Conor Kenny
Staff Writer
Next time you’re in a Starbucks or a Costa Coffee, walking up to the counter, just check behind you before you make your order. There might be a uniformed, mask wearing, gun carrying government agent listening to every word you utter. Why? In case you make the fatal mistake of asking for a “black” coffee. Oh hadn’t you heard? We can’t say that word anymore, because it’s offensive to, well, black people. At least, that’s what “they” say. But who are “they”, and why do they care so much about the colour of your drink? Well, ‘they’ don’t, because ‘they’ don’t exist. So where is this political correctness war we’re hearing so much about being directed from, and why has it gone mad?
Well, contrary to what the tabloids are telling you, political correctness has not gone mad. The most ludicrous story that attempted to convince people it had was published in that great journal of accurate reporting, the Daily Mail. The journalist Chris Brooke concocted a story so outlandish that it made David Icke seem rational and sane. The babbling Brooke wrote of a school in Oxford that prevented children from singing ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’ because it was offensive, and instead replaced it with ‘Ba Ba Rainbow Sheep’. Unsurprisingly, the story was soon debunked as fantastical drivel, but what was surprising was the number of people who believed it.
There’s a difference between what Daily Mail writers would like to characterize as oppression of liberty, and something which used to be known as common courtesy. Take the case of the Middlesex Crusaders, who decided to scrap their name in 2009 because of claims by Muslims in the county that it was offensive to them. Guess what? It was. But the Sun newspaper seemed to think that this was “political correctness gone mad”. For some reason, the memories of a despicable period in history when Christian European countries decided to travel the world slaughtering people of a different faith is something that Muslims are just expected to be good-natured about. I wonder what the reaction would be of the right-wing British press if a team is founded in the future with a name like the Kent Jihadists, or perhaps the Worcestershire Holocaust. Something tells me that the supposed defence of liberty with all the usual guff about “free speech” wouldn’t be quite so prevalent in those cases.
Now, here’s where it gets serious. There are scenarios that do occur, when it is socially unacceptable for a person to use a certain phrase or word. Unlimited freedom of speech is not a human right, and nor should it be. It is not Stalinist to argue this point, and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights even states that the right to speak freely may be limited “for respect of the rights or reputation of others”. So there’s nothing undemocratic about someone being told that they can’t refer to small people as ‘dwarfs’ or that they can’t black up at Halloween. And by the way, it doesn’t matter a jot if people acting in this manner don’t consider that kind of behavour to be offensive, but it’s of supreme importance if the people being lampooned do.
So next time someone tells you that the mysterious ‘they’ are saying that you can’t say the word ‘black’, and that it’s political correctness gone mad, tell them to grow up. Get on board the PC brigade, and be proud of it.
