“Good morning, America! What are we going to be offended by today?”

This is a popular meme, especially after the Confederate flag started losing its place of public honor in the South in the wake of June’s Charleston shooting. It is often paired with lamentations that “political correctness” is ruining our culture.

Any good intention can be taken too far, but in what ways is so-called “political correctness” actually harming us?

It seems that many people who are “fighting back” against the “PC police” are mainly upset they no longer have a free pass to denigrate entire groups of people with crude and bigoted language or symbols. It’s uncomfortable when a person can’t use racist, sexist or homophobic slurs without worrying the room will go quiet. There might even be a rebuttal.

That doesn’t feel safe.

This in itself, though, is a sign of progress. It means we aren’t as exclusive and insular in our ingroups as we used to be. We’re more mixed in both public and private settings. We can’t as easily make prejudiced comments, either on purpose or inadvertently, without directly demeaning another person in our group or someone else they care about.

We are also recognizing as a society that words used in psychologically abusive ways can be just as damaging as physical abuse. Choosing civil, respectful language has become that much more important.

The First Amendment gives us freedom to make bigoted jokes and comments if we still want to, but the free market is not necessarily as obliging. In many cases where “political correctness” ruined careers, it was the free market that wielded the ax. Companies seeking broad appeal don’t want their brands damaged by chauvinism.

Being careful about language is old hat to many groups. The truth is that nondominant groups have always had to watch their language around dominant groups, and it’s only more recently that it has begun to be reciprocated, a democratization of the right to be treated respectfully.

For African-American men in the South 100 years ago, one slip of the tongue or one “uppity” sentence could and did result in lynching, with no repercussions for the extralegal executioners. Imagine the violent impact this had (and continues to have) on people’s psyches.

African-American parents still worry about their children saying or doing one thing wrong around police. For Sandra Bland, who died in custody in Texas last month, her main transgression apparently was refusing to put out a cigarette while sitting in her own car during a traffic stop.

Sandra Bland was both black and female, which is often a double jeopardy when not acquiescing to the wishes of dominant society. Women in the Victorian age could be institutionalized at the behest of their husbands or fathers just for being outspokenly critical of them. This lack of power is nearly unthinkable today. In the 1960s and ’70s, psychiatrists silenced many women with Valium when they expressed dissatisfaction with their domestic roles.

There remains a deep fear of women, which sometimes comes out in ugly ways as women gain more political and economic footing. It’s easy to find contemporary examples on the public airwaves of strong women being described as “bossy” or “ball-busting” in attempts to undercut their work.

Tucker Carlson once called Hillary Clinton “castrating, overbearing and scary.” A male political leader with the same traits might be called authoritative, decisive or commanding, but never castrating. And this is tame compared to the festering swamp of misogynistic anger found in online comment sections and chat rooms.

The most popular “non-PC” candidate right now is Donald Trump, whose main qualification as a presidential candidate is his enormous positive self-regard. It may be a grandiose illusion because he sounds like a schoolyard bully in his verbal treatment of others, and he can’t tolerate criticism leveled at himself.

To Trump, the worth of women is based on their attractiveness and their willingness to accommodate him. He has repeatedly objectified women’s bodies, even his daughter Ivanka’s. Yet when a lawyer who was questioning him in a lawsuit asked for a break to pump breast milk for her 3-month-old daughter a few years ago, Trump and his lawyers objected. She held up her pump to the judge to emphasize her baby’s need, at which point Trump said, “You’re disgusting,” and walked out of the courtroom.

As much as I disagree with Trump, I give him credit for this — he had a great moment of pulling back the curtain on our political system when he said, “Our country is run by and for donors, special interest and lobbyists, and that is not a good formula for a country’s success.”

Our democracy is for sale to the highest bidders, and that’s something everybody should be offended by.

 

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.