We’ve all heard the phrase. “Politically correct.” Maybe you’ve said something and all your friends silenced, looked around, dropped their jaws and were like, “Woah, dude, you can’t say that that’s so not PC.”

But what does “politically correct” even mean? Essentially, making sure something is politically correct is making sure it won’t offend those to whom it may apply. Now obviously there are offensive phrases that are one hundred percent uncalled for, and me asking for an end to our new societal revolution around this idea isn’t a call for being able to go out and offend people left and right- so don’t twist this into that.

With that said, we’ve adopted this culture where we walk around on eggshells afraid to offend anyone. What happened to me being able to express my opinion? What happened to my First Amendment rights?

It seems all we do these days is wrap each other in metaphorical bubble wrap for fear of getting hurt. Beyond that silly notion, it’s teaching our youth, and frankly a lot of our adults as well, that our first amendment right is not legitimate. People don’t know how to rebound from getting hurt anymore because of this culture. One day, children will go out into the real world and not be prepared for the toughness that they’ll encounter. They need to understand the fact that they’re no longer going to receive a trophy for a soccer tournament they lost because “everyone’s a winner.” This simply just not how the world functions.

Now, some people are definitely just mean and truly don’t understand or don’t care that what they say is wrong and I’m not saying that we shouldn’t dedicate every second to ending those awful ideas and the spread of that hatred, but how can we do that if we can’t even talk about it? This isn’t a situation that we can keep hush-hush and just wait until it goes away. Everyone knows bottling up your issues will not help you. I know, personally, if I’m upset and I bottle it up, that it will eventually come out and it will probably be 10-times worse when it does. Our country has some serious issues right now (that’s okay because what country hasn’t?), but it’s time to have a conversation about it and figure out how to fix it. We cannot continue to bite our tongues because we are so afraid of what people will think of us if we speak our minds.

It’s simply not getting us anywhere and it’s time to end it. Say how you feel, speak your mind, let’s sit down and talk. We’re at a crossroads here and everyone seems to think the countries about to set on fire. If you really feel this way then say something, go do something about it. But frankly, this PC culture is just not getting anyone anywhere.