It's time to say what we mean
By Kandace Arens
Domestic Engineer. Vertically challenged. Person of substance.
In our society, calling someone a "housewife," "short" or "fat" is not allowed. We must be "politically correct" so as not to offend anyone. In this country of many colors, beliefs and looks, we are not allowed to ever comment on the fact that we are different for fear of being labeled as "closed-minded."
In my English 1 class last week, we focused on correcting grammatical errors, and one of the exercises required us to reword certain phrases "to make them better."
However, along with the usual comma splices and fragments were sentences that included words such as "stewardess," "chairman" and "mankind." We were asked to change these words to make them more appropriate. This sparked a discussion -- should we change our language to prevent alienation, or should we keep it the same and risk being labeled as prejudiced?
The truth of the matter is, all of this political correctness nonsense is just confusing everyone. How am I supposed to refer to you without you getting offended? If I call you a waitress, I'm a sexist. If I call you a waiter, I'm not recognizing your femininity. If I say you're Latino, I'm generalizing. If I ignore the fact that you're Latino, I'm just another white person who thinks she is better than everyone.
Like it or not, we are not all the same. We are a melting pot of different cultures, genders and beliefs. By molding our language to remove our differences, we are removing the many flavors and spices that make the U.S. so unique.
According to the creators of the grammatical exercise we completed in my English class, we should use words like "flight attendant," "chairperson" or "humanity" instead of some other "excluding" terms that might offend people.
If I call you Vietnamese when you're really Chinese and that offends you, tell me. Don't scream at me for being politically incorrect. Maybe I just don't know enough about your culture to recognize the difference. I'm not being racist or intolerant, I'm just uninformed. Take the time to teach me about your culture.
By using these politically correct terms, we are just playing it safe. We're hiding in euphemisms instead of going out and saying what we really think and experience. Don't hide behind phrases to make yourself feel better or because you're afraid of annoying someone. We're becoming a hypersensitive society that is terrified of ever stepping on anyone's toes.
But sometimes you just need to say what really is. If you're bald, you're not "follicularly-challenged." You're bald. Learn to live with it. And if someone mentions it, don't bite their head off. They probably didn't mean to be rude.
Kandace Arens is a freshman theater arts major.