FREE ESSAY ON THE POLITCAL CORRECTNESS PROBLEM

THE POLITCAL CORRECTNESS PROBLEM

Political correctness, a concept originally meant to protect minorities and the under
represented and thus strengthen the country, has in today's America become no more than a
necessary evil and catalyst for the cult of ethnicity. In theory political correctness
sounds like a very reasonable idea and when looked at very shallowly this remains the
case. When it is more thoroughly looked at thought it dangers become more and more
apparent. By creating a set of "correct" terminology and assigning each ethnic background
a name that separates them from the main culture of America we run the risk of further
exaggerating the potentially volatile situation created by the cult of ethnicity in the
country today. So a balance between extreme political correctness that drives groups
apart and a complete lack of social regulation as to what is acceptable, that causes
groups of people to be oppressed, must be reached. Note not all aspects of political
correctness are as potentially corrosive as those that pertain to race and ethnicity;
some, such as those which are used for gender related issues and handicaps to name a few,
are helpful while other terms, which there are to many to list, are downright comical. 
Words can and have been used to harm and oppress people and races in this country and
abroad. America has long been a melting pot for various ethnicities and taking the good
with the bad has also experienced many different waves of racism. Before this century,
and more accurately before the civil rights movement, many ethnicities, and
African-Americans in particular, were held down by highly negatively loaded language.
From the time of slavery African-Americans where held down by various words that today
hold such engrained meanings and are so hate charged that mentioning them even for
analytical purposes in this essay would be risky. Later on new groups got exposed to
these types of words as Irish, Italian and whatever the newest immigrant group of the
period was, got negatively charged ethic slurs 'assigned' to them. In it initial intent,
to eliminate harmful and hurtful words from common use the move towards political
correctness was highly successful. In other ways it may have set back ethnic relations
more than anyone could have expected.
As necessary as it is in many ways, political correctness does have one major drawback,
that being that it furthers the current cult of ethnicity that exists in America today.
The terms that are now supposedly politically correct today are in many ways very
segregating in nature. Each given group is referred to by a given name but these names
are troublesome because they place the group in front of the whole. People now are quick
to refer to themselves and others by the politically correct name that is formatted with
the ethnic background first, an example being Irish-American. Just in structure these
names are a problem as they place the ethnicity before the nation. The main problem with
these politically correct names for various ethnic groups lies in the gravity that many
groups place in being referred to by their proper name. Now as in the example of
African-Americans this may very well be justified but nevertheless promotes the cult of
ethnicity and with it all the potential negative repercussions. In order for people to be
concerned with the name their group is referred to they must first be highly aware that
they belong to a separate ethnic group. With the extent to which political correctness
encompasses ethnic relations in American today this posses an obvious problem as when we
think of it that way then political correctness and peoples attitudes towards it can be
used as a gauge of the cult of ethnicity.
The subjects of the cult of ethnicity and political correctness are in many ways
intertwined in a delicate manner. Ideally there would be no need for social and political
standards of speak as all people would be treated the same but as we all know the world
is far from perfect and when left free of regulation the powerful will abuse the
minorities or outnumbered peoples. African American is one term that has been formed in
this movement that I feel we must keep as the pain which this ethnicity has been put
through by hateful language is immeasurable. Other classifications of ethnicities have to
go. There is no need to constantly refer to natively born and raised, Caucasians facing
no threat of discrimination by a special name. All this practice does is make the cult of
ethnicity not only acceptable but in fact the expected norm of society. 
Bibliography
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