundness of our community. We must be willing to educate ourselves without getting defensive. After all, language is powerful; if we want to gain respect from others, we shall give them respect too. Right?

Political correctness is not just the sole answer to most of our issues, because the change – we just need to have confidence in it – lies not in the hands of the linguists, not in those from the government, but in our own hands.

-- Believe me.