#politically correct
Words and Offense by Kinsey Hope
Ah slurs. Amazing little linguistic fragments of nastiness, they are one of the most misunderstood elements of oppression in existence.
Slurs are systemic and offense is personal. This we can all agree on (unless we are quite ignorant about how these things work).
So now I drop the bomb on you. I do not give a single flying or landbound fuck, when it comes to fighting slurs, about offense.
[…] You see, offense isn’t the actual problem. It never has been. It isn’t the thing that makes slurs so ungodly harmful. Furthermore and this is important, offense is not limited to the marginalized and oppressed. Oh. Yes. That’s a bit of a problem isn’t it? Because you see, privileged people can be offended just as easily by marginalized and oppressed people as we can be by them. The effects of the offense may be different (power always adds extra harm to stuff) but there’s no doubt that we offend the privileged every day of every week of every month in any given year. Our anger offends the privileged and hurts them. Our self expression and living our lives offends the privileged and challenges their worldview painfully. […] Offense is a very eclectic concept and it is open to anyone, even the oppressor. Even worse, offense is built entirely around direct effect. If a tree falls in the woods it does in fact make a sound, but if no one is there to hear it, no one will cringe at the crash. Likewise if a slur is said in a completely privileged group, without any supporters of oppressed people around (or people who just don’t think words are an issue) who exactly is it offending? No one. No one is there who would be affected. I’ve heard of too many people who just avoid using the phrases and slurs around people they know it will offend and then go and use it around people they know it won’t.
So one of the biggest problems with just concentrating on offense is because offense can be used just as easily against us as it can for us when it comes to getting rid of slurs being spouted by the privileged.
The frighteningly direct way that words influence behavior and in turn directly and effectively boost the effects of oppression on a huge scale is a much bigger concern then whether someone is personally offended. It means that no matter where someone says that slur, even if no one is around that could be offended, it still hurts us overall.
So no, it’s not about offense. Not entirely. Words really do have astounding power.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can mobilize an entire society in violent hate against me. And we should never forget that fact.
This is particularly apt in light of things have been going on lately. Words have a huge affect, especially those used by the media. This extends past slurs and into the way things are framed as well. Calling abortion rights a “debate” when it’s a health issue? Not admitting when words directly have an impact on the actions of a murderer? Not calling it terrorism when a white person terrorizes the public? Seriously.
On a related note, one of my favorite podcasts lately has been CounterSpin, which critically looks at the past week’s news and how mainstream media covered it. It “exposes and highlights biased and inaccurate news; censored stories; sexism, racism and homophobia in the news; the power of corporate influence; gaffes and goofs by leading TV pundits; TV news’ narrow political spectrum; attacks on free speech; and more.”
A World Without Police!? by Ryan Higa
Inspired by all the police brutality videos going viral these days causing even more hatred towards police.
So, this is an example of something that is not politically correct. A quick summary so you don’t have to give this video any more views: Police brutality is a serious issue, but people nowadays are going out and deliberately antagonizing police. Police are human, too! They deal with assholes every day, so they’re bound to be asshole-ish sometimes. #NotAllPolice are racist – just like we want to avoid stereotypes that Black people are thieves, Asians are bad drivers, and Muslims are terrorists, we shouldn’t judge a group of people based on a few bad ones! The very minorities who are mad at being discriminated against are discriminating against the police! The world couldn’t survive without police anyways, we’d descend into a Netflix-less hell (don’t ask)!
Yeah. This was basically a #NotAllMen about the police. Somehow he decided to compare police with oppressed minorities. The police are not an oppressed minority – the police are the oppressors, or at the very least, the enactors of oppression. They’re part of a corrupt system.
Moreover, who else deals with assholes every day? Retail workers. Restaurant workers. Janitors. Housekeepers. Minimum wage workers. They don’t have the luxury of acting like assholes. It’s really frustrating to see this video have nearly two million views. Literally no one was asking him to comment on police brutality, but I guess he wanted to cash in on it (just like the supposedly antagonistic people filming police he was criticizing).
