To PC or not to PC?

The abbreviation PC stands for politically correct. As time goes on, however, and we get ten new phrases a year per minority group, PC begins to stand for problematic and confusing.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for being politically correct. In fact, I'm usually the annoying one going around correcting everyone who calls everyone who looks moderately Asian 'Chinese.' I think that not speaking politically correctly makes one sound uneducated and closed-minded. What do we do, though, when the terms continuously change? It can be difficult to keep up. I honestly have no idea what the PC term for people under a certain height is, or what the correct terms for people with physical or mental disabilities are. As was pointed out in class today, there are preferences for terms among individuals within the groups. There is no clear-cut way to know which terms to use.

The main argument behind creating new terms for minority groups is that the old terms hold negative connotations because they were used in a derogatory manner. In response to this, new terms are created. And guess what happens to that new term--it is used negatively and gains the same negative connotation that the old term had. So we create a new term. And then the same thing happens to that term, so we have to create a new term. It's like dirtying napkins and then getting a new pile, and then another pile, and then another pile. Your hands will always be dirty no matter how many napkins you use, just as people in society will always be prejudiced no matter how many terms are used. The problem is not the term, it's the attitudes toward the people the term is used to describe.

We need to start changing our attitudes, not our terms. The fact of the matter is, there are always going to be people prejudiced against those with mental disabilities, regardless of what they're called. There are always going to be people who hate African-Americans, whether they call them Blacks, colored people, or something worse. Awareness does not come through more complicated terminology, it comes from movements and spreading truth. In my opinion, our best bet it to use race or ability or any other minority trait as a descriptor as little as possible. Most of the time, we don't need to use those kinds of descriptors anyway. But if you do have to, my advice is to just do your best with the term that seems best or to be the most current. Don't make assumptions (assuming an Asian person is from China, for example, or assuming that an Indian person practices Hinduism), and, obviously, don't use a term that is blatantly derogatory. Hopefully, we can at least avoid some awkward situations by following guidelines such as these.