Let’s make it dark, dank, and scary for women and minority groups again!/Image: Licensed Adobe stock, Allen Penton.
How are we doing, my questioning, conservative readers?
As I often say in my fantabulous little advice column here on the lovely Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW), your questions come to me just when I need it–and let’s face it, even your inquiries about your own experiences are ultimately about a little lady with big significance named: Me! Honestly, I was just doing some reading, and I was reminded of the long, strange linguistic trip the phrase “politically correct” has taken. Then I received a letter from a reader on that very topic. And it’s why I started the SYRW Take Back the Light™ campaign to rid society of this “politically correct” scourge of using language to include and validate people and their experiences! Read on!
Dear Dr. McEnnaKnee,
Hi. Dr. McEnnaKnee. I live on the South Carolina coast. I work at a mid-size technology firm. Earlier today in a meeting, I said, “…and he’s a Jew.” You could have cut the tension with a knife, Dr. M! The aghast looks I got made it almost impossible for me to finish my presentation, but I did. As I was walking out of the room, a co-worker pulled me aside and said, “Please say ‘Jewish’ when you’re referring to someone of Jewish ethnicity. ‘he’s a Jew’ has an aggressive, assaultive sound to it. It’s not appropriate anywhere, least of all a work environment.” I felt mad. And I guess, kind of humiliated and sad. I don’t like to feel bad. No, I don’t like to feel bad. Harrumph! So I went back to my office, shut the door, and sent this letter off to you. Why is it such a big deal what I say–I’m not anti-Semitic. What can I do to fight back against these liberal cultural warriors trying to tell us what to think and say?
Mad In Myrtle Beach
Related: Using your interior design choices to oppress and invalidate!
Dear Mad,
Oh, good lord! Let me unclench my teeth and relax my fists….ok, phew. Now, can I just say I am so, so sorry you had to go through that awful experience of being politely alerted to what the liberals want to be a cultural faux-pas now–the language we use to name certain groups? I mean, I don’t bat an eye whether someone calls me “European-American” or “white trash.” Nope, I don’t even hear the difference. Is there one? Aren’t those the same words? Furthermore, when did words get so much power? They’re just the little mind-based sounds we use to communicate and structure reality! They don’t have the power to uplift and oppress, support and hurt, validate and delegitimize. Not at all–I mean, unless someone’s talking about me and people who look like me.
Anyway, I’ll tell you how to fight back, Mad. You’re going to be member number two, after me, in SYRW’s Take Back the Light™ campaign. It’s going to let those minority groups and women who don’t want to be referred to in certain ways that we are the heterosexist patriarchy warriors, and we’ll decide what they’re going to be called. The power is ours, because we’re taking it, and the light that they were starting to be bathed in with the cultural progress they were making, of which the power to name themselves and their experiences was just the beginning, well we’re taking it back. You want rights–you can’t even have the light, so good luck with those rights. There’s only so much light in the world, and we conservatives aren’t sharing, daggumit!
“Political correctness” started as a term to describe early 1990s speech codes on campuses across the country, That was its first mistake, coming to fruition in a world we feel left out of: academia. These campus speech sought to make certain words not okay to say, as a way to begin acceptance of women and minority groups by calling them respectful, dignity-granting names. The most popular example that comes to mind today is the use of the term “African-American” instead of “black.”
History and “Herstory”
“Political correctness, perpetuated by a small class of people ensconced at universities, bureaucracies, and major media, is the ideal tool for achieving cultural hegemony. It is “’orceful seduction’ in lieu of rape. It achieves ‘tacit collaboration by millions who bite their lip,” writes Jon Miltimore in Intellectual Takeout Over the years, the right and the ginormous dinkuses on that end of the political spectrum, have co-opted the phrase to mean anything–words, actions, ideas–that they see as taking sensitivity and inclusion too far. We on the Alt-right have begun to wear “not politically correct” as a petulant title, indicating our refusal to take the liberals’ hands and walk into 2018.
“Political correctness is intellectual dishonesty, said Tomi Lahren. This seemingly innocuous, borderline developmentally-stunted observation by White Power Barbie, belies a fundamental truth about right-wing, anti-political-correctness obsessives. We on the right don’t want to say or think certain things, because they feel dishonest to us. That’s because it would be dishonest to say we aren’t sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT, anti-Semitic, and basically anti-anyone-who-isn’t-in-our-self-identified tribal group. We want to be out there with our devaluing of others, because like kids being forced to share with siblings, it does make us, sad, mad, and feel bad to have the limelight shone on others and their experiences. What will become of the heterosexist racist patriarchy, dear Mad? What, I ask you?
Of another really civilized, grown-up dude, Kid Rock, Pink News wrote of a concert he gave in Michigan last September, “The 46-year-old went on to defend using the word ‘gay’ as a pejorative – insisting that he would never use “politically correct” language. Well, okay, then! Let’s just pray to the god of our understanding this unwashed high-school dropout doesn’t run for Senate, as the above article noted he intended to. Because, in the Trumo Era, boyfriend will win.
In November 2015, Dr. Ben Carson, Mr. I-Act-I-Had-a-Lobotomy, railed against “political correctness, too.
““What we need to do in this PC world is forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought, and we need to consentrate on being respectful to those people with whom we disagree,” he said.,” Carson said. Clearly, Dr. Carson is sharing some of whatever good stuff Kellyanne Conway’s availing herself of if he thinks this country is going to elect another African-American man to be president. Donald Trump is the revenge that keeps on giving for eight years of Barack Obama.
So basically, “political correctness” now means any words, ideas, even policy proposals we on the right think the liberal, elitist left is forcing on us. We’re big kids and no one tells us what to do! No one!
And: See what Tomi Lahren says about her hair health routine!
What You Must Do
This is why, from now on, Mad, when confronted with this stop-being-a-dick insistence by liberals, you should suddenly, almost spasmodically, throw out your arms in front of you. Then begin frantically pushing the light-filled air toward yourself, symbolizing that you are, in fact, taking back that light! You can’t have it, women and minority groups. We won’t share. We don’t wanna be told what to think or do. It makes us feel momentarily embarrassed and annoyed, and instead of sitting with that feeling and moving on to join the rest of the world in a better future, we’re going to stand here. RIGHT HERE. And we’re not moving, except to forcibly take back the light that progressivism and social justice feed on. How ya’ like us now, Liberal Snowflake Pearl Clutchers?
That reminds us of another good point–we’re going to make sure our shared culture isn’t just exclusive and delegitimizing except to everyone but us and our tribal group. We’re going to make it crass, crude, down-and-dirty. Tomi Lahren, Kid Rock, and all the other brain-dead bobbleheads–bring it on!
Come, Mad, and all you other proud Alt-a-holes join SYRW here on the prehistoric dark side. Let’s pull all of society back with us.
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© 2018 Akbar Khan
