Last November, my manager, John, at my campus cafeteria told me a funny story. Supposedly, when he realized the newspaper vendor had shortchanged him, he said “I’ve been gipped” out loud. Not far away was an aging hippie who scolded him for saying such a thing:

“Gip is a terrible thing to say. It’s offensive to gypsies.”

Usually, I ignore what hippies say, but this incident got into my skin pretty deep. Did this man in the Grateful Dead t-shirt feel a sense of pride in saving the dignity of the Gypsy population? Is this the same guy who talks about animal rights and saving whales? Is it offensive of me to say any of these things?

I find it pitiful that a handful of nutcases have successfully warped the minds of fine human beings into thinking thier ideology of “what is offensive” is actually legit.

Political correctness has done nothing for the American people but halt any progress between expunging bigotry of any kind. Instead, we’re all walking around on eggshells afraid of saying anything to anyone different from us and are being fooled into thinking everything is alright. Aren’t you tired of being called a racist for no apparent reason? Are you sick of people getting your jobs because the companies need to make staus quo but you’re more qualified? Is the term “people of color” one of the dumbest things you’ve ever heard of? I agree, and this is coming from a gay, black, quarter-Jew dude.

Unfortunately, political correctness is very much like the black hole. It has grown to such a connundrum of crap that I won’t be able to cover all of its fallicies. I’ll get to the more critical problems it has caused. One is called the Discrimination Alarm. It looks like this:

The Emergency sign, however, goes unnoticed most of the time. What was once used for serious crimes of prejudice has turned into toy for tattling. It’s been misused and abused so many times it can’t be taken seriously anymore. For instance, “black” to many in the community is an unacceptable term. Many say they prefer “African-American.” Well that’s sort of stupid considering most of the people who want to be referred to by this term aren’t from Africa at all! Do we call those of German decent German-American? Or others Irish-American? If that’s the case, I prefer to be called Kenyan-American because I too want to be identified by the country my ancestors came from! I think it’s discrimintory otherwise. What’s next, Nubian Kings and Queens? Caucasian is such a great word too. Why say something with one syllable like “white” when you can say three?

Dare I say the status quo is PC’s greatest warrior? Indeed it is so. To end racism, somebody says let’s keep a percentage of each race in each school. I find it very difficult to understand that a person decided to use racism as a means to smolder it. That’s like someone actually using fire to fight real fire. It’s completely idiotic. Status quo has only gotten us to point systems in colleges, students getting rejected because of their race, and pissed off white people. Central High School in Louisville, Kentucky (my hometown), had gotten in trouble becuase they weren’t accepting enough white people. The fact that Central High was the only high school to accept black people isn’t even important (which was the constant reiteration, not to mention the WRONG one). Could it be the fact that not many white students applied there at all or even wanted to?

In addition to the point system the nation argued over years ago, scholarships targeted at minority students have not been discussed. If you search through a scholarship award book, you can see many for blacks, Asians, Latinos, gays, etc. Could you imagine the riots that would ensue if a white-only scholarship was awarded, or even a heterosexual one? Uh oh … DISCRIMINATION ALARM! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Reverse discourse seemed to be a great way to turn racist slurs into positive jargon. Too bad it was a failure.

Most of you, I’m sure, have seen the movie Rush Hour. In one scene, Chris Tucker’s character is referring to his all-black buddies who are hanging out in a bar as his “niggas.” Jackie Chan’s character (Tucker’s detective partner) follows him into the bar, new to American culture, and only imitates his partner to fit in. Instead of getting the respect and handshakes Tucker received, he’s almost on the receiving end of ass-kicking until Chan shows them he’s another karate-chopping Asian dude, (uh oh…) and beats them all to kingdom come. You’d think that little skit mocking our problems would point out its fault in our culture. As popular as that movie was, it’s deplorable to see its audience didn’t capture the gist of what the skit was saying.

Honestly, I call all of my friends niggas. White, black, Korean, I don’t care and neither do they. They call me that too. If anything, we are mocking communities and groups who think just because they have adapted words that were once deragotory to them, it doesn’t give them the right to claim others are unable to use them as well. When I see something I find inane, I’ll say, “Man, that is so gay.” At the same time, I will never tell a heterosexual that he shouldn’t say it either. No one should be a dictator of diction. Usually, someone who uses these terms is doing so in a joking manner, and jokes aren’t racist/sexist/etc. It’s only when they are used in a bigoted manner that they become so, and that is the only problem.

Black skin is a pigment. Gay means I’m attracted to men and I have emotions for them romantically. Jew means I like bagels. I do not misuse and abuse these things for any gain morally or whatnot.

Luckily, there are antagonists to this terrible flaw in our culture. TV Shows like South Park and Family Guy are constantly jabbing a fork in the PC meat. These shows are so great, they have probably offended every group and community out there. That’s what I call equal opportunity. Humorous social commentary sites like Mad Maddox and The Morphine Nation are popular places that also continue to fight the dirty fight. Look at these sites with an open heart and open mind (and hopefully with your sense of humor).

I wish I could be idealistic and say one day, all of this will dissapear, but I realize that there will always be hippies.

But the next time someone proudly proclaims they are PC, you’ll know what they really mean since I have taught you the true acronym for it. So tell them to do these three things:

1. STOP (Talking)
2. THINK (About How Stupid You Sound)

3.

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