Political correctness has made its way to the absolute forefront of American life. I see this as both a positive and a negative. On the one hand, people are becoming more socially aware. On the other, it seems that a good number of people do it out of spite.
Today's youth are a big part of this movement, most likely sparked by the recent episodes of "South Park." The media now saves time in every segment to ask its figures whether the recent words of a politician were out of line or not. Maybe it is just because we're coming up on an election, but you can't go two hours without hearing or reading about another edgy quote uttered by one of the candidates. Their words are immediately analyzed and then praised or ridiculed accordingly.
Like I said, this is a beneficial thing. People are asking the question more and more about what is appropriate to say and how that reflects on one's values and beliefs. I find it important to have these discussions. Now, I am not saying that we should do this for every single celebrity, but the conversation needs to continue. The negative side, however, is how often these celebrities like the infamous Donald Trump double down on statements that they really shouldn't double down on. I am not going to turn this into another Trump bash, but there are a lot of things being said during this election cycle that are disturbing to hear.
It seems like as little as two years ago that, when somebody said something bad, they immediately came out to apologize. People apologized even when it wasn't necessary. Now, people are apologizing less and less when they should. This is not good. When you have a microphone that is able to be heard by millions of citizens on a daily basis, you need to know how to think before you speak. A lot of regular people don't know how to think for themselves, so it doesn't help when leaders of the nation do things like denounce Syrian refugees. Unfortunately, people listen and repeat even as adults.
We are becoming more and more tolerant as a whole, but the PC movement has, I believe, caused many of the intolerable to once again double down on their intolerance.
In conclusion, it's okay to be PC, but stay away from either extreme. Don't be captain of the PC police. Don't say ignorant things and not work to remedy the situation. People are actually affected by the words you say, whether you want them to be or not. So live, learn, and RUSH PC, WOO WOO!
