Racism and Political Correctness

[JOHN BURCHFIELD]

Leo Nagorski is apparently tired of hearing about what he calls my "pet peeves," but that won't stop me.  (BTW, if any of you have any pet peeves of your own, join in, as long as they have some relevance to UUs and Humanism.)  On November 19, there will be the second of two "Sacred Conversations on Race" at First Church; of our group, Rich Haverlack and Audrey Masalehdan were at the last one as well as me.

My indictment of political correctness, as I see it practiced at First Unitarian Church, is two-fold.  For one thing, PC tends to dumb down social and political discourse to the junior high level; the reduction of the language to euphemisms and evasions is part of this, but the problem is larger than that.  PC is particularly troublesome at First Church and other UU contexts because we're a pretty intelligent, well-educated, and articulate bunch (if I do say so myself).

Another issue is the narrowing of the spectrum of intellectual and political discourse to a single left-liberal wavelength.  Conservative and radical-Left viewpoints are mechanically screened out.  Take racism, for example.  Discussion has been pinned to the tiresome "Unpacking the Knapsack of White Privilege" perspective.

(I still don't follow the "white privilege" meme.  It seems to be the entree for an appeal for reparations or at least affirmative action, but in my experience the actual appeal is never made.)

There are a multitude of approaches to tackling racism that don't get much exposure in the UU context.  On the left would be an appeal for Revolution, in the classic sixties form of Socialism or Black Nationalism.  On the right is the "neoconservative" approach of Daniel Moynihan, author of the notorious Moynihan Report on the Negro family.  At one point in time, he argued for "benign neglect" as the best response to the race problem.

You may well reject both these alternatives, but the fact remains that wisdom about race relations is not confined to the dogmatic "anti-racism, anti-oppression" approach that the UUs and other liberal religious movements seem to have embraced.  We're a "non-credal" faith, remember, pursuing "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning" !

Let a Hundred--or is it a Thousand?--Flowers Bloom!  (Sorry, Leo!)

John