Sticks and Stones

I'm one of those guys who believes, on the whole, political correctness, a term coined sometime in the 80s, has been pretty good. Almost as fast as it became a phrase people used, it was derided. Indeed, it's become pretty PC to say you're not PC. Indeed, how many people claim they are proud to be politically correct.

Not many.

Most, in fact, claim to be politically incorrect, even as they might benefit from political correctness. Why do people say they're not politically correct?

The answer is that PC, as admirable as the idea may be, seeks to handcuff people (metaphorically), and people don't like to be handcuffed. The place most likely to be PC are universities. PC is pretty simple. You don't discriminate based on groups, whether it be race, gender, or sexual orientation. The university is meant to create an inclusive environment, and having speech or actions that demean or stereotype traditionally discriminated groups and creates discord, and thus, universities are against it.

PC is, of course, anti free-speech, but people seem to say that's OK. Free speech is an abstract concept that claims words do not hurt, and can be fought with other words. And yet, as this Don Imus flap has shown, political correctness is very much alive. You could, say, get Mike Wilbon to say "I ain't PC!", but in his railing against Imus, who he says is full of hateful speech, he is being completely PC. PC is pretty much about not saying the wrong things.

Indeed, when Tim Hardaway said he disliked gays (a lot), Mike Wilbon wrote a column saying Hardaway's attitudes were wrong, and even cited moderately conservative Charles Barkley to back him up. Wilbon wasn't exactly saying that Hardaway couldn't say what he said, but he did point it out as ignorant.

Unlike universities, real life can't enforce political correctness. The only way it gets handled is through lots of public discourse. Thus, Imus being discussed on sports shows ad nauseum.0th a

Now, this brouhaha has been "big news", yet, it really hasn't. I read reddit regularly, and the Imus comments have not even made it anywhere. To be fair, the reddit audience is pretty specific. It's geeky. It's left-leaning. It doesn't care about Imus or sports. They'd rather upmod an article about the abuses of Alberto Gonzalez and Paul Wolfowitz then care about Don Imus and his comments on the Rutgers women's team.

I've been blogging about this the past few days, and if you're completely bored, it may be because I ramble at length. But it may also be because you don't care, and yet, this discussion on sports radio has been huge, much more so than the Tim Hardaway comments which idiots like Dan Patrick, who probably somewhat agree with Hardaway, dismiss by comparing him to Jackie Robinson (whose 50th anniversary of being in the MLB, by the way, is this weekend, April 15th).

The Imus scandal occurred at the same time that the charges to the Duke lacrosse players were dropped, and while sports commentators were quick to criticize Mike Nifong, the district attorney for splashing this issue all over the papers with no real evidence.

Indeed, I'd say the Imus issue had far more play than the charges being dropped against the three lacrosse players.

Let's step back and compare the two, because the two shouldn't even be in the same breath. On the one hand, Imus calls the Rutgers women basketball players "nappy haired hos", a term considered racist, and yet, everyone has copied it over and over, and so it can't be so horrific. On the other hand, a woman accuses three Duke lacrosse players of rape.

The Rutgers women, at worst, are mildly peeved, but at best, they're getting plenty of support from people who didn't even know they existed.

The Duke guys? This has to be the worst year for these three players, even as they felt they were found innocent of the charges, and worse, these accusations were discussed and reported nationally for weeks on end. People were already to declare the Duke lacrosse players guilty, without any more information. They have some luck that their parents are rich and can afford million dollar lawyers.

These accusations can be devastating. I am currently listening to This American Life. Do you know Ray Buckley? He was trying to run for chair of the Democratic party in New Hampshire, or some such? He had been in politics all his life, thrilled when the Democrats took over Congress, and wanted to be chair where he could continue to help Democrats.

But a bomb dropped. Steve Vallaincourt, who hates Buckley, accuses him of having kiddie porn, realizing that no politician, especially a governor who is supposed to be tough on such issues, could ignore. Now, there's some history. The two are gay. The two used to be roommates. It's been argued that Vallaincourt is jealous of Buckley's success, but Vallaincourt, if he is, is very clever and strenuously denies it, saying he's doing this because he has no choice, that people need to know, though he lacks any evidence.

This accusation takes a life of its own, and Buckley has to fight these accusations as investigations go on. Buckley is devasted, his life upturned, even as he claims innocence. After the investigation, which takes weeks, he is eventually found innocent. Now apparently, Buckley was a bit vulgar and when he was young, he would act silly in front of friends, and this was taped, and Vallaincourt had this video put on YouTube, and then told someone who wanted Buckley to step down for this chair position. You have to feel this is the spat of a lifetime, with Vallaincourt professing all sorts of innocence, but where you feel he is deeply jealous and is doing everything he can to sling mud on Buckley. It's too weird to believe.

Much like the Duke players, Buckley comes out OK. His supporters do vote him as chair, and yet, he's guarded and is afraid to say anything.

Think about it. Imus is being cruficied, well, partly for a body of work, for spewing out hate, and realize he's merely being accused of racism, which is pretty serious, but recall Imus also lashes out against pretty much everyone. Being a equal opportunity hater is, as is pointed out on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", is what Imus does. In many ways, his comment is just the straw that broke the camel's back.

But his comments are nowhere near the kinds of accusations that were made on the lacrosse players, than indiscriminate accusations hurt far more.

In a story from Australia, Patrick Waring, 15, was accused of rape, and was recently acquitted of charges. Australian prisons don't seem much better than American ones, so his experience in jail was awful. Of course, you hear the flip side of the stories all the time. In India or Pakistan, some girl who is raped gets stoned, accused of instigating the matter, and the men, unable to control their primal urges are somehow blameless. Such atrocities are horrific, but the flip side is awful. And all of this makes what Imus says sadly insignificant.

Now, to be fair, what he said and what this gives license people to do are different things. This is the slippery slope idea. If you say it's OK to say racist things, then you will say it, make fun of people, and possibly worse. Prevent them from having jobs, make people think that the individual can have his or her merits judged on racial or cultural stereotypes, and so forth. The effect, while far less overt, is more insidious because it affects many people. Thus, it's more like a cancer than a broken leg.

But I suspect the reason Imus got more airplay is that rape accusations are so far away from the norm that people don't even think about how that would be like, how horrendous the accusations are, and just treat this as some sort of crazy frat boy thing gone wrong, or some crazy stripper trying to get money or something. Most people, on the other hand, have had to think, overtly or otherwise, about comments related to race or gender, and decide certain comments shouldn't be said, and they have far more opinions on matters of race and PC than on accusing people of alleged crimes in the national public.