Language in a politically correct 2020

Valentina House

People fail to realize that those who are politically correct can be just as bigoted, if not more so, than those who aren’t. The real concern attached to political correctness is the lack of transparency. People may think one way and speak another.

In a creative writing class, I saw political correctness stunting creativity firsthand. My friend was eager to share a piece he had worked on for a long time. The piece, a romantic short story, centered around a heterosexual relationship. My professor spent the majority of class ripping my friend’s story apart because the female part didn’t have as many lines or vivacious characteristic traits as the male counterpart. He noted my friend’s piece fell into a trope and decided that was pretty much all there was to it.

In my final piece, my professor flagged the word “they” when referring to Mexicans, which he deemed insensitive and directed me to a list of politically incorrect terms. As a Mexican-American myself, it felt as though my intentions were being completely overlooked. It seemed that the words my friend and I chose were more important than what the story told — my friend’s overall story wasn’t sexist, nor was mine racist.

It is hard to be politically correct in a world where “they” can’t be used. Political correctness in general is subjective — some consider Black to be the appropriate term, while others deem it offensive, preferring African American. It is more fruitful to look beyond the terms to people’s underlying intentions.

Moreover, creative works can be good even if they aren’t progressive. The establishment of political correctness encourages uniform, progressive works. If an author can’t write a book without a progressive plot, we may end up with a lot of princess-and-princess fairytales but no way of knowing whether those authors actually supported homosexuality or just needed to check off a “politically correct” box.

Even though we may need more roles like these, they shouldn’t be placed by default because it may be blatant they were incorporated as an afterthought and weren’t uniquely developed. My professor would’ve liked if my friend added more female lines. If afterwards he did, however, it might suggest that dominant female roles are unnatural and therefore, have to be forced. Underneath the blanket of political correctness, there’s no way of knowing whether notions of equality and justice were actually realized or if they were forced into submission.

The end result of political correctness is always an approved form of speech (“speak right”) but not always a better set of actions. Free speech should be adamantly preserved if we want to progress as an equal and just society. The fear of being politically incorrect does nothing to shift people’s notions, but everything to silence true beliefs. The only way to combat ignorance is to let people speak freely and convince them of their ill-guided conceptions.

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