For Minorities In The Law, What Does 'Political Correctness' Mean?

When will we all begin to view the fight for equality and diversity as something other than a zero-sum game?

“Wonder how they would feel if our lives got criss-crossed / What if you lost your homie and you felt like Kriss Kross? / Double cross, I swear that Christians don’t even get this cross.” — Big Sean

This week, I attended a presentation where the speaker implied Obama was a communist. After he was criticized for some of his remarks, he warned the audience, “political correctness is as pernicious as McCarthyism.”

In Jonathan Chait’s New York Magazine article “Not a Very P.C. Thing To Say – How the Language Police are Perverting Liberalism,” he compares political correctness to Marxism. Chait tells his readers:

I am white and male, a fact that is certainly worth bearing in mind…. If you consider this background and demographic information the very essence of my point of view, then there’s not much point in reading any further…. The internet has shrunk the distance between p.c. culture and mainstream liberal politics, and the two are now hopelessly entangled…. The p.c. style of politics has one serious, possibly fatal drawback: It is exhausting. Claims of victimhood that are useful within the left-wing subculture may alienate much of America….

That the new political correctness has bludgeoned even many of its own supporters into despondent silence is a triumph, but one of limited use. Politics in a democracy is still based on getting people to agree with you, not making them afraid to disagree. The historical record of political movements that sought to expand freedom for the oppressed by eliminating it for their enemies is dismal. The historical record of American liberalism, which has extended social freedoms to blacks, Jews, gays, and women, is glorious. And that glory rests in its confidence in the ultimate power of reason, not coercion, to triumph.

No one should be reduced to their readily identifiable identities. But unlike Chait’s column, people don’t get to ask other people to stop reading them once their background and demographic information are discovered. Some people don’t get to discount other people’s concerns based on a convenient label such as “p.c. culture.” Regardless, Chait’s column is spot-on when it states that p.c. culture and politics are hopelessly entangled. He is absolutely correct when he writes that political correctness is exhausting. He is more right than he knows, when he states that “claims of victimhood may alienate much of America.” Because the truth is, what Chait and others conveniently call “political culture” is a minority’s complex need and search for respect.

In her article “The Truth about ‘Political Correctness’ is That It Doesn’t Actually Exist,” former human rights lawyer Amanda Taub writes, political correctness is “a sort of catch-all term we apply to people who ask for more sensitivity to a particular cause than we’re willing to give — a way to dismiss issues as frivolous in order to justify ignoring them.” Taub notes, “Worse, the charge of ‘political correctness’ is often used by those in a position of privilege to silence debates raised by marginalized people — to say that their concerns don’t deserve to be voiced, much less addressed.”

As minorities, we are all too familiar with microaggressions — “everyday, brief exchanges that expose the prejudices at play around us.” Last year, Columbia psychology professor Derald Sue told USA Today, “It (is not) the overt racists, the white supremacists, the Klan, the skinheads. They are less likely to affect the standard of my living than individuals who are well-intentioned — educators, employers, health care providers — who are unaware of their biases.”

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In her article “What Exactly is Microagression?,” Jenée Desmond-Harris writes, “Research has shown that microaggressions, although they’re seemingly small and sometimes innocent offenses, can take a real psychological toll on the mental health of their recipients. This toll can lead to anger and depression and can even lower work productivity and problem-solving abilities.” Desmond-Harris notes:

In some camps, there’s intense hostility to the idea that an ‘innocent’ remark would ever be labeled problematic… This criticism seems to fit into a larger conversation about multiculturalism and ‘political correctness’ in which opposition often includes an underlying disbelief in the seriousness of the claims of marginalized people or a sense that it is too much trouble or impractical to cease the behaviors that they say cause them harm.

Nowadays, some people enjoy comparing political correctness to McCarthyism and Marxism. When the speaker was criticized for his remarks regarding Communism at the presentation I attended, he warned the audience that “political correctness is as pernicious as McCarthyism.” In other words, one can imply Obama is a Communist and then conveniently equate any criticism of his rationale to a form of McCarthyism.

Meanwhile, New York Magazine columnist Jonathan Chait and others like to compare acts of free speech with Marxism. As Observer’s highlights, “Chait wrongly confuses speech that opposes speech with the suppression of speech… You would think he’d have more to back it up than a handful of on-campus excesses and jeers from the social media peanut gallery.”

It is quite ironic that those who are perplexed by others’ criticisms, seek to marginalize or diminish them by labeling these instances of freedom of speech as politically oppressive systems. In other words, when one type of person is offended by freedom of speech, they are being sensitive. But when another type of person becomes offended by freedom of speech, it is because it is an attack on his civil liberties.

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The First Amendment protects our freedom of speech. It gives us the right to openly communicate our opinions and ideas. In our great country, people can say whatever they want, but this doesn’t mean they won’t be judged for it. Nowadays, some people make statements that offend others, then complain when others exercise their own free speech. When these people are confronted for making an offensive comment, they accuse our “p.c. culture” of being an affront to their civil liberties.

According to Chait, our “p.c. culture” aims to make people afraid to disagree, eliminates other people’s freedom, is unreasonable, and is coercive. People who have been marginalized based on their race, religion, gender, and socioeconomic status could describe our mainstream culture much in the same way, but for far more compelling reasons.

Are some people overly sensitive? Completely. Do some people use the “p.c. culture” as a sword instead of a shield? Absolutely. But we must realize that the exercise of one’s freedom of speech is quite different than McCarthyism or Marxism, even when their particular exercise of free speech does not favor you. Chait and company equate the call-out culture to what they have labeled the p.c. culture. Worse yet, they have categorized minorities’ complex need and search for respect under this neatly organized cultural label. In this manner, they view the marginalized as being combative and readily recall anecdotal evidence to support this narrative.

As a professor told me this week, “we must be careful to not confuse theories, philosophies, and ‘isms’ with implementation of those ideas and the practitioners who implement them.” For minorities in the law, our need for respect is often conveniently labeled as a “hunt for political correctness.” Some people believe our search for equality necessarily threatens and deprives them of their civil liberties. When will we all begin to view the fight for equality and diversity as something other than a zero-sum game?


Renwei Chung is a 2L at Southern Methodist University School of Law. He has an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Golden Rule: How Income Inequality Will Ruin America (affiliate link). He has been randomly blogging about anything and everything at Live Your Truth since 2008. He was born in California, raised in Michigan, and lives in Texas. He has a yellow lab named Izza and enjoys old-school hip hop, the NBA and stand up paddleboarding (SUP). He is really interested in startups, entrepreneurship, and innovative technologies. You can contact Renwei by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn.