It seems like a headline right out of The Onion.
If there was ever an ultimate Jump-the-Shark moment for politically correct liberals, this would have to be it. At long last, they’ve decided that the term “political correctness” itself is offensive.
This, according to a new campaign called “Just Words” being launched at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. According to this campaign, “politically correct” is a term used to escape responsibility for offending people by calling them “too sensitive.”
But…if the shoe fits…
The campaign doesn’t end with a warning against the use of that term. They’ve rolled out a whole bunch of words that they claim represent “microaggressions” against minorities. If you want to make sure you’re standing on the right side of history, you have to eliminate these terms from your vocabulary:
Crazy – offensive to the mentally ill.
Lame – offensive to amputees.
Thug – “Ignores issues of poverty, education and other institutional barriers.”
Illegal Alien
Welfare Queen – Assumes laziness.
And so on. Other problematic words include “retarded,” “trash,” and “Nazi,” when used to demean the language police.
But the University of Wisconsin isn’t the only institution crying about political correctness this week. After all, Halloween is approaching. You may have trimmed all of those offensive terms from your speech, but that doesn’t matter if you ruin it all with an insensitive costume.
One article in the Huffington Post warned of any costumes that appropriate Native American culture, explaining that it “glorifies mass destruction, annihilation, and cultural genocide.
Another one at Mic.com said that the same was true of costumes, including ponchos and sugar skull makeup, that played off Hispanic culture.
And for those who say that it’s ridiculous to get offended over something as silly as a Halloween costume, Refinery 29 says that this kind of attitude translates to: “I don’t care that much about the implications of this costume, because those implications don’t affect me.”
You have to wonder sometimes if even a slim minority of liberals really believe this nonsense. Certainly, there are a handful of true believers. Take Rochelle Shapiro, who wrote in a HuffPo blog:
I want to live in the world among the full host of humankind, be able to respect each person, socialize with everyone, make people feel safe in my presence. I want to learn every word, every gesture, of political correctness to help me treat others as they want and deserve to be treated. Political correctness, bring it on!
But Shapiro is the exception. Most Americans – even those who buy into the whole PC thing – are smart enough to understand how trivial this garbage is. The power of political correctness has nothing to do with making “people feel safe.” Its power lies in giving liberals a whole list of ad hominem attacks they can use instead of intelligently addressing any given issue. Why bother doing any research on the implications of birthright citizenship when you can just yell “RACIST” when a Republican uses the term “anchor baby”? These language games short-circuit real debate and allow liberals to win by default.
