One major element of political correctness has been the use or avoidance of certain labels for groups of people. But what are the best labels to use, and what considerations go into deciding? Mexican, Hispanic, or Latino? Negro, colored, black, or African-American? Liberal or progressive? Gay or homosexual? Hebrew, Jewish, or Jew? Oriental, Asian, or country-specific like Korean or Japanese? And those are just racial labels. What about other categories where the labels are used? Illegal immigrant or illegal alien. Working mother (non-working mother?), full-time mother (part-time mother), and stay-at-home mom. Pro-life, pro-choice, pro-abortion, pro-death, and anti-abortion. Gay or homosexual? I’m obviously not counting as legitimate truly offensive labels and derogatory terms, but for some people just using various of these words would be considered offensive. So how should we decide which ones to use?
Post-show thoughts: The Golden Rule is the best place to start here. Just as you should call people by the name they prefer, you should use the label people prefer...generally speaking. However, some names are chosen for political or philosophical reasons that you feel you can't embrace. African-American and Progressive are such terms for me. So I will continue to use Black and Liberal when I write or do my show. However, if I'm in a private conversation and someone (a black person or a liberal, not some third party) challenges me on it (by saying they don't like that label), I'll change for the time being because at that moment that person becomes more important to me than the accuracy of language in general. If I need to say Progressive in order to make headway in talking with someone who is Progressive, then so be it. But I don't want to perpetuate that label on the air because I would feel I am participating in the reframing of a political dialogue in a way that I do not accept. It's not as though Conservatives are "regressive," after all, unless you mean in the very narrow chronological sense with regards to certain social mores. Aside from derogatory terms, call people by the name they prefer if at all possible. I have no issue with using the term Gay because I'd far rather have impact with people who are pro-gay or gay themselves, and if it takes using that term rather than Homosexual, so be it. Give me 5 years or so, and I may well be using Progressive, if it catches on the way Gay has. There's no advantage to being a language stickler when it costs you influence points AND it violates the Golden Rule default setting. Now stop calling me Andy the Fundamentalist, please.
Links:
Racial labels by Bartleby.com
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