I'M STARTING to like this whole political correctness thing. Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't admire its tendency to put a damper on the vitality of open debate by setting up arbitrary parameters on what can and cannot be said. Nor am I a fan of the way in which the left wields it as a weapon to destroy the public images of its political enemies. The actual reason I'm falling for the principle of PC these days is that it's finally beginning to take its toll on the types of liberal ideologues who created it.
In the decades since it became popular, political correctness has been responsible for the downfall of many members of the political right. The most notable recent victims include former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who liberals successfully branded as a racist following a vague comment he made regarding Strom Thurmond. Rush Limbaugh, punching bag of the left, lost his short-lived job as an ESPN football analyst once he made the un-PC suggestion that the sports media unfairly favored quarterback Donovan McNabb because he was a minority. Even Mel Gibson, the rare family values-oriented movie star, faced pressure to change a scene in his latest film, "The Passion of the Christ," because it wasn't satisfactory for PC consumption.
Like the villain in a clichéd sci-fi movie, the devices of political correctness now threaten to turn against the very people they were designed to help. Last semester at the University, a medical school employee endured intense criticism for saying the "N-word," despite the fact that the context in which she said it was a statement condemning the use of racial slurs. Currently, Andre "3000" Benjamin of the hip-hop group Outkast faces PC outrage over his Native American-themed performance at last Sunday's Grammy Awards ("CBS apologizes for Outkast performance," CNN.com, Feb. 16). Benjamin is an atypical target for such an attack since his music has generally been tinged with liberal activism, and the NAACP has nominated Outkast for its 2004 Image Awards.
If the disciples of political correctness truly have begun to cannibalize their own sympathizers, America's left could be in serious trouble. The list of liberals who have crossed the PC line is extensive.
Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia would be a likely early casualty of PC's rebellion against its former masters. The summary of his political career contains more racially insensitive behavior than an episode of South Park. Not only can the esteemed senator boast KKK membership on his resume, but he unabashedly uttered the N-word twice in a 2001 TV interview with Fox News. It doesn't get any more politically incorrect than that.
Figureheads of the liberal African-American community stand to suffer the effects of a PC rampage as well. While they might consider themselves advocates of political correctness when it comes to their own race, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have both come across as quite anti-Semitic throughout the course of their ventures into the world of politics. Both men have made questionable statements disparaging and stereotyping the Jewish community in New York, and Sharpton is infamous for once comparing the modern day nation of Israel to hell. You can argue all you want about the intended meaning of Sharpton's and Jackson's words; the wonderful thing about political correctness is that it doesn't take context into consideration.
The 2004 election has provided an ample number of liberals who could be sacrificed in the name of political correctness. If Howard Dean's campaign hadn't evaporated in Iowa, the PC police surely could have ensured its demise in the South by continuing to remind the public of Dean's inappropriate generalization about people who sport Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. The liberal advocacy Web site MoveOn.org deserves a greater amount of backlash from its base of support for posting an advertisement equating George W. Bush to Hitler. After all, don't liberals typically express moral outrage whenever someone in the pro-life movement dares to liken abortion to the Holocaust?
If the American left is at last falling prey to its own predatory politics of PC, conservatives will find themselves in a win-win situation. PC-obsessed liberals will either weaken their own ranks by purging it of its many violators of PC conduct, or they will be forced to admit that their tactics of PC-based political warfare were a foolish idea to begin with.
(Chris Kiser's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at ckiser@cavalierdaily.com.)
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