I was not born in Caucasia. I’m not a Caucasian.I am a white American and that is all I am. Political correctness has run amuck.
Granted, to get rid of all PC terms would be absolutely disastrous; we still must get rid of words that are racially offensive and words that are used in a derogatory manner.
There are so many places I could start this, but I think I will start with the recent ordeal with Indian, oops, Native American, mascots in college athletics.
So, apparently it is completely politically incorrect to have an Indian tribe or even the term Indian as a mascot because it is considered offensive or hostile. I can understand the term “savages” because that is a derogatory idiom. But, honestly, imagine you are an Indian and all of a sudden your ethnicity as a mascot is offensive.
What’s more insulting?
Praising your race as a mascot or hearing your ethnicity is offensive and hostile? Seems to me the NCAA is a little backward in its thinking.
I have no doubt that the NCAA has good intentions in mind, but there is a time when you must tell yourself to stop.
If you think about it, who is going to be offended with using the Aztec as a mascot? They are pretty much all dead. Ouch, that was a little harsh, wasn’t it? Well, that is reality.
Maybe it’s because I am insensitive to words (unless they are pet names, boy do I hate those), but political correctness shows weakness.
Call me a cracker, I’ll laugh. Call me a honky, I’ll laugh. While many consider those racial to white people, how can you not laugh at them?
In a government class I took a few semesters back, we had a black speaker who was a right-hand man of Martin Luther King, Jr. and he spoke of political correctness in the exact way I look at political correctness. I am sorry that I cannot remember his name.
He said: “I have not been to Africa. I am a black American. If you say, ‘I don’t see color,’ then you are damn near blind. If you say you don’t see color, then you are denying me my heritage and you are denying that I am a black man who has something to be proud of today.”
As a white male, there is no way I could say such a thing without being disputed and called a racist. But, coming from this man, it is so powerful; and it still sticks in my mind today over two years later.
Being politically correct is a funny thing. What if tomorrow I decide white is not being politically correct. I’m an Irish/German tan-American. It isn’t white, so why don’t I fight that? If I am not called an Irish/German tan-American, I sue.
Perhaps it is merely over-sensitivity or maybe people just want to do something that shows they have control by making sure certain people can not say certain things, I don’t know. All I know is saying white, black, Asian or Latino is considered politically incorrect. It is what we are; it is how we were born and it is what we will always be (sorry if I left out your ethnicity).
In the United States, we have the gift of wanting and being allowed to try and please everyone, but we skip the reality of that just not being possible.
Being politically correct is not a bad thing, but it also must be controlled just like anything else. There are boundaries where it just becomes ridiculous.
Each ethnicity at TCU, no matter what it is, has something to be very proud of and being politically correct makes that pride seem like it is taboo. Maybe it is just me, but I am one proud white guy.
Design Editor Shawn Finer is a senior economics major from Hurst.