Justice versus injustice

In the 50's when I was in high school we referred to Koreans as "Slopes". I didn't know at the time but that epithet referred to the fact that the backs of many Koreans' heads were flat as a board. Many years later when stationed in Korea, I learned why they had such a strange feature. Up until recently Koreans, like most Asians, slept on thick quilts laid on wooden floors. To heat their homes they burned coal cylinders inserted into large clay pipes under the floor. (I once woke up with a start in a Korean home when my foot got off the quilt and was burned on the wood floor). The reason many Koreans had (and some still have) flat heads is because as babies they slept on their backs on heated floors which slowly flattened their developing skulls.

During the 50's we also called African Americans negroes or the "N" word; it was very common and we didn't think much about it. We also had a lot of Mexicans which we referred to as Spics. Niggers, Spics, Slopes, Chinks, Wops, if you weren't a WASP you had an ugly epithet attached to your name ... Harold the Chink ... Bobby the Kike, etc. It was the way it was.

One of the best things to happen in the decades since was the gradual enlightenment away from such slurs and insults. Unless you've been living in a cave for the past 50 years, you see people much differently now than we did then. We now define people more by their character and actions than their looks or where they came from or their religion. The purpose of all of this is to demonstrate that there is a positive role for Political Correctness. Who among us would like to go back to using the harmful cruel slurs of yesteryear? PC has a place and a valuable role to play when used to correct injustice. However ... we have gone too far.

At the core of PC is respect. However, when a group of people disrespect you with their attitudes, their religion, and their 16th century laws there is no place for PC. Probably the most insidious form of PC is the weird fear of profiling. I mean, who thought up this absolutely bizarre notion? Of course I can answer that, as can you if you think about it. Blacks, sadly, have been profiled by the police for years. Because of this pitiful action on the part of some cops it has morphed into some sort of inviolable moral code. "Blacks are profiled unfairly, therefore all profiling is bad." This absolutely idiotic notion has led to nursing babies being wanded at airports by TSA along with grandmas and many of the rest of us.

Other than Timothy McVey and a couple of other wackos, all terrorist acts against the USA in the past 20 years have been carried out by Muslim men aged 16 to 30 from the Middle East or Africa. What's so difficult to understand about this? Passing through the Denver airport recently the person who checked my boarding pass at security screening was a Somali Muslim woman!!! How do I know this... she was wearing a f**king hijab ... that's how. Since then, several Somali men have been arrested on terrorism charges in the USA. Look I'm no security expert but I've read enough mystery novels to know that if I wanted to blow up a plane and my girlfriend or sister or wife is in charge of checking boarding passes at a major airport, I'd find a way to exploit that connection. When I grumbled about this blatant nonsense to one of the screeners I was threatened with arrest!!!

PC to combat injustice is one thing ... PC to protect a population of people who will not stand up against the militants within their own religion who are out to destroy us is naive, stupid, and dangerous.