These days it seems every time you turn on the TV, scroll down your timeline, or walk down campus there’s a new story involving an individual or group of individuals’ whose been the victim of some outrageous bigotry. This lovely generation of mine referred to as Millennials seems to always feel the need to uphold their civic and moral duty to make social changes and stand up to the powers that be. Now, there is nothing wrong with questioning and challenging authority in the event our legal rights don’t match up with natural rights. In fact, that’s what our entire country was founded on.

However, I can’t help but notice a growing problem in our society, that my generation is contributing too, involving this righteous mindset of social justice.This is a problem I have taken the liberty of labeling the “PC Problem”. If you’ve happened to live under a rock the past couple of years and aren’t familiar with the term “PC”, allow me to enlighten you. “PC” stands for Politically Correct, which basically, in today’s world, refers to a category that every individual’s opinion, words, thoughts, and actions should fall under if that individual would like to be considered a decent human being. That’s not the Webster approved definition, but it is the reality of the situation. Ten years ago the only realm you needed to practice “Political Correctness” was pretty much politics. This term was brought about from Politicians nature to try and please everyone and make sure to steer clear of any language or actions that could be considered offensive to different groups of people. The idea being the less people you offend the more votes you’re likely to get.

Now all of this was just fine and dandy because this is America and you still have the everyday real genuine people who voiced their opinions and weren’t scared to do so. The people who would question others and call people out for being ridiculous. And the craziest part was, you weren’t damned to hell by society for doing so. In fact, honesty and logic were considered admirable traits. I’m not talking “telling your girlfriend that those pants actually do make her look fat” honest, I’m talking “really stating your opinion on an issue” honest. The kind of honest where you’re in public doing something stupid and your best friend says “Dude, stop being ridiculous”. Then you stop and think “Oh that was ridiculous” and then you stop wat you’re doing and that’s that. But Unfortunately, somewhere along the way honesty turned into intolerance. Now if your honest opinion offends someone else; well then, you sir are an intolerant hateful person.

So now you have people, especially Millennials, so afraid of being called a racist, a homophobe, or an inconsiderate person that they’ll do anything to avoid these accusations. So this sense of fear and paranoia of being socially ridiculed of being “intolerant” has swept the Millennials by storm. So to combat this accusation my generation has come up with a bit of an insurance policy. To make certain we are considered good open-minded individuals, we take any situation where there is an ounce of offense directed towards anyone and we rally to start a movement or protest to make sure EVERYONE knows how “PC” we are. But hey, What’s wrong with that? Well I’ll tell you. This “PC insurance policy “has snowballed out of control because of the media and politicians recognizing how convenient it is to move political agendas. They see a young generation that will jump on board with any little PC campaign and use this to their advantage by speaking out about non-PC events knowing our generation will back them, resulting in gained support and votes. Pushing their own political agendas in the process. The media uses this to their advantage by reporting on irrelevant small events and twisting the story into someone being a victim of social intolerance and the whole process starts over.

There’s nothing wrong with civil rights movements or protesting against unjust laws; in fact, America wouldn’t be where it is today without people standing up for what is right. There is a problem, however, with turning every little offensive act and controversial issue into a new “movement”. It takes away from the importance of focusing on real issues that need to be addressed. It seems a little offensive to the people who stood up against real issues to get this country to where it is to be putting so much effort into every little offensive issue just to be PC. Do I sense a bit of hypocrisy in the whole PC ideal?

So to everyone on the PC train, do me the politically correct courtesy of entertaining this thought: There is no such thing as a “safe place” and there never will be. Remember when you came home from elementary school upset about the name someone called you on the playground and your mom said, “There’s always going to be mean people, just ignore them and they’ll stop bothering you”. It’s funny how so many childhood lessons actually become relevant in the real world. I’m not sure when everyone decided to become so soft and invest in “No one should hurt my feelings and if they do my rights are being infringed upon”. I’m not saying to let people get hurt and justify criminal acts, but maybe let’s use the good judgment God gave us to know when to join a noble cause or look at the cause and say “Dude, stop being ridiculous”. There’s plenty of real injustice in the world to focus on. Everyone likes to bash the millennials for how entitled we act. We want so bad to be this revolutionary generation so we jump on this PC movement bandwagon. We have some of the most intelligent, creative, ambitious people this world has to offer so let’s stop trying to take shortcuts to feel important and actually make changes that matter.

Do the things that made this country great: Work hard, seize every opportunity, speak your mind, don’t try and please everyone, and call people out on their ridiculousness. So when the time does come to stand up for something we’ll have the respect needed to be taken seriously. So let’s Cowboy up, stop feeling sorry for ourselves and all of these pretentious PC attitudes will be take care of themselves. And to my fellow college students, Stop reading every blog post that comes across social media, turn off all the bias news on TV, and research the real facts for yourself so you can form your own honest opinion.

And to those who would like to say “You’re a White Middle-Class Male, it’s easy for you to say everyone’s overreacting. You’ve never been discriminated against or experienced hardships.” My response is this: Yes, you could not be more accurate. I am a white middle-class male and no I don’t know the struggles of every other race, ethnic group, or minority. However, your accusations seem to be a bit closeminded and intolerant. (see what I did there?) Doesn’t seem very PC to say I don’t have my own struggles in life. I’ve dealt with hardships, different from others but hardships nonetheless. Secondly, I guarantee there is an individual who comes from the same race, gender, and socioeconomic class as you who supports the exact point I am trying to get across. So if you won’t listen to me because of my background and race. Seek that person out, have a conversation about this, and they’ll say “Dude, stop being ridiculous.”