Essay 2

Without a doubt, the political correctness the American society is promoting and the speech code in universities of this country is establishing have lost sight on the original purpose and started invading individuals’ freedom. While political correctness and the speech code have earned multiple criticisms from scholars and students, both ideals win praise from experts on the either side of the political spectrum. In Racial discourse, hate speech, and political correctness, Linda Greene argued that political correctness is what the American society currently needs and that “the foes of political correctness want to privatize the question of the liberty of the individuals to speak freely, while the historical victims of racism bear the cost of this privatization policy” (Greene 32). Over years, arguments sparked by the so-called foes of political correctness are not aimed at racism or prejudice towards all kinds of diversity, but the freedom of speech every American citizen is guaranteed. Free speech advocates strive to protect this principle our founding fathers set up, and believe if a certain topic is prohibited now, sooner or later the others will be abolished as well. It is unwise to say that victims of racism bear the consequences of privatization policy, as the majority of hate crimes are in physical forms. In fact, the root of hate crimes is not about the words a person use to attack another individual, but a person’s attitude. Hate crimes often start off as a feeling of dislike or hatred toward someone or a group of people who are different, which is why the blame of hate crimes or political incorrect speeches should be the frame of mind a person embraces. Therefore, the current political correctness system and speech codes are overrated and have started to swift its goal to invading a citizen’s privacy to prevent hate speech and actions from happening. On the other hand, the current news and court cases have reported incidents about how political correctness has reached to campuses all around the country, and at some point, the actions taken by the administrators are outrageous and too sensitive. For instance, recently “Vanderbilt University renamed its Confederate Memorial Hall dormitory to Memorial Hall because the word ‘confederate’ may make some people uncomfortable”(Paulin 16). While political correctness aims to make everyone in this nation as comfortable as possible, this case has made the public forget one of the crucial parts of the history of the United States. Especially for the South, “confederate” is very sentimental to many of the residents there because their great grandfathers might have participated in the Civil War, and the word “confederate” embraces the history many southerners still share today. Although what the confederate soldiers stood for is immoral and ruthless, today Americans look at this word with respect and treat it as part of the history and a culture the southern states have together. Hence, from looking at the case of Vanderbilt University, the sense of disappearing tolerance is easily seen surfacing in the higher education setting in America, and it is only a matter of time when every college and university adopt the same twisted philosophy.

Today, many scholars and even the public have twisted the reasons why free speech activists are being increasingly discontent with the current speech policy in society and colleges. In Racial discourse, hate speech, and political correctness, Linda Greene said, “Arguments framed in terms of political correctness become arguments against public responsibility for the transformation of institutions and the end of institutional racism” (Greene 32). The statement is untrue and clearly shows the lack of understanding of anti-political correctness movement among Americans. The point of the movement focuses on how Americans are having deficit of open-mindedness of different ideas, and have transformed the origin of the problem into lack of necessary speech control Americans have. The arguments regard political correctness and the public responsibilities for the transformation of institution in fact come hand in hand, as political correctness in the 21st century has turned campuses into a zero-tolerance environment and slowly stealing the personal liberty. While discrimination and racism still exist in this country, speech code and political correctness are being chosen to destroy the opportunities for various groups of people to recognize their prejudice side and merge into the peaceful harmony the previous generations built.

Besides racism, general harassment is one of the reasons why scholars and the general public support political correctness. In Slogans, amens, and speech code, Thomas Grey stated an intriguing viewpoint – “if you are going to prohibit harassment, you are going to regulate speech” (Grey 18). Regulating speech is a totalitarian step toward snatching away the rights each citizen is granted. Nevertheless harassment is often in a verbally form, the ground of the issue is neither the content of the speech nor the lack of regulation an institute has. In fact, regulating speech only hides the real problem which has been bothering the society for decades, and besides it is merely impossible to forbid harassment by monitoring speech because hostile feeling still exists even when words are not said. The only solution to this problem is to allow free flow of words in a discussion or any setting with a sense of respect and tolerance so that both parties can seek a common ground together, and eventually the ideal society every person dreams of will arrive.