I did not get my bachelor's degree from Howard University, I got it working at Vertigo Books in Dupont Circle, at Washington City Paper in Adam's Morgan. That was where I discovered, rather where I was forced to confront, the fact that the world not only wasn't like me, but that it did not revolve around me. I never went to grad school, but I got a Master's when I moved to New York, where the sort of people I derided as a child had to be engaged.
I didn't develop my multicultural sensibilities as theory, but as a practical way of coping with the world. I had to adjust my language and thinking, not out of politeness, not as a favor to people, but because I believed that language was thinking, that it said something about my own limits and boundaries. I couldn't bear the thought of being ignorant, and then swimming in my ignorance to boot. Even as I write this, I am shamed. I remember riding the train with a Jewish cat, who is now one of my best friends, and him disabusing of the notion that "black people need to be like the Jews." He looked and me and laughed. "Do you know what our family dinners look like?"
This is a post about Sonia Sotomayor, and an extension of my defense of political correctness. Last week, I got away from my main point, which was that liberal political correctness is not so much an inability to see real facts, but a collective phase in the long process of learning how to talk to, and talk about, people who you don't know. I am still stumbling through that phase (hence, "Well I'm not gay, but...") It's easy for people who aren't interested in that process, to deride it. The get to stand on the sidelines and laugh, while ignoring the weight of history, and how it presses on us all.
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But watching conservatives mock liberals for being PC, is like watching the morbidly obese mock Weight Watchers for its system of points. I thought about all of this last night, after Lindsey Graham made his remarks about Sonia Sotomayor:
"My criticism about her comment and the speech that she gave wasn't that I think this lady is a racist," Graham said, later continuing: "There is no evidence of that, but this statement is troubling and I did tell her this, 'If I said it, it would be over for me. No matter how well-intentioned I was and no matter how much I tried to put it in context, that would be it.' And you all know that."This is the sort of logic that leads people to complain that there is no white history month. It's my great nightmare that I, or my son, ever sound like that--smug, self-satisfied, unreflective, whiny and narcissistic. It's the sort of comment that betrays a man bereft of any deep interest in this country's history. But if you've never had to grapple with who you are in relation to other people, if you've never had to worry much about courting people who aren't like you, if you've never struggled with being politically correct, it's exactly the sort of thing you'd say.
He added, "being an average, every-day white guy ... that does not exactly make me feel good hearing a sitting judge say that."
It is, in a word, ignorance. I keep thinking about that Chris Rock joke about black people vs. niggers, but with a twist--Conservative love to not know: "Man, I don't be speaking no Spanish!!" or "Man I don't be knowing how to pronounce no Sotomayor! Call that Latin chick Sodameyer!!" or "Man I don't know nothing about that food she eats!! Tell her to get a cheeseburger--without mustard!"
I'm a liberal, not so much because I doubt the free market, not so much because I believe in universal health care, not so much because of the enviornment, but because of politicial correctness. As awkward as it may be, it at least demonstrates an attempt to see the world through another lense. This is a daunting task, and failing at it is so much more honorable than not even trying. Maybe you never quite get there, but it holds out a hope for your children, that unreflective, false symetry does not. Conservatives got away with this game for years. The luxury of being the majority in a democracy is the right to act like other people don't exist. But the world is changing around them and Birnam Wood is on the march.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I had similar experiences as a kid - it became a conscious effort to change my language and thinking as I got older, simply because I realized how much of my speech was laced with it. Detroit is one of the most self-segregated places i've ever seen, and inside the city limits your interactions with other ethnicities is either extremely rare or pushes stereotypes - the most interaction the average person would have had in my neighborhood with Islam was the arabic-owned corner store or the Nation dudes selling beanpies. There's a point when you realize that the world is broader than you thought it was, and that you're behind the curve - whether it's brought on by increased maturity, a new experience, travel, or encounter. Some people react by deciding they want to catch up and experience the fullness of it, and there are some who react by turning further inward, intent on preserving the importance of their own ignorance. It's straight-up fight or flight. Living with people, listening to people, and most of all trying to understand people is always a positive - even if, and especially when its difficult. I'll never understand why people think that it should be easy, when nothing truly worth attaining is. And while i'm a drastically different person than I was then, the journey isn't over yet.
(side note: In regards to the Macbeth reference, how far could that metaphor extend? Mac had an incredible lack of foresight - and when confronted with a glimpse of the future, he always overreacted. I think Republicans see a glimpse of what the future could be like - a place where black presidents and latino supreme court justices aren't as uncommon - and they're really scared of it. The end result is that they're overreacting so much to this vision of the future that they're making it happen. How many more people will walk out of that tent when they call Sotomayor a racist?
There is a human thing inside us, and it's in all of us, that says,"Try to make your reach exceed your grasp, so that we can get something better, no matter how impermanent."
Some people stopped listening to that voice, or silenced it out of fear of weakness.
I'm glad you're not one of those people, TNC. I try not to be, but laziness has its attraction. Those on the right who fail to engage with any but the most superficial are playing a part of a self-fulfilling, white-fear prophecy. They're making their own hell, and we can only mourn the many things missed in their lives.
That said, we can not let them consign us to their way of living, the cult of normalcy, some 1956 Chimera of 'what might have been, if only the dirty commies and hippies, etc. hadn't ruined everything.' That last may be a straw memory from my youth in the 1980's, but it still seems likely, given the Lindsey Graham quote.
Oh, well.
@permazorch: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" I forget who said that, but yes, there's something very human in that urge to keep on reaching. It's sad for me to see someone who's stopped. It's almost as if they've abandoned part of their birthright.
But I think a lot of us have had similar growing-up experiences. I never had close friends from other cultures until I attended college. The thing you learn is that there are people out there who think as well as you do, but differently. Well, sort of differently, anyway. I still say I had more in common with my Middle Eastern engineering classmates than with most of the English department.
Basically, it comes down to respect, consideration, and basic politeness. It explains a lot to see the Right call that "PC".
@TNC: Cheeseburger ... without mustard? What fresh hell is this?!?
The US Army gave me my first real multicultural experiences. It was very different from McLean Va. Especially in the mid-80s. In McLean, in the mid-80s, dark skinned people cleaned houses and mowed lawns. They were not in charge. In the Army? I had black and hispanic Drill Sergeants, black and hispanic company commanders, black Brigade Sergeant Majors. A Korean squad leader.
(oday the house cleaners and lawn mowers in McLean are still dark skinned, but hispanic instead of black. Some of the houses are owned by blacks.
Graham is a lawyer so he went to college. Got to assume he is not stupid. He represents South Carolina. A politician from there should know much, much better than that. Does he believe that BS or is he pretending in order to placate the "base"?
He went to the University of South Carolina, which is 12% African-American at the moment, with negligible Asian and Hispanic populations. The Law School is at 8%. One can only imagine how low these percentages were 30 years ago. However, Graham served in the Air Force, where it would have been hard to ignore non-white people. Some people can though, I guess...
Yeah, I always find it funny that most of the libertarians I meet are white men. I'm probably going to reflect on this post a little more, but I did want to make that point. The libertarian philosophy basically is that everything will work itself out...which makes a lot of sense to say if you're a white man.
I like how you tie your growth in to political correctness, and I'd just add that you're describing empathy, which is, in my opinion, one of the defining differences between people who describe themselves as liberal versus conservative. It's empathy that helps you realize that the person down the street who has a different accent or worships another god (or no god at all) or who identifies sexually in a way you don't is still a valuable person. It's empathy that makes it possible to look for shared qualities instead of focusing on what divides, to expand the in-group instead of shrinking it. And it's a lack of empathy (and self-awareness) that lets Lindsay Graham say what he did and apparently not have a clue as to how ridiculous it was.
Hey TNC, I like that MacBeth referance alot. Good stuff.
Seconded. Perfect image to end with.
Thirded, and a great post.
Fourthed? I just spent the past couple of days watching Kurosawa's Throne of Blood with my high school students and was struck by how much better the ending of that film was than the end of the original Scottish Play...having the Macbeth character killed by his own followers when they realize that he's fallible and probably delusional makes for a really nice political metaphor, no?
Also: awesome post. Just hit it out of the park with this one, IMO.
What I see in is remark is jealousy, really. I think we'd like to think that the statements we make stand on their own, bereft of any reference to our identity or background or privilege. But they don't. I don't think they ever have, either. At this point any white politician, especially a white, male, Republican politician is viewed through a particular lens.
In a sense, that's completely, if everyday and garden-variety, unfair. I'm not a political ally of Graham, but I do consider him a decent man. I don't put him in the same category as, say, Jeff Sessions. I think Graham's time in the military probably opened his eyes some, not to say that he's a saint.
He'd like to be able to talk about race and what it means to him, without being drummed out of public service because of some miscue. For white people, being called, or imputed, a racist is a conversation ender.
But if he wants to do that, the way to do it is to first spend a lot of time in barbershops. That's the lesson of this blog. Do your homework. Know the territory.
As private citizens, I'm all for open discussions. Call it a strategy of engagement. We can tackle the doubts head-on. As John Rogers said, "She didn't take your spot at Princeton. You weren't going to get in anyway."
At this point any white politician, especially a white, male, Republican politician is viewed through a particular lens.
Like black and Asian and Hispanic and gay people do every day, you mean?
"I love black people but I hate niggas. Niggas will live next door to you, rob your house, and then say,'I heard ya got robbed.' Classic Chris Rock.
Spot on TNC. Spot on.
I wonder about those who insist on seeing Judge Sotomayor's remarks (wise Latina woman)in a racial rather than cultural light. In terms of race, Lindsey Graham may very well be an "average, every-day white guy," but his personal history is anything but average. He is southern, his father owned a liquor store, he was the first in his family to attend college, he adopted his younger sister after both his parents died. If some politicians didn't feel obliged to shed their skins to be re-born as big-c Conservatives, perhaps they could use their cultural lens to see themselves and the world more clearly. But alas, they just get blinded by the whiteness of their own racial myopia.
I generally agree. This is basically the same way I look at liberalism also. From my perspective, liberalism has nothing to do with socialism v. capitalism. It has mainly to do with seeing the world through sort of a compound lense. And to the degree that this is what political correctness is about, that is to say, being more open, empathic, being willing to change or adapt your own perspective based upon new information, that is why I think I am a liberal too. The only problem with the way I read your argument is that, the way I see it, political correctness fails when it ceases to be about these things and becomes an ideology unto itself. It’s not when people become too open or empathic. It’s when they drape themselves in the trappings of openness and empathy but display none of those qualities. I think you risk falling into that a bit with regard to Lindsey Graham. On the one hand, you’re right. Graham is taking the posture of the aggrieved white man (even better, the aggrieved white man senator), and that’s hardly a position that’s going to get somebody much sympathy considering the history of the power structure of this country. Still, I think it’s important to restate something: that the Sotomayor line was dumb, and while one hopes that the white men of this country would exercise a bit of empathy and make an attempt to understand the plausible interpretations of the line before claiming victimhood, Graham’s interpretation of the line is not unreasonable. That doesn’t make him, or us (full disclosure, I too am a white man) members of an oppressed majority, but it does reveal a double-standard that, if nothing else, is worth acknowledging.
The Sotomayor line was dumb if taken out of context.
Don't want to give up on this one, although clearly the battle is already lost on what that line means. A lost cause. But one last time -- the line was in reference to a sexual harassment case. If you don't believe that a wise Latina might have a better perspective than a white male when deciding a sexual harassment case, then you need to read TNC's comment, "see the world through another lens", again. Nevertheless, the MSM and the right has succeeded in determing, for the general public and even for us who read TNC, what Judge Sotomayor meant. Box has been closed. But that doesn't mean individual minds have to be.
Another lense is not a better lense. Two unique lenses are better than one. I argued from the beginning on this that it is the combination of perspectives that make judgments more sound. That's why we have nine people sitting on the Supreme Court.
I think it's absolutely fair to say that the judgment of the court would likely be better with one Latina on the court than one with no Latina on the court. That's not the same thing as saying her individual judgment would be better. It is saying that her perspective would likely be a net plus. Does that make sense?
Let's be clear about what Lyndsey Graham's interpretation is--it isn't merely that Sotomayor was wrong, but that she enjoys the privilege of saying something wrong, that he would not. His point is that there is something unfair about it, that if he would be done, she should too. I think that's as "dumb" as her original statement.
I wrote a very long post about why the line was wrong. I'm totally comfortable with saying that. But it's a strange logic that calls Sotomayor's statement "dumb" and Graham's "reasonable." I don't recall that sort of charity of interpretation being extended to Sotomayor in the original thread. Nor should it have been, frankly.
To be fair, I did not call Lindsey Graham's statement to be reasonable. I said his interpretation of the line was not unreasonable. Which goes back to the point that the line itself was dumb, leaving itself open to reasonable misinterpretation.
As to Graham complaining about a double standard, they are by nature unfair. I'm not complaining. At. All. I, as a white man, do not feel slighted by Judge Sotomayor. Or this particular double standard. There are lots of them out there. I think I benefit from enough of them to consider it a wash, or understand that I come out ahead in a lot of ways. That is an acknowledgement Graham fails to make, and on that end, I meant to suggest originally that I agreed with you. I did say you were right, I guess I wasn't clear enough.
I hope you're not suggesting that I was not reasonably charitable to Sotomayor in the previous threads. I would happily dispute this. From the beginning my take on the line was that it was most likely a poorly chosen word. That's still my position. And I stand behind the fact that read literally, in or out of context, the statement is dumb.
Again, Chris Rock said it best in his last special--white people can start using the n-word if black people get to set interest rates. Graham doesn't get that disparity in power and privilege, which is why he can say something so bone-stupid and not even realize he's said it. At least if you're a white male member of the working poor, you have an excuse--it's hard to see the benefits that your (or my, in this case) skin color provides, but Graham doesn't even have that. He holds his seat in large part because he's a white male running for office in South Carolina. How many minorities or women have ever held that seat?
Again, I thought I was concurring with that point with my initial post.
I really don't know if I buy a distinction between "reasonable" and "not unreasonable."
Not at all, I'm suggesting you're ultimately extending more charity to Graham than to Sotomayor. Her statement is "dumb." His suggestion that there is a double-standard for white men is "not unreasonable." I'm not sure either is deserving. If its wrong, call it that.
TNC,
To be clear, and I guess I wasn't before, I am not making a distinction between reasonable and unreasonable. I am making a distinction between his interpretation of her statement and the way he reacted based on his interpretation.
And it is not his acknowledgement of the double-standard that I consider unreasonable, either. There is a double-standard. What's unreasonable, and what I thought your point was (the point where I thought we agreed), was the aggrieved manner by which Graham raises this double-standard. What's unreasonable, to my mind was that he raises the topic in a way that seems to betray an ignorance of history and of the present, really. So yeah, I think his reaction was unreasonable. I think his interpretation of the words on a page was quite reasonable.
My interpretation of the speech as a whole is that she meant something quite different from what she said. And I absolutely agree with what I think she meant. But I do think that particular line was dumb.
I guess that should have read "not unreasonable"
Sorry, I'm not seeing the double standard. Alito got crazy mileage out of his salt-of-the-Earth Italian-American immigrant-son story, as seen in puff pieces like this. Conservatives weighed in regularly about how his backgroun would give him a down-to-Earth, populist, normal-guy (i.e. white, male, religious) perspective that was sorely needed to balance the liberal, ivory-tower (i.e. Jewish, Northeastern, urban) slant of the Supreme Court.
I don't think it's necessary to redebate this. It is the position of the administration that given the point the judge was trying to make with regard to how our experiences impact our points of view, for the comparison she made between the perspective of a white man and a Latina, "better" was not the most opportune modifier to use. An adjective along the lines of unique or different would have undoubtedly been better.
Yeah, let's not redebate the speech. There's a really long thread (over a hundred comments) doing exactly that.
Also, I think that the (valid) point of the speech was that our unique perspectives are valuable to forming sound concensus. The reason I still call the wording dumb is that it fails to connect the value to the whole of a unique individual perspective. Instead, her wording created an adversarial dichotomy on a hypothetical court in which the judgment of the individual would more often than not be more sound than the judgment of the group.
Right. Fair enough.
"Conservatives got away with this game for years. The luxury of being the majority in a democracy is the right to act like other people don't exist. But the world is changing around them and Birnam Wood is on the march."
I think that sentence highlights a key issue about political corectness. The way you described your "conversion" to politcal correctness was through recognizing that you would have to understand and learn to work with people who are not like you if you wanted to succeed in life. For many (white) people who subscribe to a conservative view point (conservative in the sense of resistant to change), they continue to operate under the assumption that they can *still* succeed in life without having to understand, learn to work with, or even fully acknowledge people who are not like them. In their worldview, those Others have to understand and accomodate *them* if the Others want to succeed in life.
Although things have changed dramatically in America since the 1950s, the sad truth of the matter is that for many white conservatives this assumption is still valid. Depending on where he grows up and lives as an adult, a white, heterosexual man can live most of his life without having to come into real contact with women or people of other races or sexualities who he would have to treat as peers, colleagues, or full equals.
America is changing, but it won't be until the majority of white, heterosexual men live in a time / environment where they have to understand and work with other people as peers / colleagues that they will understand the benefits (necessity) of political correctness.
As an aside, when talking about the term politcal correctness (and why some people are so against it) with my mom and sister a couple of weeks ago, we came to the conclusion that political correctness is just another term for (public) respect. Living in a society that abides by political correctness means that I don't have to live my day to day life with the constant slurs, demeaning interactions, and casual, public expressions of bigotry that generations of people of color and women had to live with. As far as I'm concerned, this public (pretense) of respect makes my life easier and I'm all for it. Even when it means that I have to change my behavior too.
There's another aspect: to one degree or another, the United States now bids against China to get oil from Nigeria and Sudan.
Diplomacy is a necessity, racism a luxury we can no longer afford.
I made this point in another thread but it bears repeating. It's respect, period; it's got nothing to do with political conservatism or liberalism as I see it (small or large c's or l's) - plenty of conservatives I know tend to adhere to what Liberals would call PC simply because they were raised well enough to show all the people they deal with respect and courtesy. I think Conservatives complaining about this sort of thing is part of their whole "Liberal Media Bias" spiel.
I happen to be reading an old Douglas Adams novel (sadly, there are no other kind of Douglas Adams novels anymore), when I got to this bit .....
So what of this horse, then, that actually held opinions, and was sceptical about things? Unusual behaviour for a horse, wasn’t it? An unusual horse perhaps?
No. Although it was certainly a handsome and well-built example of its species, it was none the less a perfectly ordinary horse, such as convergent evolution has produced in many of the places that life is found. They have always understood a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them.
On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature and hot have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.
I think this is fairly natural. And it leads to unreflective white people to actually believe that "reverse racism," borrowing El Rushbo's formulation, is a bigger and more pervasive problem than "racism." After all, the times El Rushbo has been sat upon, and it has had a racial component, it has been "reverse racism." We think about the times we are sat upon and ignore the times we sit upon others, and so we all feel like victims.
I try really hard to believe that people who disagree with me about stuff are at least sincere in their beliefs and not simply evil. Sometimes it is harder than others. I attribute this sense not to maliciousness so much as obliviousness. The PC movement, at its best, is about the sensitivity to perceive power relationships from the perspective of both horse and rider, and it takes an effort.
Ultimately, I think this is what Jesus was after when he talked about loving your enemies. It gets portrayed as just being all warm and fuzzy and without substance. But my enemies have a different perspective on me than I do, and ignoring that perspective is not going to help start a conversation, build a community, or be a path to justice.
TNC: The first time you posted about being PC, I remembered, and found a link to, a baccalaureate address by one of my college professors (the address was several years after I graduated, but we've stayed in touch) called "On Being Redundant: Freedom is Not Once." In a nutshell, she argues that oppressive systems such as racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. are ubiquitous and redundant, and that the only way to respond to them is to be redundant back. She argues that "PC bashing" is really just a way of silencing those who are "being redundant back" in the face of oppressive structures so ubiquitous that they are often invisible, especially to those who don't suffer under them.
But Barbara says all this much more eloquently than this brief summary, and I really think you would love to read the whole address, which you can find here:http://www.earlham.edu/~wmst/bac91.html.
Best, Marta
sorry, i'm not sure how to make that a link....
http://www.earlham.edu/~wmst/bac91.html
Sometimes I think our presidents think they are preaching to the choir even when they are not.
Words, rhetoric, and advertising are an American rage that does not work exactly the same way in the lands where "may the Americans bring you democracy" is a curse.
... oops sorry ... posted in wrong thread ...
So much here with which to agree. Like Ryan, I too matured after leaving an insulated home place.
I think the controversy over the phrase PC boils down to something quite simple. If PC stood for polite conversation rather than political correctness, there's no anger, no talking heads shouting, no angst over the term. But that's what PC really is -- doing what our mom and dad, and indeed our religions, told us we should. Respect others, play nice, try to understand another person's point of view, be polite, do unto other etc.
That's PC at its core. Be the human being a good parent wants you to be. If that's what liberalism is, sign me up. (Tho' I think that TNC was a bit slippery there -- folks who believe in nearly every political ideology would agree that we should try to appreciate the other person's perspective.)
Doctor Jay:
Imagine we lived in a world in which, for whatever social or political reasons, some topics (say, foreign policy and military affairs) were very tricky for women to discuss in public. Women could take part in discussions on those topics, but they would have to be super careful in their choices of words, would feel the need to clarify every statement multiple times, and would generally have to spend twice as much effort to make the same argument a man did; if they failed at this, they would face being shamed in public, perhaps accused of being unladylike or manly or castrating or something. Women could, of course, still take part in these discussions--but they'd either need to be unusually well-informed and careful, or willing to be called names.
If we lived in that world, those dangerous-to-women topics would just not be as well thought out, because half the potential contributors to the discussions would be seriously discouraged from taking part. Any insights more likely to come from women than men in those discussions would likely not come up. We'd make poorer foreign policy and military decisions, on average, with so much less participation possible in these discussions.
That's an aspect of PC I see as being destructive. Some people face far higher costs to take part in discussions on some topics. Some viewpoints are much harder to advance, not because of being wrong or evil, but because people advancing them are often called nasty names in a way that's socially acceptable. Some valuable discussions on important topics (education, affirmative action, income and social inequality) don't happen or are distorted to avoid attack.
I grew up with this aggrieved white man schtick, having been brought up in a blue-collar, Irish-Catholic, patriarchal house. I learned, as a boy, that my family had to leave The Bronx because of "the niggers." I still remember the way my grandmother would sneer with disgust whenever she used that word. I remember my uncle saying he really wished Pat Buchanan was the nominee in 1992, and I remember him, drunk and unemployed, sitting on the couch at my grandfather's house nodding along to Uncle Pat's convention speech as if he knew the words by heart like it was some classic tune. I remember being told by my mother - my otherwise reasonable and tolerant mother - as a preteen that I would break my grandfather's heart if I ever brought home a black girl. I heard about niggers on welfare, niggers beating up my uncle, about my cop grandfather's black partner who was "one of the good ones" who was ashamed of "his people."
So I'm sure you can imagine that political correctness has been hard for me to come by. It was so confusing and frustrating growing up believing that you're at once entitled and under siege, that you're superior and the victim, especially in a majority white town with a majority white school. It's still hard work to resist the knee-jerk responses I learned as a boy. But I'll be damned before I let anyone try to make me feel ashamed of being PC. I
Aw, geez, never stop writing, TNC. There's so much gold in here.
I like your point about being a liberal because of political correctness, because of the attempt--however clumsy--to see the world through another's eyes and try not to treat them like they're inferior or monolithic. It is, it occurs to me, the quality of empathy (again, attempted, and not always successful) that underlies this effort, and it is a good reason for bringing that word, so scorned in the last week or two, back to the fore.
I'm really behind on my issues of The New Yorker, so I only yesterday got around to reading the terrific piece on James Baldwin in the mid-February issue. In it, Claudia Roth Pierpont describes Baldwin's first trip to the American South, after living in France for some years. It was 1957 and he got to North Carolina just as school integration was stirring up the residents. He interviewed a straight-A student and his mother, the latter of whom said quietly, "I wonder sometimes what makes white folks so mean."
Oh, man, that cut me to the heart. What DOES make us so mean? What makes us full of hatred towards people who aren't mirrors of some idealized straight, white, Christian, middle class dream? What makes the people who have everything going for them full of bile and vitriol towards those who want to share in the infinite benefits? I swear to god I do not know. Unless there's some primal fear of equality being a zero sum game in which they're diminished by the gains of others? So sad.
So I listen to...just horrible people like G Gordon Liddy warn the country of Judge Sotomayor's PMS, or Tom Tancredo calling La Raza the Latino KKK, or Randall Terry commenting on the murder of Dr George Tiller by deploring his inability to repent before dying, or Fred Phelps picketing military funerals with his "God Hates Fags" signs that shriek at grieving families that their children died because the USA allows homosexuality (shall I go on??)...and I wonder sometimes what makes white people so mean.
But, if we know gay people and are friends with gay people -- hang out with them, drink with them, geek out with them about old sci-fi tv shows, joke around with them, etc. -- are we then allowed to make fun of things by pointing out that they're kind of gay? Like...I dunno... Truck-Nutz?
yes, I can tell you after ten years in San Francisco, you can definitely use the word "gay" to refer derisively to things that are gay. For example, leather festivals ("sorry dude, never been - it's way too gay for me"), any stores selling ass-less chaps, a barber shop specializing in high-and-tights and beard trims where the barbers go nuts over poodles, a business establishment with a vaguely sexual- or sleazy-sounding name (Mens Room, Moby Dick, Sausage Factory, Does Your Mother Know). You get the picture...
I'm not gay, but ...
I live in San Francisco, too, and I would never say that something is "way too gay." How about "Leather festivals ... not really my thing."
Maybe I am too sensitive around my gay friends, but I think not. If they want to say something is too gay, fine. They oughtta know. Not for me to say. Just sayin'.
I think you're too sensitive - San Francisco is what? 20% gay people? And a much higher percentage among the moneyed and the powerful. No matter where I've lived in The City, I've had a gay city supervisor. Now I also have a gay State Rep and a gay State Senator. We have a police force that is not allowed to restrict full male nudity and whip lashings in the street during the leather fest. I won't argue that gay people have achieved full equality, but they do not lack for influence in San Francisco.
Ever walked down to the end of Baker Beach without knowing what goes on over there? Ever seen the key to the women's washroom at Moby Dick? [It's a fish, because women are...well, I don't need to explain.] I won't describe the public sex acts I've walked past during Pride weekend.
"Not really my thing" sounds a little mealy-mouthed to me. If going to an event means that there will be live sex acts or public floggings, you should be able to say that you think it is "too gay."
I can't figure out how to reply to the reply below. Anyway, I promise not to keep this going after this reply, but seriously ...
This is a perfect example of the kind of thinking that makes saying something is "too gay" not cool. When you equate "gay" with encroaching power/political influence, leather bars, chaps and anonymous sex on the beach, then I would say you are using the word derisively. I've taken my kid to the Pride Parade and so do thousands of others. It is not an event of wanton depravity with people having sex and flogging each other on the streets.
Maybe you should try to make friends with some more gay people and see if that adjusts your perceptions. As you noted, they are at least 20% of the population here, so it shouldn't be too hard.
I've known a variety of gay people as long as I can remember. I know single gay men who are exceeding careful about sex (to the point of avoiding it) because of the risks involved, and I had friends who were into PNP and ultimately died of AIDS.
Your comment is a perfect example of intellectual dishonesty about some aspects of the public gay events in our city. Yes, the Sunday Pride parade is sufficiently sanitized to bring your children to. But the Saturday night before it is the scene of lots of public sex in the Castro. And the Folsom St leather festival involves public floggings and full frontal male nudity.
You say you took your kid to the Pride parade, but I can bet you didn't take her to either of the other two events. Because they are "too gay." Not bad, not uncool - lots of people like leather and bondage, after all. Just "too gay."
And the point about political power and influence is that you don't need to tiptoe around the people who control the world for fear of hurting their feelings. In San Francisco, they happen to be older, gay white men instead of the older, straight white men who run the bulk of rest of the country.
I love this post. It's spinning around--refracting lots of ideas.
I'm reminded of some of my students(community college freshman & sophomores in central Texas), who, over the years, have actually asked, "Why isn't there a white history month?" When I answer, "Well, maybe because every other month is white history month," they grow silent. Thinking. Spinning. Or those who say, "I think Affirmative Action is unfair," fists balled, looking around the room triumphantly, ready to fight. But when I suggest, "There's always been affirmative action, you know. It just favored the white guy for the first 200 years," they often sit quietly, thinking. They never saw it that way before.
Although I'll be the first to admit that being PC can drain the life out of a discussion at times, I also firmly believe that what it offers might be a person's first glimpse of something new. Many years ago, maybe 15, I started using the pronoun "she" if I referred to generic people of power (bosses, doctors, legislators) in class. Once a male student, about 18, stopped me, agitated: "Why do you keep saying 'she'?" he demanded. "Might a boss not be a woman?" I asked in reply. I still remember the shock on his face. I honestly think he'd never thought of that.
I don't see PC as empathy so much as education. Learning. The first step to empathy, perhaps. Maybe empathy brings people to higher levels of learning, but it would seem that learning--the first "huh--I never thought of that" is needed to bring people to empathy and understanding. And sometimes PC can offer that (sometimes it's just another way of exerting power, but that's for another day).
BTW, if Graham honestly thinks he'd be finished if he made his own version of Sotomayor's comment, he's clearly ignoring history (including recent history).
If we go back to Sotomayor's original comment she states that she hopes that a wise latina would more often than not arrive at a better decision than a white male. The caveat that is often missed in that quote is a "wise latina with the richness of her experiences" versus a "white man that does not have those experiences".
I think all of us, regardless of our background, have some special insight, or wisdom, that others without those experiences have. I'm pretty sure Barack Obama thinks that him having grew up in a majority muslim country gives him a certain wisdom in dealing with the muslim world that a person without those experiences would have. Is it possible that a wise multi-racial president with muslim relatives will reach a better decision on US-muslim relations than a wise white president from Arkansas? Probably. But two wise presidents of any background will probably arrive at a wise decision 99% of the time. But every once in while, in certain issues, that latina might see something that the white guy missed. Not from a lack of wisdom, but a lack of clarity on that issue. Isn't that what wisdom is? The ability to look at a problem with clarity from a variety of lenses.
Seriously, not to get into this debate. Although there are a lot of people on the right who would no doubt have a problem with the basic implication that a judge would draw upon their own experiences rather than the simple facts of a case, the problem with the statement (in the way that it’s worded) is that it doesn’t make the argument you’re making. It may intend to make that argument, but with your focus on the references to experience, you overlook that the modifier she uses to compare the conclusion of the Latina to that of the white male is “Better.” She is making a statement (at least in the way she words it) that almost as a matter of fact one kind of person’s conclusions will more times than not be superior to another kind of persons. Because she’s making a value judgment, the caveats you mention really don’t change the meaning of the statement in any meaningful way. The better way to say it is that a wise Latina with her experiences would likely bring a valuable insight to cases that a white male may not have if he doesn't share that experience. This phrasing speaks only to the value of her experience, it does not make an implicit value judgment with regard to his experience, or his judgment. It's an important distinction, I think.
This is the last statement on the meaning of that sentence. If you find yourself saying the same thing, repeatedly, or you find yourself making the same point that others have made, repeatedly, it's worth thinking about whether saying it again will get people to understand. Every difference can't be reconciled. Let it be.
But didn't Einstein say the definition of genius is somebody who does the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result?
He said something like that.
Hah! I thought that was insanity...
that's what THEY want you to think.
I was sad from the first moments that "being PC" came under attack from the center and center-left years ago (I'm still residually annoyed at Bill Maher and his attack on the phrase via his HBO show). Somehow the phrase got defined as synonymous with telling people things they can't say -- it's likely the core of the idiocy behind the concept of "liberal fascism."
But from the beginning, the PC concept was about being polite and showing basic respect for others who differ from you. You aren't supposed to avoid the n-word or stop calling everything you don't like "gay" because some nanny-state enforcer will come after you -- you're supposed to do that out of respect for your fellow humans who do not deserve to be attacked and stigmatized for their differences. That doesn't make it illegal to tell jokes based on stereotypes. But it means you should take care when you do.
We should collectively be fighting to reclaim the phrase and be more proudly politically correct. And point out to the idiots who want to revel in their "political incorrectness" that they are celebrating their right to be rude and disrespectful. That's their right, but it's not something to be proud of.
P.S. On the Sotomayor "wise latina" comment -- check the following link (via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution) for a chance to consider some actual hard data that our soon-to-be-newest Supreme Court judge was possibly technically and and factually correct in her assertion of better judgment than a white man in some situations:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/06/does-the-gender-of-a-judge-matter.html
"My criticism about her comment and the speech that she gave wasn't that I think this lady is a racist," Graham said, later continuing: "There is no evidence of that, but this statement is troubling and I did tell her this, 'If I said it, it would be over for me. No matter how well-intentioned I was and no matter how much I tried to put it in context, that would be it.' And you all know that."
The irony is that you could have a very long discussion of a nominee's qualifications, dealing entirely with experiences only historically available to white people, and never once remark upon the fact that you're effectively talking about "a wise white man with the richness of his experiences."
They cannot or will not grasp the importance of context. If an action is wrong in one circumstance, it is wrong in every circumstance. Period. (Unless you're a Republican.)
Recently, Dick Cheney made a statement that by and large appeared to be in support of gay marriage. One would hope, that even the not so wise straight male who has the experience of having a gay loved one, would be wiser about such an issue than even the wise President of the United States who has not. For if he were insensitive to his own experience, what hope would we have for those who are ignorant? He, or someone whose career is bent upon dispensing justice, should indeed be alert to injustice in such a situation that tells upon his own experience.
There have been studies that show college classrooms in which the make up of students is diverse is less prey in its discussion of social and humanitarian issues to ignorant stereotyping than those in which the class makeup is monocultural. America is not post-racial but multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multicultural. Period. The eagle on the dollar bill with arrows in its talons is an American Indian image that is echoed by the Latin motto, which President Obama quoted today, e pluribus unum.
While so-called (liberal) political correctness can be used to mask the truth, we live in a society that has always demanded a kind of biased political correctness in speech--think how difficult it is to object, even among family members, to prejudice (real and animated prejudice, not intramural joking) when expressed at the dinner table or in a locker room.
It was not enough for MacBeth to be the greatest warrior of his age; he became drunk upon the hallucinatory idea he would rule his world and was egged on that to do so would be the only proof of his manhood. The Scottish play is about what happens when humanity behaves as beasts, which becomes translated in our behavior as sociopathy--haunted, sleepless, ever more irrational and hopelessly lacking in vision. Currently, the right, especially the indoeuropean right, as its potency wanes in our nation and time, is awash in its sociopathy, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow is slowly creeping into its petty pace.
Learning empathy is hard. Hell, growing up is hard. Trying to understand a point of view radically different from one’s own is even harder. Personally, I agree with wiredog, at one point in time when I was in the service everyone in my chain of command and NCO support channel was black or hispanic from the Battalion commander down to my squad leader.
Learning how to identify with people of other cultures and views is hard. Coming to grips with one’s own identity in a country that often has a preconception of what you must think/act/feel based on one’s skin color can be even harder. I’ll be the first to admit that there are times that I fall into the self-hating white guy trap. I know that isn’t the answer but the feeling exists and is undeniably real because of my upbringing. I feel privileged to have been raised in an area where I was for all intents and purposes a minority. However, there is a deep and abiding resentment that I constantly have to deal with towards those of the Caucasian persuasion who grew up middle class in an area where their experiences were seen as the norm. The urge to reach out and try to understand is important, but in trying to have empathy I also have to deal with my own personal baggage.
I understand that it is very hard to empathize with people who don’t necessarily share your background in terms of race, class, or orientation. Gender is even harder and is something that I am just now starting to try and understand, and sometimes I seriously doubt if it is possible for men to fully understand the way women see the world.
Here’s the rub, at least for me, in trying to be more empathetic with my surroundings I have had to concede that there are large areas of experience that I may understand at an intellectual level but may never understand at a personal level. This realization has been extremely hard, and extremely humbling. I see in those who don’t wish to be empathetic –no offense to TNC but I prefer empathy as a definition of what was described in the post to political correctness— a fundamental refusal to admit that their life experiences are not the sum total of human knowledge.
In short it isn’t the ignorance so much as the arrogance that really chaps my ass. Of course it would be over for Senator Graham if he said what Sotomayor said and substituted wise white man for wise Latina. Judge (justice we may hope) Sotomayor has the privilege to speak her mind without her comments containing a history of paternalistic white racism. On the other hand Senator Graham has the luxury of usually having what he says judged on its merits rather than having his statements constantly examined in light of his identity as a white man. There is an obvious double standard in all of this, but it is a double standard born out of the history of different groups trying to find an adequate expression of a common humanity, in a world that often recognizes not what makes people intrinsically the same but what makes them different.
Language is infinitely flexible. To try and restrain different uses of it will ultimately fail.
The key here is not to restrict specific individual words but to try and not to be hurtful.
If you used the word "faggy" or "gay" as a derogatory term in a group of people who were aware of the context in which you were using it (i.e., with no relationship to homosexuality), I'm not sure I'd see a problem with it.
I have gay friends who use the term "gay" in the same way that I did when I was 13 years old. They generally clarify (i.e., not gay in a sexual way)but the usage they grew up with was generally the same as mine given our age cohort despite our different orientations.
Similarly, when I say that something "sucks", I do not literally mean that the thing or person is actually performing fellatio which is the derivation of the term.
In short, these initially hurtful and derogatory terms frequently become decoupled from their original meanings. The context of the people using them and the time they are being used should determine the usage of the words not the words themselves.
So the goal of being PC (or whatever terminology you like) should not be to restrict language but to refrain from hurting other people. The slur is present or absent in the user, not the word.
On what planet do people live where the word faggy or gay does not have a relationship to homosexuality? Given, I live in San Francisco, but still ...
As long as some people still use these words for derision, and sometimes as the prelude to a harsh beating or even murder, I personally think they are off limits to the rest of us.
Anywhere besides SF, most likely. A conversation I once observed while playing basketball:
Person 1: Foul? I barely touched you. Don't be such a gay homo.
Person 2: Totally foul, and I am a gay homo. I love my boyfriend's huge cock.
Person 1: Brushing against your shirt isn't a foul...You are gay? Sorry.
...5 minutes later...
Person 1 to Person 2: Go lick a pussy! [In response to having the ball stolen from him]
(For the record, it was a foul.)
I hereby give up on defending the gays! Fine, all of you go around saying faggot, gay boy, and homo as much as you want. I am serene in my pristine city by the Bay.
The Shakespeare reference saved the post for me. Being nice to people is a good goal. However, I get upset with a certain camp on the left when I am told that Shakespeare (or Mozart or Van Gogh) is just a dead white male who is no longer relevant. I'm happy to ditch the narrow, provincial aspects of all the different white cultures (there are a lot) as long as I can keep all the good parts -- the ones that have staying power over time and relevance beyond the little groups they first emerged from.
The thing is, I tend to think that everyone is better off emerging from the narrow and provincial into the wider world. And most of the posters here, whatever their background, have stories about doing so. It's natural, really. We all start out with limited ability to get around on our own and shape our own experiences, but our lives broaden as we grow up. This even happens for heterosexual white males, at least if their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters have any gumption whatsoever.
What I haven't seen in this discussion, thank heavens, is the part of PC I find objectionable. That's the position that all the narrow white peasant cultures in the world need to be demolished, while all the narrow non-white peasant cultures in the world need to be preserved intact for all time and insulated from criticism. This gets to me first because it is patronizing, second because it is a double standard, but most of all because peasant cultures around the world are not always nice to women, gay people, and people who dissent on religious or cultural values. For those of us who know we would come out on the bottom of ANY traditional and monolithic society (and would probably get executed in some), the modern world is the only place to be.
Summary -- PC in service of modernity, recognizing the good parts of the past while eliminating the bad... bring it on. PC throwing the historical baby out with the bathwater... perhaps not. PC forcing all the black and brown people (and sometimes religious people) into anthropological museums where modern values do not apply... definitely not.
The "noble savage" stereotype that you describe is in many ways as damaging as the other forms of racism that have historically been predicated. In some respects it is perpetuated by a segment of the population that wishes to atone for racism without realizing that they are indulging in a different side of the same coin.
Yes, the extremist objection to European culture is ignorant; however, how much more widespread is the objection in our culture to everything else?
However, this extremist objection exists in the following context: it is the reaction to that grander and more widespread ignorance, which often exists among those who have no memory of the Magna Carta and its common law for all guarantee of a right for a human being to be informed of and tried for a crime if incarcerated, let alone that algebra was an Arab invention or that Van Gogh imitated Hiroshige, that elevates F. Scott Fitzgerald, but barely knows Zora Neale Hurston, and so on, that defends Shakespeare not for the love of his work, as they do in Africa and Asia, and every corner of the globe, in film, and small town summer companies, but for the simple identity of his white skin.
I thought that was why we had a public library, to combat ignorance...... there's a lot to be said for wikipedia and google but even more to be said for reading widely.
this is just a side note but I've yet to meet a librarian who was extremely conservative.....
As a fellow Baltimorean, I enjoy reading your work.
Our Baltimore backgrounds are different worlds. I come from a relatively privileged white Baltimore. I grew up in the north central Baltimore City neighborhood known as Homeland. I went to private Catholic schools. The Black (African-American? They were Negroes then)students I knew were either scholarship students or teamates on the basketball team.
I have always considered myself liberal, but like you, I found myself becoming more sensitive to the thoughts and viewpoints of others as I became more exposed to those viewpoints. And my children have often surpassed me in their acceptance of others, and their rejection of their exclusion.
When I was first married and first had children we lived in an integrated City neighborhood. As the children were just about to reach school age, like many before me, I moved to a County neighborhood in part for the better schools. On our first trip to the neighborhood pool in my new neighborhood, my 5 year old son asked, "Where are the Black people?"
When I was in high school, I was active in drama and some of the arts community. When I was approached by a gay colleague I was surprised, and expressed my lack of interest. I remember thinking this must be what it is like for a girl to deal with the attentions of a guy she is not interested in. But I was slow to appreciate the world view of the gay.
I am now in my 50's and I continue to learn about others. I hope I never stop.
Coates, you already know!!
...how I learned about that "chinky-eyed" stuff the hard way. *Sigh*
Hard lesson but Im glad I learned it.
I forgot all about that. I should have used that as an example. Damn. Missed opportunity.
Im kinda glad you didnt, so it worked out ok.
Similarly, growing up Irish Catholic in Boston was not good preparation for understanding the rest of the world. Where I grew up, stupid people were Retahds, lots of people were Fags, Latinos were Ricans and Asians were Chinks, etc., I am sure you can guess the rest. I learned a lot over the years from different experiences and my liberal mother. Moving to San Francisco opened my eyes to a whole new world when it came to gays, Asians and Latinos, plus many other different types of people. But, interestingly, Boston, with all its reputation for being racially charged between blacks and whites, was where I formed my strongest black friendships. It seems like we tried harder to understand each other because of what was happening around us, and there was always something like "Rock Against Racism" going on at school to encourage us to think differently - a perfect liberal concept to sneer at these days. To me, being proudly PC just means trying to understand and respect other people's experiences and points of view. Whatever other opinions are about it, the liberal ideas and PC corrections have really worked for a lot of people - I know my teenager and her friends just have no idea of what it is like growing up putting everyone into a racial category that determines whether or not you can be friends. It is utterly foreign to them, and for that I am grateful and hopeful.
"Similarly, growing up Irish Catholic in Boston was not good preparation for understanding the rest of the world."
As a Irish Catholic who was born and raised in a town not far from Boston, I find this statement offensive.
You should try to be more politically correct. *shakes head disapprovingly*
ha ha!
you know one of the reasons why conservatives don't like pc?
because they place such a high, disproportionate value on something they call "authenticity," on something else they call "being true to yourself", or "being comfortable with yourself."
their heroes--reagan or rocky, take your pick--exude self-confidence and never show doubt. they know who they are, and they don't feel any need to change.
but what they miss is the fact that change is important, too. if you grew up racist or ignorant, then you really *ought* to change. you owe it to others, and to yourself.
and that change is not going to look self-confident and cocky all the time. sometimes it is going to look awkward and uncertain. sometimes you are going to defer to others, to conform to their opinions, on the way to learning how to be a better person.
tnc has done a great job talking about how you make false steps, you look like a jerk, you sound like a foreigner in your own land. that's what happens when you try to make honest change in deep aspects of your beliefs.
those are aspects of the self that the reagan-worshippers cannot help but deride. they cannot see self-doubt as a form of honesty; they see it as evidence that you lack "authenticity", that you're not a regular guy and a straight-shooter.
fact is, they prefer people who are complacently racist, to people who are awkwardly overcoming their own racism.
the entire conservative movement, certainly from the time of reagan, has been almost more an aesthetic preference than a coherent ideology. everything has to be cowboy. everything has to be marlboro man. ignorant is fine, just never in doubt.
when you see them ridiculing pc? it's because they always laugh at anyone who is open to honest doubt, anyone who thinks that maybe they themselves should try to change, to be different in the future than they are right now.
it's also because, somewhere inside, it fills them with doubts as well. and they just can't cope with that.
drlemur:
The kind of PC that could also be labeled as empathy (or the specific subset of empathy that's focused on trying to understand and value the Other) is akin to politeness. The kind of PC that shouts people down or ascribes evil motives on very small evidence (what a bunch of folks on the right are trying to do to Sotomayor), that seems very, very different from politeness.
I might quarrel with the use of the term "PC" itself -- partially because its worth reserving the term for the sort of evasiveness and linguistic dishonesty Orwell describes in 'politics and the English Language.'
The sad thing is that American conservatives are, in essence, deriding manners, etiquette, and diplomacy while obscuring and trivializing the real dangers attending political censorship...
But maybe that latter is their true goal.
this post needs to grow into a full blown essay/article/chapter, please! so i can send it to my family. brilliant, really.
"But watching conservatives mock liberals for being PC, is like watching the morbidly obese mock Weight Watchers for its system of points."
So not PC. Ironically, in an essay about tolerance and the validity of PC! But then again, fatness is one of those subjects that many in the liberal, progressive community, feel perfectly comfortable judging, dicriminating against, and stereotyping. Your essay was so right on TNC. However, this line above implies an ignorance of a highly nuanced, and complex issue, especially for women. In fact, a scientific study came out two years from UCLA, finding that dieting does not work.
two years AGO. D'oh!
Glad you said it, silentbeep. I was hoping somebody would have beaten me to it. FWIW, here's one more person who believes in political correctness but not in Weight Watchers.
Sarah Palin shared her thoughts on PC last night: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0609/Palin_Screw_the_political_correctness.html