Political Correctness
I walk a fine line on this topic. On one hand, I believe that we have all taken this to ridiculous extremes and I think people need to let things go sometimes... not everything is meant to hurt. On the other hand, I think some people lack common sense and say really thoughtless crap.
I get really angry when people pull out the racism card. Not because I believe that it doesn`t exist, but because it DOES exist. And when people throw the word `racism`around when it`s not needed, I find it really, really offensive because there are people that suffer because of racism every day and to apply the term to something so ridiculous seems to make the actual definition of racism, and the use of the word, lose its sting. Plus, I hate it when people refuse to let little things just slide sometimes. Take a chill pill.
We had an interesting conversation in my History class about misusing words. Like Genocide. My teacher said it was wrong to call what happened to the Native Americans genocide. This one chick got super mad and started ranting that to say that what had happened to the Native Americans wasn't bad was ridiculous. My prof cut her off and said that he`d never said that - he`d never said it wasn't horrible. He'd just said it wasn't genocide. Rawanda is genocide. There is a difference. What happened to Aboriginal people was horrible, but to call it genocide is misusing the word. The term 'genocide' has a definition, of which the situation in Rawanda fits while the Native American situation does not. The girl could not see his point and continued to rant about how residential schools were horrible and to say they weren't was awful. He, again, stated that, yes, residential schools were awful... horrible... should not have happened. But they were not genocide. They do not fit the definition.
I sort of feel the same about the term racism. I understand that this is not a perfect parrallel. But, racism is such a serious label and I feel that we should not just apply it at will. It cheapens the word.
So, because Neil Gaiman made a stupid comment about the graveyards in the US, should we call him a racist? Or is that cheapening the word? Does the application of 'racist' to Neil Gaiman take away from all those people who actually, seriously, experience racism? Is it misuse?
I'll let you google if you have no clue what I'm talking about and form your own opinion.