|
A " Sensitive" Issue I've been writing about political correctness and its effects on public expression for 20 years or more. Which is to say, I was doing battle with PC cops and militiapeople before "PC" was commonly known as such. In an early stab, for example, I wrote a paper as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota in either 1978 or '79 in which I criticized those who had verbally beaten up Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the New York Democrat, for the pathbreaking report he had written, as a member of Lyndon Johnson's administration in 1965, on the breakdown of black families. A staffer for Moynihan subsequently read the paper, liked it, and kindly passed it on to the great sociologist Nathan Glazer of Harvard, who had been Moynihan's most frequent and important collaborator. On hearing this news, my heart and spirit leapt the IDS in a single bound, as I was finishing my doctorate at the time and was deep (make that drowning) in an excruciating job search. Professor Glazer himself had a copy of my paper. "My career is made," I exclaimed, to no one and everyone in particular. Well, I'm still waiting for Nate to get in touch, though PC debates carry on, with a recent and major manifestation in Minnesota associated with another vowel-less combination of letters: KQRS. In the mother of all caveats, I acknowledge here that I have never (on purpose, anyway) listened to KQRS. One of the joys of middle age is that I don't feel the least bit obliged to know what's going on (or is it "going down"?) with popular music. It likewise goes without saying that I don't think I've ever listened to Tom Barnard or anyone else on the "KQRS Morning Show." And I certainly had no idea before I saw the numbers in the Star Tribune that the program dominated local ratings so overwhelmingly; that it attracts more grown-ups under the age of 50 during an average weekday morning than its three closest rivals combined. Yet having conceded all this, I have no hesitation in saying that Barnard and company barreled well over the line when they said what they said about the Hmong community back in June. Sure I would be in a better position to hold forth if I had a direct feel for the context and tone of their bit that morning. But all I really need to know, I dare say, is what I've read in the papers, as witness this excerpt from a very good analysis by Noel Holston of the Star Tribune: "Barnard read a newspaper report about a 13-year-old Hmong girl from Eau Claire, Wis., charged with suffocating new new-born son. He and his supporting cast interjected commentary and asides -- everything from expressions of disgust at descriptions of the bloody crime scene to pidgin-English imitations of Asian speech. Cast members taunted each other with the epithet 'torn vagina' after Barnard read about the injury the girl suffered delivering an 8-pound baby." The point to be made here is that it's not contradictory at all to oppose, say, collegiate speech codes and other types of p.c. intimidation while simultaneously condemning such grotesque rudeness. Just because the word "insensitivity" has been devalued because of profligate overuse does not mean that no speech or act can ever be labeled as far-too offensive. Nor does it mean that actively opposing such behavior -- for example, by calling on advertisers to boycott an offending radio station -- is always indistinguishable from unacceptable acts of censorship. For illustration, let me raise two, roughly parallel situations. Remember the uproar in 1990 when it was learned that the work of two artists, Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, had been underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts? Mapplethorpe's contribution included what was described as "homeoerotic" photographs, and Serrano had found it aesthetically meaningful to plunk a crucifix into a jar of urine. Unsurprisingly, more than a few members of Congress, and much of the country, determined that public subsidies for such stuff was nuts, and they demanded that the NEA change its ways. Again unsurprisingly, critics of the critics responded by charging censorship. But this new wave of critics were wrong, of course, as nowhere is it convincingly written that the federal government is obliged to fund photos and sculptures that are avant-garde to the cusp of pornography. Quite similarly, it's not called censorship, but perfectly appropriate "editing," if the magazine you're now reading chooses not to run dirty pictures. Or drawing on another analogy, despite unreasonably restrictive decisions by the Supreme Court from time to time, the Constitution still allows for an expansive range of religious speech in public squares. But while it would be perfectly legal to say various things outside of church and hearth, it would be world-class rude and wrong to repeat them in certain public settings. For instance, ecumenical prayers at community gatherings are more than fine with me; all-out proseltyzing in the name of a specific faith is not. The basic point here being that expression which might be OK legally is not necessarily immune from rightful, even righteous criticism. In cases like these, including the one involving KQRS, the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech correctly prevails in an absolute sense. But this nation simply wouldn't work if considerations of civility -- of manners and respect -- were downplayed to the point of dismissal. Arguing this, I assure you, in no way implies endorsement of much of the tyrannical nonsense of the "multicultural" and "celebrate our diversity" crowd, as I would like to think the distinction is reasonably clear between the dictates of political correctness those of a decent democracy. Mitchell B. Pearlstein is president of Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. |