Has anyone ever noticed that but for the 'H', all the letters for the word 'hypocrite' are found in 'politically correct'? Just wondered...
I am not fat challenged, I am slender, skinny, scrawny, woefully underweight. I understand those phrases, I've heard them all my life. I am not whatsoever challenged by fat. And more importantly, whether you call me beanpole or tell me I'm too tall for my weight, I am not challenged by that.
I'm actually a very sensitive person, a fact disguised by my hard edged writing. But, my lower lip can tremble with the best of them when my feelings are hurt. So, where's the line that's drawn between what can hurt and what does not? What is appropriate verbiage and what is ill spoken?
The common sense approach used so successfully for long before our forefathers had four forefathers before them has been replaced by the overly sensitive whacked out process labeled 'PC'.
To be perfectly honest, the first time I heard the word, 'PC', my mind immediately went technical and I couldn't for the life of me correlate the current discussion with a computer. I suppose this made me 'with it challenged'.
Sensitivity is one thing and many of us are often over sensitive about some things that would simply be brushed off by another. But, with the already challenged English language being the most difficult to understand, did we really need a whole new lingo? I believe its inception was borne of good intentions, but it has since ballooned way out of control. We're creating a world of people walking on eggshells, saying and doing the same things, but applying this ointment of PC to soothe the wounds.
And let's face it...the schoolyard bully sets himself up for sissy hood these days if he prances about the class nerd chanting "Visually challenged, visually challenged!"...it kind of loses something in the translation from "Four Eyes, Four Eyes". By using the current 'accepted' phrase, does his taunting make it any less hurtful? I don't think so.
"Too short for your weight", "Generously Cut", "Calorically Overloaded"...
call it what you will, but no one should be teased about their abundance of weight when you know that it bothers them, no matter how much you sugar coat the words!
If you're short, what's wrong with that? Why do you need to be vertically challenged? Will it create the illusion of height? Will it get you on the minimum height rides at amusement parks if you simply tell the guy, "Oh... it'll be okay, I'm just vertically underachieved???
And when does it end? Does it work both ways? "Sorry officer, but I wasn't speeding, I was merely deceleration challenged." "Judge, we ask your honor for leniency, this is only the defendant's fifth charge of being soberly challenged." "I'm not an addict, I just have a pharmacological preference". Let's give a medal to the junkies on the street. Not only are they experiencing 'mortgage free living' they are 'substance abuse survivors'. Don't make a thief...er I mean an 'ethically disoriented non traditional shopper' a 'client of the correctional system'...it wouldn't be culturally sensitive to his morally different life.
And, if you don't stand up for yourself are you challenged challenged???
Is it as much fun to spend the afternoon with your pre-adults building persons of snow? Have you burned all their story books...er...story processed tree carcasses with all their sexist racist prejudiced fairy tales?
Can I even SAY fairy tales?
I can be a postmaster, but not a postmistress because it brings to mind connotations of lewd and salacious behavior. I must always be merely a 'person', my gender hidden, tucked away as if by virtue of my genitalia I'm somehow better or worse as the case may be. Is not someone being biased towards me by not allowing me to be a mail lady, but rather a mail person? I'm not threatened by or ashamed of my female personage, are you?
Why do we seem to have this need to make life more complex? Isn't life on its own merit enough of an obstacle? In becoming PC we have become simplistically challenged. Why not call a spade a spade? Personally I can dig just as deep a hole with a spade as a shovel, despite its curvature deficit.
When I need to complete an application and am faced with the ever growing list of choices for personal data such as race, I'm perplexed. We all are a mixture, a blend of many families, our histories rich with varied backgrounds. Do I color in a portion of several choices? Do I choose the one that gave me my eyes, or my skin, or my hair? More importantly, what the hell difference should it make to the person reading the form? Why do we need to delineate ourselves into certain categories? Do you really care how many south plains souix/albino one armed teen midgets watch 'Friends'?
Part of being PC is an excuse, designed to give us free reign to have our faults and not feel badly about them, to allow us to do as we please and not be held accountable. I'm not entirely convinced that we don't have such a fear of offending now that we are not in actuality offending simply by making more of a big deal out of some issues. We can all hide behind our little words and forget about people and feelings. If it is a hurtful comment or deed, coloring and spicing it up to something less blatant is still going to leave it a hurtful comment or deed.
But tis okay...blame it on being emotionally challenged, then we don't have to care.
It's enough to drive you insane...uh... to have mental activity at the margin.