President-elect Donald Trump talked a lot about political correctness during his campaign. He used it as an excuse to dismiss all of the nasty things he said. Back in June, Trump said:
“The people are tired of this political correctness when things are said that are totally fine … It is out of control. It is gridlock with their mouths.”
In a NPR interview, Steve Inskeep asked President Barack Obama about political correctness and if it’s gone too far. Obama talked about how political correctness can turn into hypersensitivity. We shouldn’t have to “walk on eggshells” and be afraid to say anything. Trump took the idea too far and used it as an excuse to spout his hateful rhetoric.
When asked about Trump’s idea of political correctness, Obama said:
“I suspect the president-elect’s definition of political correctness would be different than mine. If what’s meant by political correctness is that there is some broad disapproval that’s expressed when somebody uses a racial epithet or somebody makes a derogatory comment about women, or about the LGBT community, and people say, ‘Hey, you shouldn’t do that. That’s wrong, that’s cruel, that’s hurtful. Here’s the history of that word.’ And when you use words like that, you’re reinforcing people feeling like they’re outsiders, and less than other Americans.”
President Obama had this to say to young people:
“My advice to young people, and my advice to all of us as citizens, is to be able to distinguish between being courteous and being thoughtful and thinking about how words affect other people and not demonizing others versus having legitimate political debates and disagreements.”
We all want to be inclusive, but sometimes it can be too much. Try to use the correct terms when you can. Trump went too far with using incorrect terms and complaining about political correctness.
Political correctness is meant to be about just being polite to one another. Those on the far right often twist the concept to make it seem like they are being victimized. They complain about us politically correct liberals, and they say that we are stifling free expression.
Trump and the right-wingers have blamed political correctness for all kinds of ridiculous things. He blamed it for the Orlando Pulse shooting, the rise of ISIS, and many other things. Yet, they have their own political correctness. They get upset when someone isn’t patriotic enough. They complain about peaceful protests because of their patriotism.
We need to be able to find a happy medium here.
Featured image via Twitter and by Gage Skidmore via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
