Political Correctness

Political Correctness. In today's hotbed of divisive political views, bigotry, and hate, this term has come up a lot but, what is political correctness? How does it divide our society? What do we need to be careful of?

Political Correctness is defined as avoiding language or actions that seem excluding to those of a certain group. We see this a lot when it comes to race and sex. People not wanting to discriminate against people do to differences they were born with is indeed a good thing. However, there is one question that still stands. Is there a such thing as being too politically correct? If so how much is too much?

I have come to notice that far too many people feel like you have to have the same opinion as them and if you don't they want to throw you to the wolves. They either want to ruin your reputation, call for you head on a stick or get you fired. Sometimes all three. Or they may take something you said and take it completely out of context. An example of this is Raven Simone's interview with Oprah Winfrey. Take a look for yourself down below.

You will notice that Raven has said she doesn't want to be labeled. She doesn't want to be seen as gay, she wants to be seen as a human that loves humans. She's not African American, she's American. You can see Oprah's reaction as she warns her about impending criticism.

Raven's statement was taken completely out of context. People act like she said she hated being black or hated black people. She didn't. Stop to think about it for a moment. Have you ever realized that every minority is something else before they're American? Asians are Asian American, Blacks are African American, Mexicans are Mexican Americans etc. When Americans go overseas no matter what their ethnicity is they are seen as American. Don't believe me? Ask the Asian American when they went to China how they were seen? They will tell you they were considered American by their Chinese counterparts. Only in America do we look at each other as something else before we see each other as Americans. It is a hawk back to our history in this nation. A time in our history were anyone who weren't white were considered a second class Americans and therefore worthy of separation by ethnic category.

So back to the question what is too much political correctness? Well, too much political correctness involves people who did not actually say or do anything demeaning towards a specific group of individuals being afraid to express their opinion. Self-censoring due to fear of people shaming you because they don't agree with you or want to cause controversy over something you didn't actually say or actions you didn't commit.

When it comes to the hot button issue of race we see this all to often. It is especially so when it comes to people assuming that because people are white that they are racist Nazis like those in Charlottesville. When it comes to some people everyone who is white hates people of color. Which is not the case.

Of course there is the other side of things as well. There are people who legitimately spew hateful words and hateful actions towards their fellow human beings. These people use the argument against political correctness as an excuse to justify their inappropriate and hateful behavior towards other people. They make the argument that those who criticize them (rightfully so) are too politically correct. That is the furthest thing from the truth. When someone actually calls you out for actually being a bigot that's what should happen. Being too politically correct would mean that people are too afraid to call you out because you would judge them as being too politically correct and bias against you because you are a part of said group. This glove fits particularly on individuals of the white power movement.

We as a nation have to be very careful at this point in our history. Racial tensions flare on our streets like never before. We must not get caught up in being too politically correct and persecuting individuals who don't actually speak hate. We must also not fall pray to trying to appease those who are actually being hateful towards each other. At the end of the day what happens to America happens to us all despite our differences. We must remember now more than ever that we are one nation. We must remain indivisible with liberty and justice for all.