Every time we read about political correctness, it sends our anger quotient through the roof. PC is a poison. It stifles discussion, it imposes a fake reality on the world and it creates outcomes which do not improve the world rather destroys it.
Whether it is trying not be be labeled racist (as in the accompanying article) or anti-female or anti-gay or anti-German (we can say that as it is our extraction), we harm the exchange of ideas and communication by excluding the more meaningful topics. Most people are so afraid of being not politically correct, that they will not say anything. All conversations become bland discussions of meaningless topics like who should win "Dancing with the Stars." Why can't we have conversations about those more vital topics of the day without being labeled as _______________. (You fill in the blank.)
Even jokes are verboten. Any joke can be misinterpreted by someone who wants to be insulted especially if it is told by a person that is not a "protected" class. Jokes about women are immediately anti-woman, jokes about nationalities (Poles, Irish) are anti those
people and don't even consider telling a joke about a Black, Asian or Hispanic! You will be banned for life.
We recently had a conversation about the Obama Administration's policies and immediately we were called racist even though we were not discussing race. Rather our exchange was on taxes, debt, spending, Fast and Furious and other Administration follies. It is an easy argument killer to assert that someone who disagrees with the President is anti-black, when in actuality his race has nothing to do with the topic.
In the reporting on the Trayvon Martin murder, George Zimmerman was labeled a "white hispanic" by the press. Can someone tell me why they used that description? Are they trying to be PC? You betcha!
George Orwell in his tome, "1984", warned us about this issue. We did not listen and many of those who impose PC on us would say that we have not gone far enough. What has to occur before we regain sanity in this arena. Do we have to end all discussion except the latest weather forecast? Will comments on Black basketball players be banned because they are black? Will comments about women's driving or health issues be verboten? Will all references to "protected classes" be automatically called hate speech?
Should these events occur, discussion will surely end, a hunky-dory world will be created (not reflecting real issues) and important issues will be ignored because no one has the guts to talk about them. That would be terrible for society and the country as a whole. Read the following article and tell me if teachers being politically correct is helping the minority students they are teaching. I believe you will say no.
Conservative Tom
Racist Teachers Making Minorities Dumb
PHOTOS.COM
Teachers may be harming minority students by holding back on criticisms.
Since the “political correctness” disease struck the United States in the 1990s Americans on the whole have become petrified of saying or doing anything that could be misconstrued as callous, or worse, racist.
Some would argue that the over-sensitization of the Nation is leading to decay of heritage and cultural pride along with intelligence as people are indoctrinated with the idea from their earliest education that every person is the same regardless of background. Of course, the people who would dare to make such an argument would be promptly flagged as callous or racist by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
A new report from Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., will likely be overlooked by hate watchers because it illustrates how the very way of thinking lauded by the oversensitive is dumbing down the populations they are so intent on helping to succeed.
A study currently published in the Journal of Educational Psychology shows, through a phenomenon dubbed “positive bias,” how affirmative action policies hold back minority youth and lead to their dependence on similar policies to succeed throughout life. Psychology professor Kent D. Harber indicates in the study that public school teachers under-challenge minority students by providing them more positive feedback than they give to white students even when they deserve equal merit.
Harber used 113 white middle school and high school teachers in two public school districts located in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tri-State area, one middle class and white, and the other more working class and racially mixed, to conduct his study. The researcher had the white teachers read poorly written essays that they believed were written by either white, black or Latino students and give feedback to be sent directly to the student.
All of the essays were actually developed by Harber, but he found that when the teachers believed him to be a black or Latino student he got more positive feedback than when they thought he was a white student despite the work being of equally poor quality. This racism to avoid being called a racist is holding back the minority students.
“The social implications of these results are important; many minority students might not be getting input from instructors that stimulates intellectual growth and fosters achievement. Some education scholars believe that minorities under-perform because they are insufficiently challenged—the ‘bigotry of lowered expectations,’ in popular parlance,” Harber explains. “The JEP study indicates one important way that this insufficient challenge might occur: in positively biased feedback.”
Harber believes the study’s findings have implications not only for educational systems in the U.S. but also for businesses, and in fact any organization where performance appraisals and feedback are crucial tools for training and development.
While the study shows that Americans would be better off without the fear created by oversensitive political correctness, the concept may be so rooted in the Nation’s society at this point that it is impossible to remove.
Russian media outlet RT poked fun at Americans’ oversensitivity to everything in the following broadcast from earlier this week:
Remember, you have freedom of speech and of thought in the United States as long as you avoid criticisms—even constructive—of any being that could be considered a minority or weaker than yourself, and any utterance that could be misconstrued by any person as offensive. Good luck.
