by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: September 18, 2009   Last Updated: September 19, 2009

A lot of these terms were developed for professionals who need the information that is contained in the terms. A teacher or new doctor needs to know if a new child has "special needs". Then the teacher or doctor needs to know what the child's condition is: Downs Syndrome, Dwarfism, Amputation or what? Much information about the child's whole set of health problems is contained in those terms.

An Emergency Medical Technician responding to a call, or a search team looking for a missing person can get a wealth of essential and immediate information from the term used to describe the individual.

A lot of these terms were not made up for the vast population of uninvolved and unnecessary people who don't want to use them! But the grownups do, because it says what needs to be said about people who have disorders.

The term "political correctness" is a backlash done by those who want to remain intolerant, offensive, sexist, racist, and to not shut up about it. The term "political correctness" should be a set of guidelines to help the socially challenged keep themselves from being fired, sued, or losing business for using racial and ethnic slurs, or for insulting the disabled and handicapped. No one's going to jail, but no one's making any friends, supporters, or regular customers, either.

There is no such movement, expression, law, rule, or requirement for the average American to be "politically correct". This whole political and social backlash is very much like a bullying brat who has been told to knock it off, who just has to get in the last word, but finds out that no one was talking to him or her in the first place!

For the social adjustment: If African Americans want to be called "Black" or "African American", then do it. There is no monolithic Black, Hispanic, or Asian part of our population. People want it known who they are and where they come from.

If Mexican Americans want to be called "Latinos", then we need to do it. But someone might be Cuban or Guatemalan and not wanting to be called "Latino". Each person is proud of their culture and wants it to be known. It's been done for Irish Protestants vs Irish Catholics, Italian Americans who may come from Sicily or Venice or anywhere in between. A belligerent, selfish attitude about calling someone's ethnicity and race out in a disrespectful fashion is just annoying and rude.

The ridiculous nature of the whole argument about "political correctness" is that those who made the whole thing up are the very ones who need to clean it up. What is wrong with showing respect to the diversity within ethnic and racial groups by giving up the despicable and insulting nicknames and slurs, understanding something about other people, and using a big boy and big girl term.

Try calling a Methodist a "Protestant", or a Catholic a "Christian" and find out just how sensitive people can be.

It's the same as being given an introduction to "David". After asking what David prefers to be called, and David responds "David", then there's nothing more rude and obnoxious than to pointedly keep calling the individual "Davy". Plenty of people behave that badly every day, all day.

The mythical "political correctness" thing. What a joke on people who just do not want to show respect or manners, or who thought that the medical, law enforcement and other professional communities were talking to them when they came up with more effective descriptive terms for identifying people's medical conditions, ethnicity, race or identity for serious reasons.

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