Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Urban is the New Colored

Political correctness is something I will always detest. Just because you call something by a sanitized,safe term doesn't mean you don't think the taboo word in your head or hold onto stigmas/stereotypes of the taboo word. Where did this notion come from that you can take the sting out of a word by packaging it as something prettier?

I overheard the guy on the other side of my cubicle (read: torture chamber) wall on the phone with a friend of his the other day. They were discussing directions to the softball game they would participate in later that evening (I was listening HARD) when I heard this line: "Well, be careful driving around there. It's kind of an urban neighborhood". Now, by urban, we all know he meant black. The fact that he said urban instead of black (or the dreaded N-word ©Byron Crawford) didn't change the connotation of his comment one iota. In fact, it made the comment even more offensive because of the way he chose to hide behind a sanitized version of what he really wanted to say. I didn't take offense to the fact that he was, in his own under-handed way, implying that a black neighborhood is dangerous solely by the virtue of it being a black neighborhood because we know in all honesty that some black neighborhoods are dangerous. I took offense to his cowardice.

When I say the word retarded (one of the few times my wife will actually yell at me), what image do you get in your head? Is it any different when I say the phrase mentally-challenged? Probably not. I will bet green, worthless American dollars that your brain doesn't distinguish any change meaning between the words handicapped and disabled. A person can use the phrase mentally-challenged (or even worse "special") with as much or more malicious intent as they can use the word retarded. Changing the word doesn't change the intention and anyone who thinks so is assuming that nice words equate to nice people which we know is rarely the case.

Don't get me wrong here, I don't think you should run into your nearest Jenny Craig and start calling obese people fat bastards because that is what you're really thinking. I do want people just to be more honest with themselves. Most of the time political correctness is nothing more than a mask to make people feel like they are a good person. How 'bout we all stop acting like retards (see what I just did there?) and realize that words aren't offensive, but the way you use them can be? This message has been sanitized for your protection.

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