Any time someone calls Jim Rigby “too PC” he is reminded of the courage it takes to step out of the cultural trance and speak a new language.
‘Originally appeared at JimRibgy.org
There were no black models on the set of Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring 2013 fashion show at Milan Fashion Week. But there were images of Aunt Jemima on the jewelry and images depicting black women living happily on slave plantations. The New York Times described the show as “imaginative.” The write up for the show said, “The imaginative elements came fast and furious — witty, ironic, funky — but always with a sense of proportion and style… The spirit of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana is maxi — and the show was effusive in every way, from earrings that swung as giant raffia circles fancied up with pompoms, through prints of toy soldier puppets on silken sheaths.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Scott Brown held a rally where his staff and supporters mocked Elizabeth Warren’s claims of Cherokee heritage with war hoops and tomahawk chops. A chief of the Cherokee Nation has called the gestures “racist” and asked for an apology.
Whenever I post stories like this, I usually receive responses saying that I am just being “politically correct.” I notice that, if the story is about women, the objection almost always comes from a man. If the story is about racism, the objection almost always comes from a white person. To care about how one’s language might affect others can be tiresome and awkward for all of us. And if someone comes from any of the dominant groups in our culture (white, male, heterosexual, Christian, etc.), he or she can feel such issues are trifling and silly, or even that they are claims to “special rights.”
That term “politically correct” is very subjective, but I have only heard it used against those who challenge prejudice. When the dominant group forces people to live or speak a certain way we don’t call it being “politically correct.” Then we call it “patriotism” or “reverence” or “being polite.”
I feel no shame when someone calls me “politically correct,” instead I am reminded of the courage it takes to step out of the cultural trance and speak a new language that does not empower or disempower any group over the rest. To me, those willing to go through the abuse are planting the seeds of a new solidarity. Because they are seeking to speak a language that includes us all, they are sharing the new Pentecost.
Image of word “politically correct” courtesy of Shutterstock
I doubt very much that many of us diabetics care about this. My hunch is that a few people use “language control” to get power, have jobs, get salaries, etc. My particular crank, by the way, is trying to match up libertarianism at the personal level with a socialist perspective at the level of business and government (in other words, we should be controlling business and business’s influence over the state.) What often happens, of course, is that communitarians and other PCers wind up trying to control the little people, and no-one controls business and politicians. In other words only… Read more »
Okay. Don’t say overtly classist, racist, or sexist stuff. The picking, carping bits of PC are what are irritating– and they are destroying a language I love. I’m a diabetic: I’m not a “person with diabetes.” This kind of stuff just provides jobs for language czars.
Just because you’re okay with being called ‘a diabetic’, doesn’t mean all people with diabetes are.