Sense and Sensitivity

Political correctness seems to be the hot topic of the year. Men with heads full of hot gas like Donald Trump continue to bluster away about how political correctness is overdone in order to justify their misguided, prejudiced beliefs and slanderous remarks. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld refuse to perform at college campuses for fear of being denounced as racist or sexist with their jokes. This was an issue that I, however, had not really stopped and considered until recently.

I try to make the world a better place each day with some deed. Online, I try to help those who I feel could use moral support or friendship, and in person, I try to be giving and caring. However, while I consider political correctness to be a common courtesy that should be utilized in society, I find myself concerned that my contemporaries will use political correctness in order to create a more stifling environment that is less welcoming to divergent opinions.

I applied early decision to Emory University because I was excited about being part of a warm, welcoming community full of new, different people. I was fascinated at the idea of encountering new concepts and ideas and looking at the world from the point of view of my new friends. Upon arriving, I did not find myself disappointed, but I sometimes found uncomfortable situations or myself conflicted and troubled.

This was neither bad nor unexpected — I wanted to be challenged and enlightened, to step out of my comfort zone, as the administration and faculty here encourage us to. However, I found myself frustrated at the feeling of political correctness invading parts of my life and stifling my voice, my own opportunities to speak. One such example can be found in my recent experience with a popular pastime — Cards Against Humanity.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the game, the objective of Cards Against Humanity is to come up with the funniest, most toxic combination of cards to create crude, vulgar and humorous statements — to be the worst human being in the room. As a Cards Against Humanity veteran, I found myself frustrated and angry at the most recent game I competed in, where some of my fellow players refused to read out combinations that they were uncomfortable with and immediately disqualified them, even going so far as to pick out combinations that were both unfunny and bland.

To illustrate, one individual picked the "Homosexual agenda" card because the combination would have cast the homosexual agenda in a positive light, and as a bisexual, she claimed, “the homosexual agenda trumps all.” I felt that such actions, every single time they occurred, were missing the point of the game and often took the fun out of such amusements because we were arguing to get the cards read and groaning that the card selected wasn’t all that funny. What did it matter if I laughed at a Cards Against Humanity joke if it was funny? I pondered to myself, It’s just a game, and no one at the table seriously believed in the terrible statements we made.

Later, when I was invited to a late night showing of the new James Bond movie Spectre, I concluded that although the movie had been somewhat weak, that had not stopped it from being entertaining at times. But a distant acquaintance from the viewing party sharply criticized the movie for its sexualization of the Bond girl and an oddly grotesque title sequence. Others were quick to concur. And I was left again, for the second time in 24 hours, unable to share my opinion because I did not want to put a damper on the social situation or be accused of supporting twisted ideals just because I found other elements of the movie entertaining. Yes, I acknowledge that it was overly sexualized, but James Bond is a highly sexual character, and one should have anticipated that such scenes could appear. Even with those scenes, I still felt that overall, Eon Productions was merely seeking to create an entertaining movie, and they succeeded. There was no need to introduce the political into this.

Now, you’re probably saying, “Oh, first world problems, boo-hoo, Daniel,” or asking, “why does this matter to you so much?” It’s because I feel that political correctness is encouraging a negative behavior in people that we see all the time online. You’ll often see people mudslinging and being rude to other people on the Internet for either not knowing something that they felt was fairly obvious or for offering solid criticisms or valid opinions that merely went against the majority’s opinion.

No one should have the power or the right to do that — to silence a person or make him or her feel afraid to speak out. If a person has prejudices or a twisted, uninformed point of view, they should be approached and educated so that they are informed of the actual situation. Just because a person has a diverging opinion does not mean that they should be silenced immediately. They have the right to hold that opinion.

Last year, my friend was locked in a debate about police brutality concerning the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson. He argued that the police officer rightfully shot Brown since Brown had put the cop’s life at risk. He argued that since the police officer had already volunteered his life to protect his city, he had a right to pull the trigger to defend his own life. According to his argument, it must not have been an easy decision to pull the trigger, one that stemmed from fear and not prejudice. This opinion led to a lot of division in our entourage during that year in high school, but we were not so blinded as to not understand the other party’s point of view, and we always heard them out.

That was an idea that we hadn’t stopped to consider before, and I admit to being so narrow-minded as to argue that the cop could have shot to wound rather than kill. I remember being so convinced that Michael Brown was killed because the cop was racist and considered Brown a threat because he was black. I am the perfect example of how one might not stop to consider other points of view. The media loves to seek out a villain, but things are not always as they seem.

Political correctness can definitely be a positive force against men and women who discriminate against race, gender and sexual orientation, against those who seek to gain power and political influence or wrongfully maintain it. However, there are times when it’s just not necessary. When a friend tells a joke you are uncomfortable with, there’s no need to rail about going against misogyny and broken ideals. Just tell them you are uncomfortable telling such jokes or back out of the game. One is also, of course, allowed to have diverging and disapproving opinions about a movie.

While it is important to instill and reinforce equality between races, genders and sexual orientation, it’s also important to remember that ultimately, these shouldn’t dominate or determine who you are. You shouldn’t have to constantly preach about your race or sexual orientation to others, since these traits shouldn’t matter. The individual person is the one who matters. They should always have the opportunity to say what they wish to say. There is a clear difference between educating people and shutting their opinions down. Moreover, a situation like the one above was an instance that reminded me of something.

I am a human being. And I sometimes can look at the world and see that it is so beautiful and full of things to explore. Why else is science never finished? Why else do we launch things into space? I look at my fellow human beings and find that they are beautiful, multifaceted, complicated beings with a point of view that is uniquely theirs. They have lived a life and own a soul that is entirely theirs, and that is what makes a human life and experience. And they have a right to share that, politically correct or not.