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Muzzled
Recently I’ve been feeling as though my physical voice is being taken away from me. Nope, no one has told me to shut up. Although I’m sure some would love to do just that. Actually, like a lot of all y’all, I am mostly wary about making a comment on any subject, at any time, to anyone. For those of you who know me, and for those of you who act like you do, I have never been accused of having much of an internal dialogue. But the truth of the matter is, I do have an internal dialogue. If I said half of what I was thinking, I probably wouldn’t be still be writing for this paper after all of these years. And it has been years. It’s just that I’ve been supressing more and more of what I’d like to say because I am tired of not being able to have a public opinion.
I think you know where I’m going with this. We’ve all learned a great deal about ourselves, and the world we live in, by thinking about the words we use. Political correctness has helped most of us cultivate an outward sensitivity and awareness towards marginalized and oppressed persons. Political correctness has helped us find a way to express ourselves without making our expressions cost another their dignity. We are moving beyond using gender, ethnicity, religion and colour as descriptors in our everyday language. This is a very good thing. Sometimes the old ways and manners need to be packed up and schlepped to the garbage heap. Like a lot of you, my parents were not afraid to be what we call “politically incorrect”.
When I was older, my parents would occasionally say something and I’d wince. I’d hope they would not say “that” in public. But they did. It was they way they grew up. They saw the differences and thought nothing of bringing it up in all kinds of company. Their language was, quite often, peppered with racial, ethnic and religious insinuations and allegations. How to point that out to them (and their friends and other family members) was a bit difficult.
Mostly my siblings and I would grimace and ignore. Most of our friends’ parents were the same—politically incorrect. There were people in our circle of friends and family who were not inclined to correctness. It was the world we lived in. And, then? Well, and then we started to pay attention to the mess the world was in. We became more aware and more sensitive. We talked. Being politically correct made us think about our discriminatory, biased, inappropriate, offensive, partisan language and behaviour.
Many of us worked hard to overcome our oppressive/aggressive speech patterns and so, too, did most of my family and friends. As our language changed, our minds opened. And then?
Well, and then political correctness was as natural, for most, as breathing. But we are human. We still have foibles. It seems our newest foible is the empathetic correctness foible. Because we love to be offended, the good and the bad about how we do just about anything and everything is now our target. We warn, and need to be warned, about violence, misogyny, suicide, rape, abuse, anti-Semitism, evangelicalism, Catholicism, health, literature, science—you name it. We’re afraid to say anything, do anything, to be ourselves or speak our minds. We need warning labels on everything and anything that pokes us in our comfort zone.
Oh my. I think too many of us just love to be offended and spend far too much time looking for offence. Me? Well, I’m going to loosen up. I was going to say, “I’m going to take a chill pill,” but I didn’t want to offend. What the H E double fluffy white clouds in the blue sky is that all about?
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