It seems that one of the many topics that likes to consistently pop up where ever I go is the exceedingly exhausted and excessively overthought "issue" of PC culture (political correctness). I want to say that I am an individual that is all for political correctness and I find myself rolling my eyes or even holding back a full-fledged lecture whenever I overhear or have someone mention how they think that "this political correctness crap is nonsense."
To me, being PC shouldn't be an issue, at all. For a while, I was a bit confused as to why people were so upset with it; I noticed it was mostly those whom are categorized as generation X or baby boomers. They say one thing, to which they are then corrected by a friend, family member, or even a complete stranger and then get mildly upset and go on a tangent on how they think this "PC culture" is ridiculous. To me, it seemed like these individuals were upset because they were corrected, told that it is not okay to say one phrase or another and that it should be instead substituted with a more appropriate and less negative word or phrase.
Though, as I have matured and further progressed through my life in college, my understanding of this "issue" has improved and I have witnessed the true animosity of those who challenge and oppose political correctness.
Especially now, in the age of the rise of racism, xenophobia, and ignorance, mostly brought out by the "Trump America", it has gone far past the understanding of being slightly inconvenienced. It has, instead, bluntly come down to white people being upset because they cannot use derogatory words used to hurt people of different ethnicity.
It is actually quite pathetic, as well as embarrassing. Not only that, but there seems to be a trend of taking certain terms and phrases and using them to attack the younger generations, mainly millennials (for example, the trending tag #HowToConfuseAMillennial). I get it though, in a sense. Your generation and outdated ideals are slowly fading away and you are fighting to continue to make those irrelevant beliefs stick. Unfortunately, for you, like all adhesives, time is a degenerative factor. Though, I will say there is one thing that has stuck around and will probably continue to do so; the teachings and upbringings to treat each other with respect.
This is where I feel the term "PC culture" is in itself a joke. There is no such thing as "PC culture"; it is just a term created by old upset white men. I was raised to treat everyone equally, respectfully, and in a way that I would like to be treated. I may sound hypocritical in the sense that I just attacked those whom belong to the generations previous to mine, but I want to point out, in all fairness, that generation X and baby boomers, the ones who taught me, us, to be respectful, are doing a complete 180, proving to be extreme hypocrites and treat people whom are Muslim, who identify as a gender or sexuality that may not conform to their ideals, whom follow a different religion or possibly non at all, in the most disrespectful ways possible. I, along with my fellow peers, were taught to have manners and show respect for our fellow man, and yet we are now being attacked for following those teachings by those same teachers, our parents and grandparents.
You taught us to be classy. You taught us to explore who we are and treat this world and its people with respect. I think it's time to start using what you taught us and apply it to yourselves instead of hiding behind this phrase to justify belittling us and villainizing those who are different from you and your beliefs.
