Everyone's A Racist

The other night I was talking on the phone with my brother, a news reporter, when he asked if I wanted to hear something interesting. Me being me, I of course said yes, and he proceeded to tell me of a government agency that was only accepting job applications from female minorities. When confronted about this and asked how that wouldn't be a violation of federal guidelines against job discrimination, they said that they were just collecting the information of female minorities who might be interested in the job, and that at a later date they would be opening the same data collection to other individuals who do not fit into that criteria, and then after that stage they would be opening actual job applications to interested parties. If any of that was hard to follow, it basically boils down to the fact that job discrimination is going on (albeit in the favor of perceived minorities), and that no matter who applies and when, the company is definitely going to hire a female minority because by opening applications to those individuals first they are clearly stating that that is the sort of individual they want for the position.

Before I go any further with this, I do want to state for the record that both my brother and I would fit into the current minority bracket for the political climate in America. Despite this and having grown up and lived in the South for the entirety of our lives, we have never experienced any sort of racism against us due to the color of our skin, nor have either of us ever seen anyone being racist towards anyone else. However, we have both heard minorities bring up race as an issue many, many times. So much and so vehemently so that in some instances it is pretty much an instance of 'reverse racism' (which in all honesty is really just racism but practiced by a perceived minority against the perceived majority-- let's call a spade a spade). I do not intend to imply with this that they must be mistaken in their perceptions or in any way invalidate any of their real life experiences, but I have also heard these sorts of remarks coming from people whom I know have never experienced any of it for themselves and are just appropriating the experiences of others in order to play the race and victim cards-- something I am sure we can all agree is not okay. I am taking time out to outline all of this because I understand that race is and foreseeably always will be a sensitive topic in this country, and despite calls to end racism, the longer certain movements go on the worse it seems to be getting, and I wish to give my opinion as to why I think that is.

If you are part of cancel culture or PC (politically correct) culture, you probably will not like what it is that I have to say here in this op-ed article. In fact I fully expect to get 'cancelled' for it, but whatever. The whole thing with cancel culture is stupid, and that is just something that needs to be said. Unless someone is truly hurting someone with their actions, speech should be protected and people are allowed to have their opinions and voice them, even if you do not personally agree with them (and if you want to change their minds that is what debate is for). Also, even though all of the 'woke' people that seem to be the proponents of cancel culture and tend to be part of the educated elite, it should be pointed out that only close-minded and by that extension fairly stupid people refuse to listen to others and block out everything that they have to say just because their opinions happen to differ from your own. If you want to live in a safe space where no one is completely honest with you, by all means go ahead, but it's not the real world and it's only going to be detrimental for you in the long run. If you want to affect real change in people, listen to them and their reasoning behind why they believe the things that they do, then calmly and rationally use your own reasoning to circumnavigate theirs and let them come to the conclusion that you might be right and they wrong. But if you meet irrationality with irrationality, everyone will just dig their heels in and nothing will ever change for the better.

And honestly, this is kind of the entire reason I am writing this article.

Cancel culture and political correctness are in place purportedly to 'even the playing field'. Much like affirmative action, which allows for opportunities based on the color of someone's skin (sounds a little racist to me but whatever....), these movements have roots in ending discrimination against those who are in the minority. Political correctness is a milder, more gentile version that is nevertheless very insidious (this I will get into later), however cancel culture is a much harsher and straightforward "Say anything we don't like/agree with and you are done".

Despite everything that I'm saying here, I am not on the right-wing in this country, however I can definitely see how a lot of people who associate this sort of behavior with the left (even if it really is more of a far-left fringe movement that has come too far) would be exasperated by it and quite frankly wary of it. And I do not blame them in the least. This is a more vocal version of the Big Brother-type government that we all came to know and fear in George Orwell's 1984, only, instead of it being the government monitoring us and ruining our lives over taking a single step out of line, it's our fellow citizens who are running amok in both real life and on the internet, micro-managing our lives and forcing everyone to sanitize their speech and actions for fear of being called a 'racist' or a 'sexist' and getting cancelled. It is, if you think about it, a situation rather reminiscent of that cultivated by the Nazis in Germany under Hitler, where ordinary citizens were afraid to say or do anything even slightly subversive even within the privacy of their own homes, for fear that other citizens would report it to the SS and wind them in potentially life-ruining trouble. And I'm not fear-mongering here, I am just drawing parallels as I see them to make a point, that point being that movements like this should not be allowed to run amok as they have begun to. While the intentions of the movement are ostensibly good, there comes a time when things go too far, and you don't want to ever let things get to that point.

It should be clear by now that I really have a thing against cancel culture, and it is precisely because the individuals involved seem to be letting the power they have over 'cancelling' people go straight to their heads. It's like living in a police state without actually living in one. And your whole life or career can be ruined if someone even so much as insinuates that you are not completely on board with everything in their agenda. A simple joke can get you landed in hot water with some people. And let us all not forget that J. K. Rowling, author of the beloved Harry Potter series, got canceled after donating to organizations to help women, because none of them assisted trans women and she was therefore called out for being transphobic. Sometimes, it honestly feels as though there is no way to win with these people, because every move feels like the wrong move, and what would have been lauded two seconds earlier is now sending you straight into the frying pan.

I have already briefly touched earlier in this article upon the main reason why I believe this approach to be problematic, but allow me to expand upon it here. People, fundamentally, do not like to be told what to believe by other people, or that what they already believe is wrong. Everyone likes to believe that they are right, and if you belligerently go at someone trying to change their mind and convince them that they are wrong and you are right, nine times out of ten all you're going to accomplish is getting them entrenched in the idea that they are right and you are wrong. And cancel culture is just that: belligerent. The entire basis of the movement seems to be as unforgiving (dare I say even intolerant?) as possible, and it's created a climate where literally anyone can get cancelled for anything. If you don't see anything wrong with that, follow that scenario through to its logical, inevitable conclusion and think about where we'll all be as a society once everyone has been cancelled for not fitting the nigh-on impossible standards of someone else's idea of perfection.

As a society, and in order for people to be able to get along well with each other, we need an outlet for expressing ourselves and being individuals. I'm not saying practice hate speech against anyone or go out of your way to be nasty to others because they were born a way you don't like, but not every negative interaction has a basis in race, or gender, or someone's sexual orientation. Sometimes people just don't get along. Sometimes people mistake an innocent behavior for an illicit one and act on their belief before they have all the facts. Not saying that discrimination doesn't happen or that when it does it's perfectly okay because of mitigating circumstances, just pointing out that not everything that gets perceived that way is actually discriminatory. Intentions matter too, and unless there can be absolutely no doubt, don't we owe it to someone to hear out their side before labelling them for something that could cost them their livelihood? After all, in a culture where people are so quick to turn on each other, wouldn't you want that if the shoe ever landed on the other foot?

So, in short, my main problem with cancel culture is that it encourages people to play whatever victim cards are in their basket and then doles out the ultimate punishment for even the smallest of offenses. It is, in my humble opinion, inflating the problem by calling out every little instance as a discrimination that needs to be beaten down in what could be called an extremely violent game of whack-a-mole. It is encouraging perceptions of things that may not actually be in play in every instance and pre-emptively shutting down discussions that could actually be beneficial towards changing problematic mindsets and actually improving the situation for affected individuals.

Now onwards towards my problem with politically correct or 'PC' culture.

On the surface, PC culture seems like a good thing. It sanitizes race, religion, sexuality, and all those other touchy social topics that typically get turned into buzzwords whenever there is any sort of social activism going on. It allows for people to still discriminate and segregate among themselves, but in a socially acceptable manner that we have all collectively agreed upon as being offensive to no one. And as a means of communicating as a mixed society without everyone going off the rails at each other all the time for perceived slights, I would say that it does its job fairly well. However, there are some instances in which I believe it has gone too far, and might actually be increasing as opposed to hindering the discrimination against and already limited opportunities of the unprivileged.

To illustrate my point, I am going to introduce an anecdote told to me by a friend of mine who happens to be a teacher and who spent some time teaching in unprivileged schools with students from low-income families who were already at a disadvantage in so many ways in terms of parental involvement, money, resources, etc. And, come to find out, the school was not actually helping them out. It's not exactly a secret that if you intend to make it anywhere worth being in the real world, there are certain societal standards that need to be conformed to, the most basic of which being dress and the manner in which you express yourself (referring largely to pattern of speech here, of course). In a politically correct culture no one will out and out say it, but basically if you go through life dressing and talking as though you grew up in a ghetto-- no matter how intelligent you may be or whatever other winning qualities you possess-- everyone is going to judge you based upon the stereotype and you are going nowhere. A fact which sadly might actually lead individuals to falling into the stereotype.

However, something I learned about our school system (or at least one of my local ones), is that teachers are not actually allowed to correct the way their students speak anymore. A fact which when I first learned it I thought was rather queerly hilarious, because when mistakes are made in an institute of learning isn't it a teacher's job to correct them and ensure that their students know better than to make the mistake again? But apparently it is considered discriminatory and 'racist' if you correct someone from saying that they want to "axe a question" to "ask a question", or anything similar. They coat their reasoning in a bunch of PC language that sounds all nice and proper on the surface, but looking a little deeper, it seems to me as though these children-- by virtue of a lack of being taught how to talk in a way that will not be made fun of at some point-- are actually being disadvantaged by the very system which is supposed to be providing them with opportunities for advancement. And really, how messed up is that?

There is a tendency to want to sanitize and gloss over things in this country, and people with good intentions sometimes wind up causing more harm than good in their pursuit of them. PC culture is in some instances exactly that, because it is trying too hard to be inoffensive to everybody and making everybody bend over backwards and essentially become doormats in the name of tolerance.

There is nothing wrong with being tolerant, and there is nothing wrong with being accepting of the differences between all the different people who make up our society. I just believe that there is something wrong with having to compromise yourself and your standards in the name of 'tolerance' and 'progress'. I don't know about anybody else, but I for one don't want to live in a society with absolutely no standards of behavior, where it is acceptable to butcher the language to the point where no one can really understand what it is that's being said anymore (prevalence of unironic negative double negatives, anyone?), or where I have to curtail my opinion or can't even bring literal facts into a debate because it might hurt someone's feelings. When did we become such a society of pansies?

Yeah, some things hurt (like the truth, in so many instances), but that doesn't mean it should be glossed over or ignored. Or that it should be buried under the weight of other people's 'feelings', because those are subjective while the truth is objective, and the difference really does matter.