America's Quagmire: To Be Politically Correct or Not
Like the beautiful blonde who shows up to a party and suddenly realizes that she forgot to put on her makeup, the violent racial clashes at the recent Donald Trump rallies show more than ever America's blemishes and imperfections. Furthermore, they reveal inner anxieties and dysfunction that if not at least given the proper amount of superficial attention and respect will lead to more of the ugly physical savagery that we saw on the streets of Chicago the other day.
Many people with good sense understandably abhor political correctness and blame it for the decline of American meritocracy. "Political correctness has become a straight jacket," says musician Gary Odman. Actor Hal Holbrook says, "it causes us to lie silently instead of saying what we think." Both reflect a certain frustration from within artistic and academic circles for where they see Western civilization going. But another type of 'straight jacket' is affecting the one demographic group that is most responsive to the overtures of Trump's message.
A recent New York Times article accurately points out that most of Trump's support is coming from middle aged white males who have have seen their industrial jobs be exported to places like China and India. At the same time this demographic group is aptly unprepared for the new types of jobs present in the age of globalization and information. Donald Trump has hit a hot button by tapping into this anxiety. What he has done, disingenuously and inaccurately, is to connect their plight to the issue of poor immigrants coming across through Mexico. The notion that uneducated and sometimes illiterate workers from Honduras are threatening their livelihood is patently false. This disconnect is not so important as is the fact that this group of Americans now has an easy scapegoat to point towards. To them the solution really is "the wall."
Perhaps more evident is the way that Trump has tapped into the underlying black-white racial tensions that still persist in America today. Recently in South Carolina in response to black protestors holding up signs for the "Black Lives Matter" movement Trump said, “...there’s no such thing as racism anymore. We’ve had a black president so it’s not a question anymore. Are they saying black lives should matter more than white lives or Asian lives? If black lives matter, then go back to Africa? We’ll see how much they matter there.” Such comments are obviously and patently not politically correct. But, while these kinds of assertions might be a badge of honor for Trumpies, they do great harm to the political balancing act that has kept America mostly at peace since the Civil Right Era of the 50's and 60's.
In the end, we may be damned in embracing political correctness. However, we may be even more damned if we don't.