I have been told for a very long time that I am too sensitive.
That words that have burned me should be taken merely as tokens of one’s appreciation of me, that they "feel comfortable enough around me to make a joke”, even as my eyebrows twitch at the peculiarity that it seems to be the only kind of joke they know how to make.
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I have been told that “political correctness” doesn’t matter, that “being PC” is not as important as someone’s ability to express their very violent words. Words used to undermine a whole population of people by casually comparing a sexual identity to a complex of ugliness and inferiority.
I have been shown that "political correctness” doesn’t matter. That it impedes upon a white person’s ability to complain about what they perceive as *“reverse racism”* as they see a group of black women sitting together at a table and “not with any white people”. As if this isn’t instead a very real indication of how secluded a group of black women might feel when constantly surrounded by a majority white student population that holds a privilege so strong and so systemic that we white people can ignore its presence because we don't even see its presence sometimes because we are THAT surrounded by it. So surrounded by privilege that our ability to read deeply and respectfully has been shrouded in our casual collective desire to ignore, that sentences such as my previous elongated statement are just too long for someone to take a minute out of their day to glance over something more than that fall comfy Starbucks post accompanied with a smiling face that they might interpret as the "tell-tale all is right in the world because I have a latte".
Violent. This ignorance is violent. Words are violent. In initial mention, they are bullets, blades that scathe the skin and leave shrapnel in one’s body, this shrapnel further embedded by the shovel that systemically digs them in deeper as power fed by these words grows and feeds the privilege that it nurtures. In solitude, these words linger in minds, grow as undead trees that live off of their systemically upheld repetition by the next person, and then the next, and then the next, growing in their undeadness, forever bloodily fed off of complicity and silence in the presence of violence. Amongst groups or even individuals who have been surrounded by this embedded language in the society they grew up in, these words lead to actions. They lead to violent actions. They lead to harm. Words are violent. Words matter.
But I and others are supposedly just sensitive in our reactions to flippant words that turn to blatant acts of discrimination, we are just a little too "whiny" after hearing the casual racist's joke. I am now reading more and more about the destruction of political correctness after this election. It is coming more to light to some that our language matters, and now it seems those some might actually see its truth. Here is one of your (hopefully daily) kickers: just because you finally see it, doesn't mean that it hasn't been there already for decades. White people in particular, it's high time for us to take it upon ourselves to learn more, and not just from other white people; listen more; yearn to understand more; read more works by people of color; take that extra minute to hear the poetry of Maya Angelou, of Nayyirah Waheed, of Audre Lorde—the list goes on. To read that article describing the importance of womanism as opposed to classical white feminism, to read a book by professor bell hooks on the real language of love, even just to skim the definition of intersectionality. To listen to the words of Native American activists fighting against the construction of the deadly DAPL, to read the real stories of the Black Panthers, stories that don't wrongly and simply, blatantly, completely inaccurately, dismiss them as *"reverse racists"* (SEE BELOW REGARDING THIS TERM). These crimes against humanity have existed for centuries. And you have a problem with political correctness, you have an issue with someone respectfully rethinking the language that we give to one another?
Let me reiterate: thank goodness some of us do realize how bad it is now. The problem is that it has taken some of us to get to THIS extent of dreadful, after bodies have been ravaged, after lives have been stolen, after rights have been eviscerated as if they were ash in the wind, to see its existence. Stop and think about that; after all this time, in a nation run by corrupt white supremacists who can't even let a woman choose what to do with her own body, who claim their "religion of love" demands them to continually try to alienate the LGBT population not only from rights as citizens, but from rights to safely obtain and maintain a job or go to the bathroom, who don't even blink twice about letting a guilty officer go free after taking the life of a young black man in cold blood—it took one man who is very far from alone in his blatant representation of xenophobia, racism, sexism, islamophobia and homophobia, and more and more and more to get elected into office to finally open your eyes. Think about how much privilege that entails.
Here’s the other thing. If your idea of a joke can’t go any further than your racist claims of *reverse racism* (again, please see below), if your sexist rants or sexual come-ons can't be stalled from tumbling out of your mouth covered as well in your xenophobic word vomit, flavored with continuous perpetuation of stereotypes regarding those who might pray a little differently than you do, I don't believe you when you tell me "all lives matter". I don't believe you when you tell me "pray for Paris". I don't believe you when you tell me "one love, I don't care if you're gay, sexuality doesn't matter to me". I sure as hell don't believe you when you slap on a safety pin and tell me "we must all come together as a human race, as that is the only race that matters".
If you can’t even begin to see why the idea behind "political correctness" is important, that your words don’t just sting, but damage, stab, and lead to the belief of the right to kill, or even sometimes kill themselves as the words they are, why should I expect you to believe that another human being’s right to live, to be safe, is even in the deepest crevice of your mind?
This is the kind of nation we live in. But it is actually the kind of nation we have always lived in.
Someone dear to me recently told me, “you’re not beating a dead horse” with this article, because it very obviously needs to be said over and over. It very urgently needs to be shared with as many as possible. And, unfortunately, some people do not learn until they hear these words from people they know. People they supposedly care about. But here is my personal question: if you really think a black woman’s right to protest is disruptive when she is watching her peers die by the hands of those that are supposed to protect her; when you claim "real patriotism" is reserving eduction for those "legal immigrants" and question an entire nationality simply upon first glance because you believe them to be "illegal" human beings in all of their humanity; when you take your Bible with the same hand you use to give me a high-five at a sports game and use it to condemn me to hell because of my sexual preference, I must ask you if you truly care about the people you claim to care about?
I must stress that this is not simply directed at Trump voters. This is far too big for that. We were problematic as a nation long before. Visceral silence and rampant ignorance are matters of which many more are guilty. Many of those that have angered at my "political correctness" did not vote for Trump. To those that claim my PC is impeding on your freedom of speech; I am so sick of hearing how sick and tired you are simply with our call for you to merely change your choice of words. I am beyond done hearing your casual claims of alliance with a safety pin followed by inaction, about your church-goings that are followed by empty words, about your preaching without practice, followed by mission trips to "save those that don't believe like you" from the hell you in fact subject them to, followed by your inaction and ignorance when oppressed people in your own country have been and are being ripped apart in numerous ways.
I will conclude this piece with a short appendix regarding terms mentioned above and related phrases (surely some can spend a minute glancing over a few short phrases before heading back to warm and cuddly let's-roast-that-turkey-and-continue-to-ignore-the-genocide-behind-this-holiday Thanksgiving posts).
SEE BELOW:
*reverse racism does not exist*
*reverse sexism is not a thing*
*straight pride has never been a necessity*
*Christian oppression is not and never has been real in America"
