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Letters to the Editor
PC response
In response to the column
written by Jennifer Flanagan on
Thursday, October 24, 1991,
"White Male Shutout At Stake",
have a few comments and
corrections to add.
Political Correctness, like
diversity courses and affirmative
action, have one element in
common: they are worthwhile
goals but they do not result in
congruent results. On face value,
each of these goals is important
and is targeted to solve problems
such as racism, sexism and
abusive stereotyping. These goals
I agree with.
P.C. aims at increasing
sensitivity towards minority
groups; yet, whitebashing,
malebashing and censorship are
tolerated in the process. John
Stuart Mill argued that
censorship is one of the greatest
evils to a democratic system.
Only through clash can we find
the truth.
I find it almost ironic that
Gates is being criticized for
"massaging" facts in his reports
to coincide with the
Administration's viewpoints
when he only "wrote what they
wanted to hear." Advocates of
political correctness are guilty of
the same effect. To censor oneself
to only saying what is
"Politically Correct" is to
commit a fraud more terrible than
the making of a statement.
In the open forum on racism,
I commented that many people
are afraid to seek clarification on
a controversial P.C. issue or ask
pertinent questions because they
were afraid of being labeled a
racist. My comments proved to
he either misunderstood or
ignored. The end result was a
degeneration to a monocular
viewpoint because any and all
people (I believe five in total)
who had the nerve to make
statements were landbasted and
ridiculed.
People should have a right to
disagree with affirmative action,
or the mandates for diversity
courses, and if you state that
nobody prohibits them from
doing so, look back at your
article and see who you grouped
with whom to prove your "white
maleness" theory. It is a sad
commentary when people are
taken out of context by the
"press" and then labeled
(stereotyped) as a result of
voicing an unpopular opinion.
For the record Ms. Flanagan, I
was in favor of integrating black
history into mainstream history
courses so as to decrease the
amount of student opposition.
Black historical figures are just
important as white, Hispanic or
other historical figures and I
believe they should not be
separated and result in the
undermining of the goals of the
diversity courses themselves.
As for my opinions on
affirmative action, you can ask
me separately for 400 words arc
the maximum allowed for letters
10 the editor. I advise you to not
forget your liberal art education
in pursuit of advancing your
political agenda. Mill had a ring
of "truth" to him (no pun
intended) that should not he
ignored.
Terri N. Mack
Eighth semester
Political Science
Racism legal
Upon reading Jen Flanagan's
article "White male shutout at
stake," I recognized several
incorrect and sexist thoughts.
Jen would have us believe that
white males have it so easy and
that every one of us, along with
some females that we trick into
following us, conspire to keep
minorities and women from
power. She even goes so far as to
say, "stereotypically speaking,
American white males hate
everybody." (I thought we
realized stereotyping was bad.)
Here Jen blatantly shows her
sexist and anti-male ideology.
She and others label those that
have a different ideology than
themselves, such as I, sexist or
racist, or in her words, "guilty of
the crime of white maleness."
Those that support PC do not
want to hear intelligent refutation
of their beliefs, so in defense they
label those that try to refute them
as sexist or racist. By doing this
they become sexist themselves.
Jen goes on, in her infinite
wisdom, to claim that PC is. not
so big and that the idea of the
thought police lurking around
every corner is a misconception.
She disproves her own statements
by saying, "it is a crime to have
patriarchal, supremacist
attitudes."
In the hopes of educating all
such misconceived people, it is
not a crime to have patriarchal,
supremacist attitudes. People like
Jen want you to think that it is.
First Amendment freedoms are
not their concern. No longer can
we think freely, but rather we
must think correctly. Professors
will no longer educate they will
indoctrinate. Rather than teach
they will propagandize for their
own ends.
This is what I oppose. I am
not against women and
minorities. 1 am against
controlled thought. Just as white
supremacists had to tolerate Dr.
King and Malcolm X in the
sixties, women and minorities
have to tolerate David Duke
today. Racism and sexism are not
illegal attitudes. They are illegal
only when they prohibit the legal
rights of others.
There are several things in
Jen's column that I like. First is
her observation that Behrend is a
conservative campus. Two
thoughts derive from that; let's
thank God and let's work to keep
it that way. I also like her
statement "The people who
complain the most are the very
people who need this kind of
education." Well Jen stop
complaining and get the
opinion
education you need; one with
more dead white males.
Tom Strunk
third semester
History
"Oz" debate
Thursday's debate on the
subject of political correctness
should have been billed as scenes
from a parody of The Wizard of
Oz, starring Scarecrow D'Souza
and Tin Man Fish.
D'Souza has elevated the
strawman to an art form, and
sometimes Fish throws lighter
fluid on the straw for him and
strikes a match instead of
dumping cold water.
Fish also seems weirdly
anxious that we understand he's
not a nice man. Fish: I have no
heart, and I don't want one, and
you can't make me. (Frankly, my
dear, I don't give a damn.)
The fact that we had a white
male on the side of "PC" politics
and education, and a minority
male representing the
conservative side, was only the
beginning of the reversals of
expectation. (That part shouldn't
properly count as irony anyway,
because most people who come
to America from repressive or
more hierarchical countries
identify themselves as political
conservatives in the American
system, and for understandable
reasons.)
That became incidental to
larger ironies that pervaded the
evening: the stereotype of
"politically correct" folks is of
sweetly mush-headed, love-em-to
death liberals (000 h, I said a dirty
word) run amok, whereas the
more conservative traditionalists
are assumed to be suits wiih
steel-poled standards where their
bleeding hearts ought to be.
It's important that all of us
have our preconceptions about
the other guy blasted away like
this. On my side of the fence, for
instance, I tire of the assumption
that those of us who'd be
perceived as pro-PC have no
grounding in intellectual history,
and wouldn't know "great works
of literature" if they introduced
themselves in the elevator. Fish
certainly should have taken care
of the notion, since he's been a
17th century and Milton scholar
for years.
Fish needs a coach. He didn't
say a lot of what he might have,
and to much of what people
found merely abstract or
confusing. I agreed with every
single thing he said and I liked
how he said it, but I don't think
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Thursday, October 31, 1991
he'll do the cause of PC any
good, and probably some
considerable harm. I regret that
because many students associate
political correctness with things
it's not really very much about.
D'Souza won the debate, the
evening, and the hearts and minds
of the audience, fair and square.
He even came across as being for
revision of the canon, so he gets
an extra sympathy vote, as well
as the doublespeak award of the
year.
Dr. Diana Hume George
Professor of English and
women's studies
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Dr. Mica Simmons
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