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Well here we are and this is a topic I’ve been looking to talk about for ages cause it’s surely one of the worst scourges of our time, but before I discuss this mental affliction let’s define what it is so we can understand why it’s even a thing that gets discussed and why in my opinion not only is it useless in most ways but that it causes more long-term problems than it resolves.

Looking at the term political correctness or PC. I think it’s important to know what it means so we’re all on the same page here and this is an online definition that I found which states “Political Correctness is used to describe the avoidance of language or actions that are seen as excluding, marginalising, or insulting groups of people who are seen as disadvantaged or discriminated against, especially groups defined by sex or race” so far so good.

But here’s the tricky part that I’ve always wondered and that’s whose politics, is it? and from what I see the same people accused of marginalising, excluding and discriminating are the same people who devised this thought process to help the rest of us behave in a way that they feel is correct politically, so this is really motivated by politics!! Yes this isn’t motivated by a sense of what’s seen as right and wrong, good and bad, no this is primarily a political tool used to position a party or individual into a more favourable light and the reason I say this is because the actual prime movers of this way of thinking in this country, England, were the conservative party, a group of individuals not know for their tolerance and understanding of the masses.

Now I don’t have an issue with the principle of being PC although I would ask how bad must things and society be to more or less have to institute a law to correct people’s behaviour I don’t know about you but to me that’s bad. Now I’m not going to stand here and say I’ve never heard a word or words or seen people act in a way that would be considered un PC but to be honest who hasn’t had some form of discrimination at one time or another in their life whether it was your age, race, gender, sexual orientation, environment you come from or even a physical condition nobody is safe from ridicule and teasing and to me that’s normal. It’s when it’s an everyday occurrence which goes beyond jokes into the realms of habits and insults that it’s harmful and this is usually a group mentality inflicted on smaller groups by larger ones, so it’s cowardly if the truth be told but it still seems to happen a lot,

But political correctness is here in all its glory, the great equaliser to the problem of a hierarchical system that traditionally had men at the top and women at the bottom, whites on top people of colour at the bottom, able-bodied at the top people with disabilities at the bottom, heterosexuals at the top and so on and so on cause you can see the pattern, it’s one of the reasons why I’ve never subscribed fully to the notion of political correctness because as I pointed out, whose politics is it?

We don’t really need to go beyond this point as for me it’s not mine so I choose to for the main ignore the edicts of PC because I’m a grown man who knows how to speak to people and if I make a mistake and say something that you have found offensive even though it’s a truth that you have to take offence as it’s not usually given then we can deal with that as you are the offended and I the offender but when you are the perpetrator of most of the slights and insults and discrimination and marginalisation forgive me if I don’t join or jump on your bandwagon because as I see it you didn’t listen to me before when I told you to stop treating me like that and you’re not listening to me now because I’ve never asked you to stop saying Black Coffee, or to get rid of nursery rhymes such as baa baa black sheep or any of the other useless points of reference that are cited in telling me how to act even though I’m not causing the problem, no all I and anyone else who’s been discriminated against has ever really said is and I think it’s not exactly rocket science here, treat me the way you wish to be treated, it’s so simple a child can understand, so let’s get rid of all these fake conventions and just act right.

By Carl Mason