Society is constantly changing and evolving. The norms of years past are sometimes considered as the fringe behavior of contemporary society. One of the most prominent examples of the ever-changing societal landscape is that of political correctness. Political correctness as a concept has reached numerous aspects of culture, such as education, science, politics, and everyday life. Over the past few years, the term has been politicized tremendously, affecting the way people behave with one another in everyday life. Political correctness has reached a boiling point, causing significant concern for the way future generations will behave. The first instances of the term “politically correct” began in the 1970s. While there were previous instances of the term used in the 1950’s, the purpose was completely different, referring to Communist ideals. In the 1970’s, the term actually was used in an ironic sense by liberal students, who satirized more right-leaning individuals. The term gained popularity in the 1980s, with “The Closing of the American Mind” by Alan Bloom (Breitbart 2016). The most prominent display of the phrase was in an article in the New York Times by Richard Bernstein, in a series of articles on the
Many examples exist of media pundits and hosts who will go to great lengths to appear to be morally superior and without reproach. In a recent example, a news host Melissa Harris-Perry stated that the term “hard worker” was racist, and should never be used. Ms. Perry considered the term as relating to slavery, to the surprise of her co-hosts who did not believe such a statement. In response, another television personality Mike Rowe stated, “There is no longer a limit to what people can get offended by” (Datoc 2015). In a meaningful way, the politically correct behavior of the media has taken an extreme turn, with unpredictable
All members of society are subject to sociological rules and regulations that are often hypocritical. These hypocrisies, both concrete and unspoken, are the subject of criticism by authors the world over, utilizing various methods and styles to ridicule society's many fables.
In the editorial “Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt examine the political correctness on college campuses and how it may be hurting students’ mental health. They explain by allowing campuses to discuss words, ideas, and subjects that can cause discomfort or give offense can provide positive attributes like helping students to produce better arguments and more productive discussions over differences. Does Lukianoff and Haidt provide sufficient evidence about how college campuses should raise attention about the need to balance freedom of speech to help students in their future and education to lead the reader to agree with their argument? The answer is yes,
Society can be very diminishing and very hurtful. I say hurtful by the way many people criticize one another by the way we walk, talk, and act with others or even alone. As we grow older we fall into different categories such as community, religion, and the list goes on. In between all that there is certain norms and values to follow. There are certain types of norms and values we have to follow in our community to not get harassed. First, before I committed a norm violation and making an observation I had to be able to understand what values, norms, folkways, sanctions, and mores were. “Values are ideas of what is desirable in life. Values underlie our preferences, guide our choices, and indicate what we hold worthwhile in life” (Henslin,
Rankin, Aidan. “The repressive openness of political correctness.” Contemporary Review 282.1644 (2003): 33+. Literature resource Center. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.
For example, many critics argue if Kelly Osbourne is a racist. In response to Donald Trump’s remark on deporting Latinos from the
Why does racism exist? First off, what is racism? Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race. Racism is a sticky situation where Americans refuse to talk about. People don’t like to converse about the topic of racism because it’s very controversial, especially among blacks and whites. There are two, well-known African American men who portrayed the harm of racism through their literature. W.E.B. Dubois explained his idea of racism, double consciousness, and the veil through his writing called The Souls of Black Folk. Richard Wright talked racism through his own personal experience. Wright wrote an autobiography called “The Ethics of Living Jim
The “Politically Correct” movement’s purpose is to bring historically condescending terms, offensive music and art, and controversial educational content to an end and replace them with more positive and less-offending references. Offensive and demoralizing efforts are wrong, but the censorship and deletion of words and phrases that do not contain the intention to demoralize are taking political correctness too far. Politically correct (or “PC”) antics have created a social decline that is growing worse with each generation, specifically regarding areas of art, education, language, and our right to freedom of speech; the degradation they have brought to the American psyche has even led to name-changing.
Goodman, Mark. "Chapter 8: The Media Contribution to Racism and Sexism." Mass Media and Society. Mississippi State University, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
In American politics today, issues such racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia are a few of the many topics some of the main talking points that for left wing political activists discuss. It seems as if racially motivated protests have been becoming increasingly prevalent. The creation of safe spaces has become quite a common practice , especially in intellectual environments, to prevent people from being offended or “triggered” by others opposing ideologies arguments, ideas, or statements. During the recent presidential election, cycle mainstream media appeared to be more concerned about Donald Trump not being completely politically correct rather than Hillary Clinton’s extreme carelessness in regards to properly handling classified
Unless news shows with hypocritical statements are shown back to back, most audiences do not immediately catch the hypocrisy as most people do not openly contradict themselves within the same news program. Que Jon Stewart. Armed with video evidence, Stewart exposes the hypocrisy in the logic of the claims made and in the specific statements made by political figures. He accomplishes this many times by juxtaposing two statements made by the same person but on separate occasions. On one occasion, Dick Morris, a commentator for Fox News, is shown openly contradicting himself on issues of sexism. Stewart first shows him criticizing Hillary Clinton for acting as a victim of sexist comments, while he defends Sarah Palin against the very same sexist comments. (Comedy Central) Also examined is John McCain’s Policy Advisor, Nancy Pfotenhauer, participating in the hypocrisy. Pfotenhauer claims that same comments made about Sarah Palin are the “most outrageous double standards” Stewart then cuts to a compilation of her blatantly contradicting herself. Moreover, The Daily Show presents a significant contrast between the way conservative commentators discuss Democratic candidates and Republican candidates. Stewart calls the integrity and consistency of these news media outlets into question with the implication that their
Recently, the media produced audio files of stereotypical, racist, discriminatory and defamatory statements from Donald Sterling, who is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. Though given the benefit of the doubt, the term “racist” stuck in the minds of the media audience, thereby, labeling Sterling as a racist before personally meeting Sterling. However, as days and weeks passed, Sterling’s consistent behavior on camera showed proof of racism. In analyzing Sterling after the release of the first audio file, the author’s attention concentrated on Sterling’s words, which in-so-doing, according to Schneider (2004), revealed Sterling’s character and behaviors (124). The media, according to Macrae, Stangor, and Milne (1994), “primed stereotypes by having subjects [i.e., the media audience] lists traits relevant to stereotype” (as cited in Schneider, 2004, p. 124). Therefore, the author used categories under gender (white male), race (Jewish) and an active schema under (racist). The audio file was the root of the “perceptually degrading words that were relate...
for it to be construed as offensive. I would hope that a person in this
Companies are afraid. Very afraid. They are not offending anyone, catering to all ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds, and being “politically correct” in every sense of the word. In fear of offending any potential customers they might have, companies adopt an “all-inclusive” approach to their image. Advertisements depicting groups of people of identical race have become an endangered species; all walks of life are being crammed into any group of people representing a logo. This practice may seem insignificant, but it has infiltrated everything, everywhere, and has reached an unrealistic level.
Censorship is not a recent development. It wasn’t imposed properly or there weren’t strict regulations before. In the article “Hate Radio” by Patricia J. Williams, the writer says that radio was a powerful source of media. It had influenced a lot of people. The power of media can change the course of history. The host on the radio such as Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern were also influencing a lot of people. The theme was not merely the specific intolerance on hot topics as race and gender, but a much more general contempt for the world, a verbal stoning of anything different. Most of the audience on this radio shows were white and male. Most of the callers have spent their lives walling themselves off from any real experience with blacks, feminists, lesbians or gays. Rush Limbaugh tell his audience “what you believe inside, you can talk about it in the marketplace.” Unfortunately what’s inside is then mistaken for what’s outside, treated empirical and political reality. Most of the talks on the radio were being racist against the blacks. This had influenced so much that a statistics showed that 53 percent of people in America agree that blacks and Latinos are less intelligent than whites, and a majority believed that blacks are lazy, violent, welfare-dependent and unpatriotic. Hence this stereotype among the people was due to the lack of censorship.(Williams,502)
Unfortunately, this struggle for conformity often extends beyond a personal level. It is not uncommon for society to chastise a person for being different, in one particular way or another. This chastising could range from polite disapproval, to snide comments, to harmful, oppressive tactics such as bullying and harassment. This causes more people to conform to society for the fear of being labeled a