The Politcal Correctness problem

A detailed Summary of The Politcal Correctness problem

Political correctness, a concept originally meant to protect minorities and the under represented and thus strengthen the country, has in today's America become no more than a necessary evil and catalyst for the cult of ethnicity. In theory political correctness sounds like a very reasonable idea and when looked at very shallowly this remains the case. When it is more thoroughly looked at thought it dangers become more and more apparent. By creating a set of "correct" terminology and assigning each ethnic background a name that separates them from the main culture of America we run the risk of further exaggerating the potentially volatile situation created by the cult of ethnicity in the country today. So a balance between extreme political correctness that drives groups apart and a complete lack of social regulation as to what is acceptable, that causes groups of people to be oppressed, must be reached. Note not all aspects of political correctness are as potentially corrosive as those that pertain to race and ethnicity; some, such as those which are used for gender related issues and handicaps to name a few, are helpful while other terms, which there are t

Words can and have been used to harm and oppress people and races in this country and abroad. America has long been a melting pot for various ethnicities and taking the good with the bad has also experienced many different waves of racism. Before this century, and more accurately before the civil rights movement, many ethnicities, and African-Americans in particular, were held down by highly negatively loaded language. From the time of slavery African-Americans where held down by various words that today hold such engrained meanings and are so hate charged that mentioning them even for analytical purposes in this essay would be risky. Later on new groups got exposed to these types of words as Irish, Italian and whatever the newest immigrant group of the period was, got negatively charged ethic slurs 'assigned' to them. In it initial intent, to eliminate harmful and hurtful words from common use the move towards political correctness was highly successful. In other ways it may have set back ethnic relations more than anyone could have expected.

As necessary as it is in many ways, political correctness does have one major drawback, that being that it furthers

Some common words found in the essay are:
Irish Italian, , African American, political correctness, cult ethnicity, politically correct, ethnic relations, ethnic background,

Approximate Word count = 791
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics

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