I personally think that maybe we are. It seems like people are becoming more and more afraid to open their mouths without, God forbid, offending someone of a different ethnicity than them, whether it be Mexican, Puerto Rican, African, Arabic, Polish, Irish… whatever, pick a part of the planet. Now I fully well understand that nobody of any ethnicity deserves to be humiliated in any fashion, but there is such a thing as taking something a bit to far and I think political correctness has become one of them. It’s become a thing of walking on glass that may or not be there in the workplace, at school, or even sitting in the food court with a watered down Coke. Ridiculous? I my humble opinion, it is.
A good example of this would be an experience I had at work today. I don’t use names. In my rants I will never use names, but instead will take the path of HBO’s “Sex in the City” and use labels of traits so I’ll know who I’m talking about. (I’m well aware of the irony of using label names in a rant about political correctness so there is no need to point it out.) Back to where I was: I’m a receptionist. I do not personally like being a receptionist, I’d much rather have calls sent to me than being the sender. I have no plans to stay there for long which is why I’m on my way to finishing my education. Go me. So part of my responsibilities, as a receptionist is to take care of the office birthdays. One of the cards that was bought was the little Taco Bell dog saying “Yo Quiero birthday cake.” I thought it was funny, based on the commercials and I just plain thought it was cute. I have a tendency to send funny cards to the people I know better than the ones I don’t. and since this guy I knew better, I decided he’s get it instead of some sap happy one. I despise saccharine in all its hideously cute forms. It didn’t even cross my mind that this was going to a man of Hispanic descent. I tend not to think of people in terms of where they came from… whenever. If you work and live in American… Guess what! You’re an American, huge surprise. I come from a descent of Irish, German, and Italian lines… from years ago. Yeah, I’m a mutt, I like it, and it works just fine for me, but there is no way in hell I am going to refer to myself on the street as a Irish/German/Italian woman. I have a nice rich ancestry with a few neat little stories attached, but I’m American. The last few generations are all from Chicago and I personally don’t think I should say I’m something I’m not completely. So because of that mentality, I don’t think of people in terms of what they look like or how their last name is pronounced. I can’t keep track of all the countries that people are from, the world is so big. This probably a good thing, but apparently there are enough people out there who are terrified of making a fuss or accidentally upsetting someone.
So I decide the funny card should go to this guy. After the fact, I have some serious doubts that he’s going to throw a hissy fit over it. It’s cute, it’s funny, and it says “Happy Birthday.” the card is a thoughtful thing, not something meant to slap him across the face. Unfortunately, I have appeared to be alone thinking that. As the card was being passed around it was brought back to me my Long-Haired Girl. I remember, she was even talking to me in this very whispery voice, like she was afraid someone was even going to hear her bring it up. She came to me and said that I should not have picked the card with the Taco Bell dog to give to a Hispanic. She was so afraid of offending a minority and being considered a racist, in my opinion, that she simply passed that label on to me. When I responded to the implied accusation, I acted offended and felt quite justified in being offended. I don’t go out on purpose to hurt someone, having been through the mental torture that was all girls’ Catholic high school. That whole experience has led me to the even stronger belief that judgement of others is usually employed by the deeply stupid. So I show her that I was offended by what she implied and of course that gives her all the more reason to believe that she is right in thinking that the intention was to hurt and have to leave with that last word. To think I had left that crap behind me in high school?
Maybe I reacted a little too strongly, I could have been wrong, it’s been known to happen once in awhile. Still, I don’t feel so concerned that I could have been wrong that I’m going to apologize. I think she was treading a little too carefully because of a fear of being called a racist that she didn’t consider the feelings of everyone else and not just the one. I’m not so mean that if she does apologize that I won’t. I’m just tired of cracking before everyone else. That’s part of the reason that I started this thing. When it comes to speech, I’m not too terribly articulate, when it comes to writing I go a little farther and plan to keep going farther. Don’t like it, don’t read it.
People take things too personally sometimes. Not everyone, but enough people that some are just terrified of being referred to as something ugly like a racist or a bigot. Because so much of the fear is realized in disciplinary actions and lawsuits, the padded speech and omitted nouns seem to show up more and more. A baby-sitter is no longer a baby-sitter. He or she is a child-care-specialist. My 14 year old sister, as much as I love her… Give me a break, she’s paid a few dollars and hour to watch a five-year-old run around and watch TV. I would not exactly call that a professional specialty. A secretary is no longer a secretary. that person is now an administrative assistant. Now some people don'’ care much for which title is used, but you accidentally call one overly anal person the one they don’t like, then hey, buddy, you got a nice grudge going against you. Oh yes, and my personal favorite: I’m not a cashier… I’m a customer service representative! I worked at K-Mart for 9 months of fire and brimstone torture. I got cashier pay. If you’re going to call me a customer service rep, I should have been getting two more dollars and hour and a lot less bull.
Labels and stigmas are not fun things. We now live in a society which practically has an entire law practice based on reaping the benefits from the “damages.” Alright, now some of these are justified, but it has become just so easy to accuse someone of trying to bring down another race or gender that it casts a very ugly shadow on the people who are actually being hurt by the real racists and bigots. Lawsuits are flung left and right to the point on wonders if on day someone going to start censoring even more than they are. Can you say goodbye “Saturday Night Live” and “MAD TV”?
Everything is taken a little too personally these days. At least in the opinion of this 20 something, middle class, white girl who doesn’t know when to shut up. Wait, I’m sorry… I meant to say 20 year old, vertically challenged, Irish-German-Italian, Caucasian female young adult.
