<p>Though the term &ldquo;politically correct&rdquo; was not in common use in the 1960s, the rise of radical liberalism in those &ldquo;days of rage&rdquo; was the wellspring from which the concept was resurrected. ; I say &ldquo;resurrected&rdquo; because the term and the concept go back a few more generations &ndash; to the early 1900s.</p>
<p>It should be both informative and chilling to know that it was a concept of political obedience used by the early Nazis, in Stalinist Russia and in Maoist China. ; The New York Times, as early as 1934, was reporting that Hitler&rsquo;s government was only providing &ldquo;reporting permits&rdquo; to journalists who were &ldquo;pure Aryans&rdquo; and whose opinions were &ldquo;politically correct.&#8221;</p>
<p>Leninists used the phrased to mean that the statements and policies of the Communist Party were always correct. ; The term&rsquo;s association with communist tyranny gained it an unfavorable reputation from the American political community.</p>
<p>The concept of political correctness was at the core of Chairman Mao&rsquo;s &ldquo;Little Red Book,&rdquo; which every citizen was to carry and memorize. ; The people were indoctrinated to believe that the words of Mao &ndash; popularly referred to as the &ldquo;wise leader&rdquo; &ndash; were to be believed at face value. ; It was a bit like the infallible words of a Roman Catholic Pope speaking ex cathedra &ndash; and I do not mean to imply any further comparison between the two heads-of-state.</p>
<p>With this history, it should be no surprise that the American version of political correctness should rise from the far left &ndash; the more authoritarian side of the right/left political continuum. ;  ;This is because political correctness is a tenet of authoritarianism. ; That is why it flies in the face of one of the most basic freedoms in a free society &ndash; freedom of speech.</p>
<p>While political correctness purports to create a more harmonious dialogue by creating government directed and court-imposed standards of behavior and civil discourse, it actually creates divisive tensions among the citizenry that are ultimately tamped down by an oppressive elitist government. ; It divides the population into victims and abusers &ndash; a misidentification in both cases.</p>
<p>Political correctness is a parasitical concept of one of the left&rsquo;s other favorites &ndash; identity politics. ; One cannot pit one group against another &ndash; create winners and losers, victims and abusers &ndash; unless you identify those respective groups in a divisive arrangement. ; In the left-wing philosophy that has taken hold of the Democratic Party, there is no such thing as a win-win situation.</p>
<p>Like much of radical left philosophy, political correctness is belief based. ; Those who believe they are the &ldquo;victims&rdquo; plead for government protection from those they believe are the &ldquo;abusers.&rdquo; ; This creates opportunities for the development of new hitherto unknown concepts and categories of victimhood &ndash; so imaginary that they are often ridiculous. ; More than ridiculous, they are crazy to anyone with common sense and a little bit of life experience. ; That may explain why political correctness is so popular and so irrational on college campuses where most of the experience &ndash; among students AND professors &#8212; is in dealing with theoretical models of society based more on wishful thinking than reality.</p>
<p>One of my favorite crazy political correctness beliefs is something called &ldquo;cultural appropriation.&rdquo; ; That has a nice academic ring to it, but what does it mean? ; It means that you do something that is generally associated with a different culture &ndash; usually something a White majority person does that is associated with a minority person. ; ;</p>
<p>For example, &hellip;</p>
<p>If you cook Chinese food and you are not Chinese &ndash; or even Asian &ndash; you are &ldquo;appropriating&rdquo; that culture. ; I use that as the first example because this mostly Austro-Eastern European writer &ndash; with one percent Nigerian blood according to my DNA results &ndash; loves to cook Chinese food. ; That includes miso soup, egg foo yung and various stir fries. ; After all, a person cannot live on schnitzel and strudel alone. I am not sure if my one percent Nigerian blood qualifies me to cook African cuisine according to political correctness theology.</p>
<p>There is a Chinese restaurant in Boca Raton that is owned and operated by Mexicans &ndash; including the chefs. ; They do a pretty good job in putting out some great American-style Chinese food. ; I say &ldquo;American-style&rdquo; because I have always loved Chinese food. ; But during my first of many trips to China, I discovered I never had any. ; The food in China is wunderbar (or should I have said 精彩), but very different from the Americanized version. ; I like both. (And oh, pardon the &ldquo;wunderbar.&rdquo; ; That Austrian gene will not be denied. ; If you cannot read 精彩 or JÄ«ngcÇŽi, it means &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; in Chinese).</p>
<p> ;</p>
<p>But it is not just the food. ; If you are Caucasian and wear Asian style clothing, you are guilty of cultural appropriation &ndash; and that includes that Fu Manchu costume your kid wore last Halloween. ; If you&rsquo;re Australian and put your hair up in an Afro for some reasons or add a dashiki to your wardrobe, you are guilty of cultural appropriation.</p>
<p>It even applies to make up. ; One of the current fads among the fashionistas is for the women to have very thin arched eyebrows &ndash; most commonly achieved by plucking or penciling. ; Weeell, that got Krystyna Chá;vez&rsquo; eyebrows raised, to say the least. ; Upon seeing songstress Rihanna on the cover of the British edition of<em> Vogue</em> with those heavily-arched thin eyebrows, Chá;vez was so horrified &ndash; yes she said &ldquo;horrified&rdquo; &ndash; that she expunged her angst in an article in <em>Marie Claire</em>, accusing Rihanna of &hellip; yep! &hellip; cultural appropriation.</p>
<p>You can better understand how deeply violations of political correctness protocol can wound the weak, like Chá;vez. ; Beyond being horrified, Chá;vez said that her &ldquo;Mexican-American heart was DEEPLY confused and DEEPLY annoyed &hellip;&rdquo; (My emphasis added). Her reaction is one degree away from call-the-shrink traumatic. (Hmmm. ; Why does Chá;vez describe herself as a Mexican-American? ; Is she trying to appropriate my culture? ; And what about her first name? ; Sounds Russian to me.)</p>
<p>Now you really have to pay attention to get through this next bit of political correctness nonsense. ; According to Chá;vez, that particular style belongs to the Latinx community in general &ndash; and even more specifically to the <em>chola</em> subculture, which Chá;vez basically describes as the &ldquo;trashy&rdquo; people. ; Oh, you are not familiar with &ldquo;Latinx?&rdquo; ; That is the politically correct, gender neutral term for a Latina or Latino &hellip; or maybe even a pet chihuahua. ; ;</p>
<p>Anyone seeing that photo of Rihanna, says Chá;vez, would immediately associate it with <em>chola</em> women. ; Is that so? ; Chá;vez might be interested in knowing that seeing that photo of Rihanna did not only NOT make me think of <em>chola</em> Latinas &#8212; oops, Latinx &hellip; but I had never even heard of that subculture reference. ; Furthermore, those thin arching eyebrows have been on women of many cultures over many years. ; Chá;vez should try to peddle her political correctness theory to Marlene Dietrich, the geishas of Japan and no few of my mother&rsquo;s lady friends back in the 1950s.</p>
<p>That Latinx thing reminded me that political correctness is all about self-identification. ; It is another belief system that upends reality. ; If you believe you are of a different gender than the biological equipment between your legs, the PC types say that is what a person is to be considered. ; ;</p>
<p>That theory resulted in Planet Fitness losing a lawsuit when a woman entered the ladies&rsquo; locker and discovered a disrobed male. ; The management explained that the fellow &hellip; ooops, I mean the other person &hellip; considered himself to be a female. ; The plaintiff did not agree and neither did the court.</p>
<p>But what happens when self-identification runs smack dab into cultural appropriation? ; That brings to mind Rachel Dolezal, a young Caucasian gal who passed herself off as a Black woman and served as the director of the Spokane NAACP. ; Does self-identification trump cultural appropriation, or vice versa? Putting that question to a fervent political correctness advocate could result in the emotional and intellectual equivalency of pouring water on the Ozian Wicked Witch of the East.</p>
<p>Political correctness has also sired another bit of lunacy &ndash; microaggression. ; The term was coined by a Harvard Professor in the 1970s. ; That figures. ; It is a grievance that presumably can only be committed by a White person. ; It occurs when said White person manifests &ldquo;aggressive&rdquo; behavior toward a person of one of the protected victim classes based on identity politics &ndash; whether the White person knows they transgressed or not. ; ;</p>
<p>While the concept of microaggression has festered in the cloistered academic community for decades, it has more recently come to the fore as a key plank in the radical left-wing platform. ; It also has come into vogue among liberal psychologists who see it as another money magnet for grants, royalties, honoraria and consultations. ; One of the major academic peddlers of the microaggression theory is Dr. Gerald Wing Sue, who says:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Racial microaggressions are the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned White people who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>At least that boy named Sue admits it is all a &ldquo;belief&rdquo; as opposed to a science. ; It seems to be one of the unique instances when the transgression is neither intended by or known to the transgressor. ; It also leaves open the question as to whether the perceived &ldquo;insult&rdquo; is justified or based on a paranoia-like insensitivity on the part of the recipient &ndash; perhaps what might be called &ldquo;snowflake syndrome.&rdquo; ; Unfortunately, that designation lacks the obligatory academic-sounding title.</p>
<p>According to the proponents, microaggression has three stages. ; They are micro-assaults, micro-insults and micro-invalidations.</p>
<p>Micro-assaults are overt acts of racism &ndash; like planting a burning cross on the lawn of your new Black neighbor. ; This does not seem to be very &ldquo;micro,&rdquo; but rather a redefinition of plain old racism.</p>
<p>Micro-insults are subtler. ; The example Sue uses is some White person asking a Black co-worker how he or she got their job. ; The implication is that they did not earn it but were hired through some affirmative action program or quota system. ; Only an academic would pose such a hypothetical example in support of a dubious theory. ; Who the hell ever asks that question in a real workplace?</p>
<p>Incidentally, instead of &ldquo;he or she,&rdquo; I could have used one of the proposed gender-neutral words, but which one &ndash; zie, sie, ey, ve, ta or e? ; They are each being offered up as a replacement for &ldquo;he or she.&rdquo; ; Fortunately, this twisting of the English language into lexiconic pretzels is not catching on with the masses.</p>
<p>My favorite of all this micro nonsense is micro-invalidation. ; Again, I defer to Sue&rsquo;s example. ; He contends that White people often ask Latinos where they were born, suggesting &ndash; and here is where Sue goes off the rails &ndash; that they are &ldquo;perpetual foreigners in their own land.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>Again, it is a one-way street. ; I have often been asked my ancestry and have never felt invalidated. ; I also must confess that I am a serial ancestry-asker. ; If people have a thick accent, I am curious. ; Not to invalidate them, but to learn about their background and culture. ; I give them a chance to brag about their culture. ; I will often ask those I think may be Chinese because I have been there, and we can have a good conversation about China.</p>
<p>According to the microaggression proponents, micro-invalidation occurs when a person says or does something that they do not believe or intend to be racist AND the other person does not take it as racist. ; Consider that. ; You, as a White person, are a racist even if you had no racist intention and the other person &ndash; a minority &ndash; does not see anything racist in what you said or did? ; But they could, so it is racist.</p>
<p>It is upon this nonsense that the left predicates the accusation that all Whites are inherently racists &hellip; period. ; In its more radical and virulent variation, this means that all Whites are &hellip; White supremacists. ; This crap is being force fed to the younger generation and the minority communities in our colleges and inner cities across the nation. ;</p>
<p>A tangential irrational politically correctness belief is that minorities cannot be racists. ; A Black, Asian or Hispanic person can hate White people openly &ndash; as did Sarah Jeong, the newly hired editorialist for the New York Times &ndash; but that brand of racism is not racism in the &ldquo;little red book&rdquo; of the far left.</p>
<p>Political correctness and its offspring, identity politics, are the enemies of the American culture of personal freedom. ; They are repugnant to the very concept of <em>e pluribus unum</em>. ; Not only do they undermine constitutional rights &ndash; especially the First Amendment &ndash; but they completely reject our nation as a melting pot in which new cultures contribute even as they assimilate into what is known as the unique American culture. ; The left sees governance as the management of tribal-like constituencies never to meld.</p>
<p>Political correctness is a malignant belief. ; We can often shake our heads and laugh at those frequent manifestations of its lunacy, but we must not take them lightly. ; Political correctness is the antithesis of our principles and personal freedoms.</p>
<p> ;</p>