Political Correctness: :: essays research papers fc

The University of S turn outhern California The Teddy Bear MassacreLike so many an opposite(prenominal) other traditions, the intense of the bruin was put on the chopping block recently. The ample running University of Southern California spirit activity consisted of throwing a vainglorious stuffed bear in a bon fire the night before the footb every game against their rival, the University of California at Los Angeles. The Black Student Union and other student organizations recently questi wizd the event. Their concern was that the event too closely resembled sometime(prenominal) lynching of African Americans in the American south.This raises the question of whether it is appropriate to criminalize ideas that are not created to offend certain groups. Political correctness, the underlying ideal, is the " special set of attitudes about the world that its proponents maintain should be actively promoted." Clark 369 Proponents of governmental correctness, or PC, had good i ntentions in devising the idea, but it has serious flaws. Although governmental correctness was founded with good intent, it does more harm than good.The most noticeable object lesson of harm is how PC proponents try to please everyone at the same time. The fire of the bruin was just one of many activities held during the week before the huge UCLA game. The idea being that everyone could find something that they could identify with and rally around their school. If the burning was intentionally created to represent or oppress the offended students, the event would come been banned long ago. However, as Matt Hutaff stated in his editorial in the Daily Trojan"Its about school pride. Its love for the things that brought the university to where it is today. It is traditions that condition a school its student body and its heritage. Strip the school of its traditions and all you have is a school that isnt worth rallying behind." 5In appeasing one group, it seems the univer sity neglected another group. It seems that the lesson that one cannot please everyone all the time steady needs to be learned.Another lesson that needs to be learned is to meet wretched language head on instead of hiding from it. This cannot happen, however, if the college is sheltering us from it. It is the indebtedness of the university to teach us how to live in the real world. How are they going to protect us from what we do not want to hear out there? The answer is they cannot, and the sheltered individuals are left unprepared to lay out real world situations that will offend them.