Several months ago, I was extolling Mr. Rogers' virtues in Sunday School, and commented how he managed to spread the Gospel without once mentioning Jesus or religion, which allowed him to be very ... Then my 50+ year-old brain did what it does best, and denied me the word I was looking for. Someone suggested "politically correct". That wasn't the word I was looking for; but it is the topic I would like to discuss today. (In case you wondered, the word I sought was "inclusive".)
When did being Politically Correct become a bad thing?
The term Politically Correct has a long and checkered history, and it's meaning varies with the times. In a Washington Post article, Caitlin Gibson notes that the phrase originated in the American Communist Party. Originally meaning adherent to Party orthodoxy, it gradually grew to be more generally associated with the moral mandate of left-leaning policies, although it was also briefly used to describe (pejoratively) the journalists in Nazi Germany who displayed "appropriate" opinions. However, Gibson notes that "by the mid-’80s, “politically correct” was being leveled by some conservative critics with heavy doses of irony against what they viewed as feel-good liberal pieties." Since then, the term has become a way to ridicule one's opponents (especially one's progressive opponents), and Gibson concludes that the term is unsalvageable. If you are interested, Jesse Walker provides a more complete history of the term in his blog.
Certainly, there are many who feel, as Jonathan Chait wrote in the New York Magazine, that political correctness is a "system of left-wing ideological repression" that threatens the "bedrock liberal ideal" of a "free political marketplace where we can reason together as individuals." It is seen as a means to suppress the truth for fear of offending. Recently, the New York Times showed video of unfiltered voices from political rallies, voices of people who have decided not to continue to let the truth be suppressed. (I would strongly warn you about offensive language, but that would require me to be politically correct.) To be fair, Trump supporters quickly responded with their own collection of offensive speech by anti-Trump supporters.
Certainly, there are many who feel, as Jonathan Chait wrote in the New York Magazine, that political correctness is a "system of left-wing ideological repression" that threatens the "bedrock liberal ideal" of a "free political marketplace where we can reason together as individuals." It is seen as a means to suppress the truth for fear of offending. Recently, the New York Times showed video of unfiltered voices from political rallies, voices of people who have decided not to continue to let the truth be suppressed. (I would strongly warn you about offensive language, but that would require me to be politically correct.) To be fair, Trump supporters quickly responded with their own collection of offensive speech by anti-Trump supporters.
Does Political Correctness Suppress The Truth? And What Is The Truth?
Let's talk about suppressing the truth. A friend of mine posted a review on Facebook of Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The premise of the book is that, denied the ability to discriminate directly against black Americans by the civil rights laws of the 1960s and the abolition of Jim Crow laws, society has responded by shaping the justice system to ensure the incarceration of blacks at astounding rates. The U.S. has a higher incarceration rate than any other country. Yes: ANY other country. And black people are disproportionately represented in the prison population, as I discussed in an earlier posting. The result, Alexander suggests, is "millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement" including the right to vote.
In response to my friend's post about the book, one of his friends (a Franciscan friar, no less) commented that this simply reflected the truth that black people commit crimes at a much higher rate than white people. Definitely not a politically correct comment. But the good friar felt compelled to tell what he knew to be the truth. (Interesting that the incarceration rate of black people in the U.S. exceeds the rate of incarceration of black people in African countries—so apparently it is not merely the fact of being black that leads to this supposed criminality.)
At a later time I want to talk about the difference between truth and facts. But for now, I would suggest that "the truth" being suppressed by political correctness is often simply the prejudices which we believe. We have seen, from the candidate who is running on the platform of destroying political correctness, some wonderful examples in the election rhetoric recently, such as the "truth" that illegal immigrants are rapists and criminals. Such claims about immigrants were fact-checked by the Washington Post, which cites reports showing that rates of criminality among immigrants are no different from native-born Americans. This article also contains a wonderful quote: “I can never apologize for the truth. ... I said tremendous crime is coming across. Everybody knows that’s true." The phrase "everybody knows that's true" is usually a good indicator that we are discussing prejudice, not evidence-based reasoning.
Not only is the "truth" that is suppressed by political correctness too often not actually true, but we continue to it believe despite contrary evidence. In fact, we don't even perceive the evidence against it. In The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul—Douglas Adams' second book in the Dirk Gently series—Norse gods (including Thor) roam the streets of London. But the general population do not see them because they do not fit in the common person's world view. In the same way, we cannot see evidence that contradicts the prejudices we hold to be truth. And when someone tries to confront us with evidence, we reject the evidence as lies, and lash out at the confronter. This is why the Southern Poverty Law Center receives daily death threats, such as "We are going to blow you ... straight to hell in the near future for all of your lies, propaganda, and hate that you spew out."
But there can be occasions when we fail to draw attention to a problem out of a fear of appearing politically incorrect. Those of us in the U.S. Navy remember a period of time when some black Sailors would say that they were being given less favourable tasks because they were black, and it was hard to know how to handle that because we were afraid of appearing racist. We were fortunate if we had a black chief at the command who could look at the situation to determine whether or not there was bias involved, and if necessary correct the complaining Sailor. NPR reporter Michel Martin investigated whether concerns about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist who went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, had not been expressed out of fear of political incorrectness. Similarly, Martin wondered whether the Muslim community hesitates to report members who appear radicalized out of fear of offense. She brought together two reporters who cover the military closely, and two people from the Muslim community, to discuss the issue. "The conversation was so intense, our guests literally took it outside."
But this is exactly the kind of conversation that we need to continue to have as we struggle with this issue. We need to try to be able to look at the world from the other person's truth.
Maybe reading the prayer of St. Francis will help us remove the bitter taste in our mouths from watching the video of people at political rallies:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
But there can be occasions when we fail to draw attention to a problem out of a fear of appearing politically incorrect. Those of us in the U.S. Navy remember a period of time when some black Sailors would say that they were being given less favourable tasks because they were black, and it was hard to know how to handle that because we were afraid of appearing racist. We were fortunate if we had a black chief at the command who could look at the situation to determine whether or not there was bias involved, and if necessary correct the complaining Sailor. NPR reporter Michel Martin investigated whether concerns about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the army psychiatrist who went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, had not been expressed out of fear of political incorrectness. Similarly, Martin wondered whether the Muslim community hesitates to report members who appear radicalized out of fear of offense. She brought together two reporters who cover the military closely, and two people from the Muslim community, to discuss the issue. "The conversation was so intense, our guests literally took it outside."
But this is exactly the kind of conversation that we need to continue to have as we struggle with this issue. We need to try to be able to look at the world from the other person's truth.
Maybe reading the prayer of St. Francis will help us remove the bitter taste in our mouths from watching the video of people at political rallies:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
