kw: book reviews, nonfiction, commentary
When I was in my teens and early twenties, Polish jokes were popular. This was when Ghoulardi spent half his show on WJW-TV in Cleveland (then on KFWB in Los Angelesjust after I moved there) joking about white socks and "Polacks". Early on, I had a Russian girlfriend, who had Russian and Polish relatives living near Cleveland, and they were proud of being Polacks, and had better jokes than anything you'd hear on the air. Later, a minister I knew, whenever someone told a Polack joke, would say, "You know, I'm Polish." By 1970, you couldn't get away with nearly any kind of ethnic joke. Someone would cast blame.
One story—sometimes presented as a joke—that I read several times in the 1980s concerns an older fellow who holds a door for a woman. She stops and angrily states, "You don't have to hold the door for me just because I am a lady." The man replies, "I'm not holding it because you're a lady, but because I am a gentleman."
Just a couple years ago, an enterprising student at Harvard began a dorm room cleaning service. He wanted to call it DorMaid. The administration refused to allow him to bring it on campus, and eventually threatened expulsion, unless he changed the name to remove the word "Maid". Somehow, he got them to accept DormAid. Turns out, that was good, because it opened up opportunities to offer plenty of services beyond room cleaning. But it's silly of the campus admin, don't you think?
So does Michael Smerconish. He has collected the details of the DorMaid/DormAid story and more than 25 others, to illustrate how "political correctness", or PC, is shredding American culture, and actually threatening our safety. The book is MUZZLED: From T-Ball to Terrorism—True Stories that Should be Fiction, and Chapter 27, "Still Flying Blind", shows how the continued failure of the FAA and NTSB to allow airline security personnel to make intelligent decisions simply hastens the next airline terrorist incident.
What do you call a taxi driver who sees his brother beating up a cop, jumps out of his taxi, and kills the policeman? If you called him Mumia Abu-Jamal, you are right. Currently, he has more press and celebrity support than our President and all his political opponents in the 2004 election. This is more than just political correctness; this is an insanity that infects the press and the celebrities who primarily are produced by a fawning press out of whole cloth.
And what do you call an 18th-Century merchant who briefly had a business interest in a ship that the British occasionally used to import slaves, who led the effort to abolish slavery in the Northeast prior to the American revolution (which he helped finance, and for which he smuggled materials), whose signature appears on three of the founding documents of the United States (the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution)? If you called him Robert Morris, you've uncovered the "slave connection" that was used to force Wachovia Bank to "apoligize" for its early connection with the slave trade...a connection that was tenuous at best.
This reminds me; on occasion I've run into a "kill Whitey" sort of black dude, who begins to rail on me about being a slaver. When I get the chance, I explain that on one side of my family I am descended from Quakers who operated safe houses along the Underground Railway in North Carolina; and that on the other side I am descended from Methodists who purchased slaves in Missouri and took them North or Northeast to freedom. I say, "Don't blame every white man for your problems. Without my family, you wouldn't have been born free. You take responsibility for your own life, like I have taken for mine."
I have a different word for PC: Institutionalized Irresponsibility. All these jerks out there blame everyone else for everything, but never take responsibility for their own actions; indeed they change laws and codes to make their own chosen lifestyles easier at the expense of others'. Jesus said about people like this, "And they bind burdens, heavy and hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger" (Matt. 23:4). If you haven't done so in a while (or ever) read the first seven verses of Matt. 23; we have more Pharisees among us than ever!
The one thing I wish Mr. Smerconish had included is a chapter with ideas to push back on today's Pharisees. You can't give them a witty rejoinder, for they have no sense of humor. In another book (I'll be reporting on it before long) I did read half a suggestion: Judge Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore wanted a 2-ton monument to the Decalogue bad enough to risk jail over it. The result of a court case was that it now sits in a closet. A more appropriate place for Roy's Rock would be his front yard. A case like this, where the Pharisee takes action rather than preventing others' action, offers a bit more room for rebuttal!
In our own lives, what to do? It takes forethought: speak out. Gather your own stories, and talk about them, speak in public if you're able. Write about them: Letters to Editors. When someone blames, hit right back. If someone objects to a How Many Does it Take or a Blonde joke, I (a bald man) say, "Oh, and when was the last time you told a Bald joke, or laughed at one?"
Keep your travel plans flexible: when you get on an airplane or train, look at every passenger; if someone gives you the creeps, get right back off and demand that "they go or I go!" Freedom requires the committed action of many citizens. Historically, a few percent is enough. Boycott the products of public figures who do and say stupid things...they only care about their pocketbook, so hit 'em there. And in that line, investigate very carefully every "charity" that you're inclined to support. If they promote PC causes, turn them down. Further in that line, buy Michael's book! Use its examples to shed light where it is desperately needed.
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