Taraji P. Henson has an excellent feature in the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar. It’s so good, in fact, I kind of wonder why she didn’t get the cover. Katy Perry covers HB’s September issue, and I’ve got to think that Taraji is more of a “get” than Katy (no disrespect to Cupcake Boobs). The editorial is based on the 1960s model Jacqueline de Ribes and Taraji seems to be having a lot of fun with it. She’s 44 years old and she’s arrived after decades of working steadily, you know? Of course she’s having fun. You can read the HB piece here. Some highlights:
The ‘60s inspired shoot: “What stuck out for me at that time was Jackie Onassis. I watched a lot of Lucille Ball. What else … Dallas? But that is not the ’60s.”
On modeling Cookie after her late father: “He had no buffer. He spoke the truth. It’s heroic because in this society we have been trained to be politically correct. Political correctness is bullsh-t. If I ask you a question right now, the first thing that comes in your mind is the truth. But we’ve all be been trained to breathe, digest the question, and manipulate the answer. Cookie doesn’t do that.”
On her personal style: “It took me a while to get on the chic bus. I was coming from the era of Lil’ Kim and Mary J. Blige, you know, ghetto fabulous. I came from nothing, I was deprived all my life, so when you get money, you go big!”
What she’s looking for in a man: “He is funny, has personality; he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He need to be confident in who he is, confident to let me be who I am. And let me shine, you know? My life is only going to enhance his light.”
She loves Bette Davis: “I always studied Bette Davis. When I did my first film, Baby Boy, [director] John Singleton’s mother called me ‘Bette Davis Eyes.’ So I bought Bette’s entire collection. She can say so much with her eyes. It all bubbles under the surface. The best actors I’ve worked with in life said, ‘If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.'”
She keeps all of her clothes: “One day I’ll be famous enough or important enough where people will want my sh-t like Elizabeth Taylor’s.”
What she learned from Meryl Streep: “You know what taught me to calm down the sexy? The Bridges of Madison County. Meryl basically had on muumuus that had a waistline, buttoned up to her neck. She was so sexy. Sexy is leaving more to the imagination.”
I love that the two actresses that she name-checks in this piece are arguably the two greatest actresses in the history of film. And now that she says that about Bette Davis, I can totally see it. Taraji definitely works her eyes like Bette Davis.
You know what I hate though? This new movement to ban “political correctness.” That’s horses—t. Being anti-PC is like waving a flag reading “I’m comfortable in my own bigotry!”
Photos courtesy of Michael Avedon for Harper’s Bazaar.
being Anti PC is the literal Crying Baby Tears that you Can’t denigrate people based on their color/sex/sexual preferences and so on
In Spite of That My soft spot for her is massive, The fact that her style was self described Ghetto Fab Makes me even giddier
Yeah this site is against going after somebody for their sexual preferences.
When this site talks about Bradley Cooper they treat him like a Villian because they think he’s gay and in the closet.
Don’t know who does that, here, all I ever see/read is “he is/looks Unsettling” comments, THAT said He is not exactly the constituency of “people benefiting from “PC” Language being used” if anything he probably is the entire opposite of that LOL
Will no one think of poor Bradley Cooper?!?
Yes! Being PC is just being nice!
Um, no. It’s not ‘pick a team’; there’s more nuance here. Some PC is social engineering and promoting group think under the guise of being evolved. And some of it IS bigotry, though it may have begun as a means of raising awareness of attitudes and bigotry itself. So no, just b/c someone isn’t uber liberal [ie they may be liberal in social policy, but not interested in constructing all thought around the 'language' of the new PC liberal stuff-social justice, intersectionalism, blah blah blah] and yet people will imply that THIS makes said person a bigot? No. It means people don’t all disagree tha that the best way to get towards a better world is through certain pre digested concepts that have been purposefully handed to the masses as the new status quo. But said ‘masses’ think they are above the ‘masses’. LOL. PC is bs. It’s a dictionary that skirts the thought police line and it’s disturbing and requires people to police their own thoughts. On principle, that is likely to morph into something oppressive, even as it may have been intended as something to awaken people’s minds. Why does American culture promote ‘pick a team’ for every topic, btw? It’s not the dang superbowl!
Absolutely agreed.
Double the agreement.
“WAHHHHH! I can’t be a jerk to people without being called on it. WAHHHH! How will I feel superiority now?”
^^you^^
I don’t think she means it like that. PC language is essentially the creation of euphemisms, no? But just because the new term doesn’t have the connotations of the old, offensive one, doesn’t mean the uncomfortable truth it depicts has left.
PC language is useful and beneficial if it helps people to address and have open conversations about controversial issues without letting them get too offensive/emotional thanks to proper wording. But it shouldn’t be used as a way to sidestep them, and sometimes it seems like a “PC mentality” (not so much the language per se) actually works against this.
Though pc speech has an impact how people think and react this impact isn’t that bad. There might possibly eventually be certain topics when pc might eventually a tiny little bit have an unnecessarily restraining effect. Some concepts might be new and not yet entirely worked out and describing them might lead to unintended phrasings and such. Yes, but is a VERY VERY small minority of statements … <- I am really trying to phrase this carefully.
But that doesn't mean one should refuse all pc as such. Merely don't hang people nor give them a severe punishment for making a politically incorrect statement especially not if they improve.
Unfortunately pc is necessary as there are still too many racists and mysogynists and holocaust deniers and similar out there.
@ Hispania
PC language is not the creation of euphemisms as that would mean that issues were presented more positively than they are thanks to pc language. PC language doesn't gloss over things. It merely corrects imbalances in how we describe the world.
PC language tries to take unjustice and unfairness out of the language. It condemns racists mysoginist chauvinist etc. expressions. And that is what the racists mysoginists and chauvinists and likewise people don't like.
+1
-1
You could saved some space and just said, “I’m a jerk,” but we already knew that when you started your comment with “um.”
I think some people are confusing being PC with not being authentic or honest. (Which, if you’re a bigot, is probably true, but I’m not getting that feeling from her.) But the first thing that comes to your head is NOT always the truth. It’s often the result of your own or society’s or your parents’ prejudices, misinformation or incorrect assumptions, or fear or insecurity or mood. It’s sometimes my filter that teaches me to think before I speak and question the first thing that comes to my head. So, I disagree with her on that.
Yeah, I was wondering that too. There’s a difference between being a straight shooter and spewing epitaphs or insensitive stereotypes at people. I think PC has evolved suddenly to include everything under an umbrella.
That’s the first thing I thought, too, GNAT. We were even discussing it on here the other day. We all have the occasional (or even not so occasional) unworthy thought. And our first thought is our gut reaction. We all sometimes think things that are, without reflection, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, whatever. Then we reflect. Then we realise that wasn’t a cool gut reaction. Then we check ourselves and replace the wrong thought with a better one if we’ve managed to think it without actually saying it. Or we apologise and educate ourselves if we actually said it.
That’s how we LEARN. That’s how we BECOME non-racist, non-sexist, whatever.
That said, I love this woman. She’s cool. And fierce. And totally charismatic on screen.
And that said again, I do think there’s too much policing of others going on within social media. The first person we police should be ourselves.
I have come to realize that there were times where i have jumped the gun on evaluating intent, and so I think it’s crucial to sit back and not put labels on people for saying something stupid, that might not represent who they are.
Exactly.
Also, I welcome being called out on any idiocies I commit with some aggression by people I know and trust. I welcome being called out on any idiocies I commit respectfully by strangers.
And, being the thick-skinned old boot that I am, I don’t really mind if I am called out on such idiocies with a lot of aggression by strangers. But I totally get it why other people don’t appreciate this particular brand of being called out and see it as bullying.
Intent, privilege, ignorance, education – it’s all about initiating dialogue, not shutting people down. The absolute WORST outcome for dialogue is to expose a dyed-in-the-wool bigot for what they are. But aggressive policing can actually force people into corners where they become dyed-in-the-wool bigots. And that really isn’t a good thing.
I think this is a written interview. So she and her publicist have had the chance to proof-read what she said. I don’t think she should be excused for her interview.
Let’s see if she continues to give such interviews and then it might be fair to judge her.
Reminds me of an exhausting cousin of mine. She was frequently blunt and said things as soon as she thought them, which were often hurtful. Her flimsy excuse was that she was being “real”. Being honest and being rude are not the same thing. She could’ve said how she really feels in a better, perhaps diplomatic, way and avoid expressing her realness as an attack.
PC is a lot like etiquette. Both keep social encounters from getting ugly and escalating into terrible situations.
I like that.
I think you can be PC and still be kindly authentic. The PC movement is good in that is asks us to check ourselves. Not all of my thoughts and beliefs need to be articulated, and some should be. Those that can land in a way that hurts someone should be weighed carefully. But we still need to have hard, challenging conversations so that we are informed, develop empathy for others and make social and political decisions that consider the needs of the group. Not that meet the needs of everyone, but that consider.
I guess its a tool that can be used for good or bad, depending on the purpose and the person.
Good point. It shouldn’t just be stopping you from saying things you need to say, or from being yourself, just taking a harder look at your assumptions or first impressions.
I think part of the issue is that nowadays when public figures say something stupid it lives on in perpituity, essentially encouraging them to give canned, sanitized answers for everything. As Amy Schumer says, if you make one bad comment (which is human to say something stupid occasionally) you’re branded with the “problematic” label. People are so quick to condemn, and can be resistant to the idea that individuals can grow and change. And the world has changed A LOT when it comes to acceptance and political correctness (or in my terms “just don’t be an a-hole) in just the last handful of years, and some folks are still catching up. That doesn’t mean that they’re excused for being prejudiced or bigoted or even worse, for not understanding that what they’re saying is prejudiced or bigoted, but that people still have the opportunity to learn and grow.
The more she talks the less I like her. I still remember her story about cutting the line in a restaurant every time I read an interview with her.
Great actress, though.
Yes, I like her less and less with each interview she gives. That thing about being treated like a star in restaurants and such in particular. But people who work with her (both actors and crew) always very enthusiastic about her.
I hope she’s not one of those types (Madonna) who are friendly with people who can do things for them (directors, other actors, crew) and rude/dismissive to others they consider beneath them (waiters, service people, the average person on the street).
She looks amazing. I see that she’s already catching heat for the anti-pic talk.
I’m with her and I know what she means. We’ve become PC to the point of no one can say anything about anyone and it is BS. How could Don Rickles have been a comedian today?
Yeah that’s what a lot of comedians like Seinfeld have been saying lately.
Agreed. Being overly PC has made us a nation of weenies that can’t take a bit of criticism.
I don’t think Don Rickles is all that funny. He seems like a nice man, though. Also, “Take my wife, please” is an iconic phrase of Henny Youngman, but it’s not funny today, not because of PC culture, but because times have changed as has the concept of a wife in relationship to her husband, etc.
There is a difference between obvious satire / obvious comedy and serious statements / newspaper reports.
In art all is fair.
In serious statements and newspaper reports there should be some factual truth in it.
@Joy: It seems like the anti-pc-crowd fits more under the category of ‘weenies that can’t take a bit of criticism’ for the things they say.
So people like Jesse Eisenberg shouldn’t think “hmmm maybe I shouldn’t compare comic con to genocide, because that’s insensitive” they should just let it come out because that’s how they feel?
@MASHA yes, exactly. I thought his comment was funny. You didn’t: so what? That gives you & everyone who didn’t a green light to judge?
We have totally become a nation of weenies where someone can’t make an off color joke without several news organizations labeling him insensitive. Lighten the hell up, people!
“Politically correct” has turned into a right wing ad hominem attack designed to completely dismiss out of hand legitimate discourse on difficult issues because you are too lazy to think about what they are saying and come up with a more thoughtful answer.
The goal is to to divert attention away from and to silence any opposing thought about a complex issues because *obviously* the “others” (i.e., people who are perceived to not be a part of the social mainstream due to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) are just reading from the received hipster cue cards and don’t really have actual thoughts or feelings (because after all, they are not equals– who wants to think ahbout what they are actually saying?)
It is a form of bullying, and also a form of self-justification because then you can pat yourself on the back and believe yourself to be “sincere” and “genuine.”
The hilarious thing is that it was originally a phrase used with some irony and self-deprecating humor.
@ Miss Jupitero
I very much agree with you.
I recently had a similar problem on celebitchy. I was called out for being rude though I merely pointed out that unpaid internships are exploitative and unfair because they discriminate the poor. For that I was called rude. I think it was an ad hominem attack.
+1
Personally I hate the term “politically correct.” It’s usually used to sneer at language that is racist, sexist, homophobic or just vile.
Maybe I’m not understanding, but is there something wrong with sneering at language that is racist, sexist, homophobic or just vile?
I think talking about being anti PC as a Person of Color is a different context though. Like if she were to say “white people don’t have to work half as hard as I do” That’s a very un PC comment, but there would be lots of truth to that as well.
Really? More stereotypes promulgated?
Sorry, but I agree with Taraji on the political correctness! The problem is that people have bigotry and hatred and when everyone sidesteps issues and doesn’t ask the uncomfortable questions and raises issues into the cold light of day, they go underground. To places like the Nazi loving/KKK, misogynistic fraternities, and religious/xenophobic ISIS recruiters. The more people say what they think and then have to explain those thoughts and then have their ideas explained back to them with an entirely new way of seeing, we are going to travel down this walking on eggshells and stewing in our own preconconceived echo chambers. That is not good either. I am sick of the hatred in the bigotry as well, but I would rather hear it said out loud or the uncomfortable qustion being asked then to not know where someone stands on an issue. Good Times, All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, etc.,, were not always “comfortable or safe”. However, issues were addressed and people were held up to ridicule when they deserved it. We as a nation need that back.
Those shows would never make it on TV today and that’s a shame.
The reason that they aren’t on today is because people insist we are in a post racial, post gender era, etc., not necessarily because the language is being shut down. This was at a time period following the civil rights era, the women’s rights movement, while the country was at an unprecedented social liberal period, questioning authority and the status quo. Since that time, we have been on a conservative bent, even with the democrats in office. I don’t think it’s PC that broke the machine. It’s the prevailing narrative that all of the ills have been cured, no need to look at that anymore.
“Good Times, All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, etc.,, were not always “comfortable or safe”. However, issues were addressed and people were held up to ridicule when they deserved it. ”
I loved those shows when I was growing up! What I liked best though is that nobody was let off easy, nothing was simply dismissed. Phrases like “politically correct” shut everything down. We should be doing the opposite.
Silly as it may sound, All in the Family was my earliest exposure to a lot of current issues and the people who were facing them. We need more of this and fewer super heroes in my opinion.
Not to worry, dear. Go on many local news sites and read the comments under articles. It’s right there out in the open and has not gone underground, I can assure you. There is blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, actually running the entire gamut of hatefulness toward certain groups of people. And this is in major metropolitan areas.
@eurogirl170. You are 100% correct on that. I have always said that xenophobia is not going away, not now or ever, but also, not going away as well, love and respect for you fellow man. I love political incorrectness but what I don’t like is when people attacking people because you are angry with what is going on. This why I don’t like Donald Trump. Anyway, I think at some point you have to take the goof from the bad. And I think also we need TV shows that express people’s anger with political incorrectness, so my future generations can understand what is going on and make constructive dialogue.
Many people were laughing with Archie Bunker, not at him. I don’t see how that furthered the conversation. And people “said out loud” for centuries that whites were superior to blacks, men were superior to women, a woman’s place was in the home – what good did that do? We still had the KKK, we had Nazis, it was the woman’s fault if she was raped. It wasn’t until people started challenging language that belittles and stereotypes that much changed. The hope is that people will see that is no longer acceptable to call people derogatory names and will eventually question why and gain some understanding. Or not. In the meantime, people don’t have to be called names they find demeaning. I agree that it can get extreme and ridiculous. I read yesterday that people over 55 (I’m 59) preferred the term “old” to “senior, elderly or older” because blah blah blah, and nobody knocked on my door and asked me which I preferred, and who cares, anyway? But I just don’t understand what would be good about going back to a time when people called each other bigoted names.
+100,000,000
But I do think that Norman Lear’s shows did do a lot to further awareness of issues in middle America. For a lot of people these were very, very new thoughts.
I am not talking about calling anyone names. I believe that names; racial and sexual slurs have power. I don’t think that is good. What I do think is that when we don’t hold a mirror up and deal with uncomfortable issues, that is when people are most apt to resort to name calling. It’s like when you ask someone why they think the way they do on an issue and the only thing they can come up with is “just because”. That is not an answer or a response. I want information and I think that the lines of communication need to be kept open. People’s feet need to be held to the fire. Like in South Carolina for example. People had been making cultural excuses for keeping the Confederate Flag flying over the statehouse. However, when people had to come to grips with the fact that a historically black church had opened their doors to a white boy and allowed him to share their prayer space for three hours and then he murdered those same Samaritans in cold blood; one of whom was both a minister and a member or the legislature, there was no room in the darkness to make excuses for what that boy did. Spin about the culture of the south didn’t cut it anymore and even those who had made excuses in the past knew that their views held no weight anymore. I want a mirror held up. I want actions to have consequences. What I don’t want is for people to stop talking to one another.
I see what you mean, eurogirl70. And it’s an excellent point.
Exactly. We still have the same issues but because of PC police we can’t even discuss them in the open anymore. We just sit each each in our own corner.
And it is usually more forgivable for people of color to make a non- PC mistake. If you are white , then you get literally hunted down, with no compassion whatsoever.
Would you trade the less privileged status, overall in favor of using non-PC wording? I’m not getting this, what is it you would like to say about black people that you can’t?
@kiddo, there is absolutely nothing I can discuss about people of other races. I can only speak well or nothing, no criticism is allowed . Every white person is expected to feel guilty for racial issues of the past and for this reason be more tolerant of people of other races than they would be of people of their own race. I don’t feel this way, I treat everyone the same. I don’t feel guilty , period, because neither I nor any of my ancestors participated in any kind of racial discrimination.
@ EN
White people of today are not guilty because of the racial issues of the past (as long as they don’t commit any racist deeds today). You are only guilty of those things you commit and tolerate in your life time. You don’t inherit your ancestors guilt. You might inherit their debts but not their guilt. And speaking of debts that is what white people inherited from the racist past. The racism helped exploit non-whites for the benefit of whites. All whites profited from the cheap cotton farmed by black slave labour or did your ancestors not wear cotton clothes? All whites profited from cheap black labour during segregation as it made a lot of products seriously cheap. It is true that the racism which non-whites suffered from needs to be compensated for. The racism caused poverty and lack of education and lack of health over generations and other things. There is a lot that needs to be compensated for.
Speaking generally I wish that all children had the same realistic shot at a good future in education and health.
“And it is usually more forgivable for people of color to make a non- PC mistake. If you are white , then you get literally hunted down, with no compassion whatsoever.”
That’s not about being political correct, that is about white privilege.
@thick, you are doing it, even though you are saying I shouldn’t feel guilty. What white privilege, how did I profit from it? I grew up poor, I starved in my college years, I didn’t profit in any way. I grew up much more poor than most of the American blacks, yet you say I benefited from being white, how? I had all kinds of ancestors, including slaves but none who owned slaves and my family didn’t get any kind of inheritance. Yes, white people were slaves too.
This is exactly what I was talking about – this concept of white privilege, that whites are guilty of it just for being whites. This is so unfair, making people feel guilty for something they could not control.
@EN if you think that white privilege has anything to do with guilt, you really don’t know what white privilege is. Like you I grew up poor and that has not always been easy, but I still notice my white privilege almost every day. It’s when I enter a store and am able to stand for a long time in an aisle without someone hovering over me (unlike the black boy that came in a couple of minutes later), it’s when I forgot my buscard but the driver allows me in anyway (unlike the Moroccan woman on an earlier ride), it’s when people aren’t immediately suspicious, hostile, rude or judgemental towards me. It’s the experiment with the car thief (over here in The Netherlands we did this with bicycles): the white car thief being believed and helped when he said he lost his keys, the black car thief couldn’t even get near enough to the car before the police stopped him (do a google search). It’s my black student getting suspended for something while my white student had to write an essay as a punishment (and my principal getting really angry when I pointed this out, true story). White privilege isn’t something to feel guilty about, but it is something that we need to expand to everyone. The way we are automatically treated because we are white, is the way everyone should be treated.
@ eurogirl 70
I like your ideas though they are entirely wrong. Some people just can’t be “cured” by reasoning and discussions. And if these uncurable people are given media space and nobody can forbid them their rants then others do follow.
It is basically the concept of many of Fox’ tv shows.
Racists and similar people aren’t reasonable nor rationalist nor empirical(-ist). They are despicable.
ITA with this. Well said. People don’t change their views when they feel attacked. They just go underground and mix with other people who might have equally vile beliefs. I’m definitely more a fan of MORE expression of opinion. Even vile, disgusting opinions. Get it out there so we can deal with it openly.
And I feel like ALOT of people who get called out for being racist or sexist or homophobic for their language choice CAN be reasoned with. It isn’t one extreme or another. Alot of people are hopeless but not everyone.
I think kids are being taught to be too PC, and social media is scaring everyone from making jokes and saying anything that hasn’t been pre-approved as nice.
Social media has changed everything. We spend hours every day crafting our own PR. Yet anonymous comment sections reveal our worst thoughts. I think Taraj has a point. It’s refreshing to have a character that says what she thinks, no filter.
@ Sammy
So racists and mysogynists and chauvinists and religious fundamentalists are “refreshing” when they deliver their rants?
@ Talie
Nothing wrong with making jokes of whatever kind when you are not in the office. Just two things:
1. always mark your jokes as jokes.
2. no politically incorrect jokes at work.
It shouldn’t be pc that is taught but the reasoning behind pc. It is not okay to depict women as less capable or less intelligent than men because they are not. And why that is so needs to be taught. Same for all those other kinds of discrimination prevented by pc.
The Bridges of Madison County, excellent film and one of Meryl Streeps best. Had my 23 year old daughter watch it recently and at first she was all “so she gets in a car with a stranger to show him some bridges?” but stayed with it and loved it. And she was as I had told her she would be, reaching for the Kleenex. The scene with Meryl in the pickup with her husband as Richard is in his, directly in front of them at the traffic light waiting after it changes for her to join him. Her hand on her door handle coming so close to doing it, and then realizing she can’t and trying to conceal her emotional breakdown in front of her confused husband is just………
Cry every time I watch it.
I never saw that movie.
People who mock political correctness are some of the first to yell “racism” and “bigotry” when non-PC words and stereotypes are aimed at them. Sorry Taraji, saying PC is bullsh-t sounds hypocritical: insensitive comments directed at others are all fine and dandy UNTIL YOU are on the receiving end.
Good point !
There’s a lot to be said for politeness and restraint. Of course I wouldn’t know about either of those things
haha
Ugh, she had me at Bette Davis. I forgot everything else she said
I can’t stand this women!!
The success of Donal Trump actually is an answer to PC in my opinion
I watched a documentary about Charlie Hebdo recently and an American comic guy said the newspaper was racist,bigot,misogynist…according to the U.S. Politically Correct because you can’t make fun about the religion or the minorities in USA .In fact you only can make fun of the straight white guys .
Donald Trump is the result of subliminal messaging and propaganda that existed in the party for years. He just comes right out and plays the strong chords instead of relying on the whistling in the background. He also tapped into the sense of futility in voting for either party, who toe a line for their own benefit and reelection, instead of doing anything meaningful for the constituency. He uses the same downward punching scapegoat path initiated by Reagan.
@ Don’t kill me I’m French
There is a difference between a serious statement and a satirical statement.
Charlie Hebdo is a satirical magazine. And they make fun about anybody. Nobody is safe. Magazines like Charlie Hebdo don’t have to abide to political correctness because they are more art than news. Newspapers have to abide to political correctness but that magazine is strictly legally speaking no newspaper.
And no, political correctness doesn’t forbid you to poke fun at religions or minorities. You can write as many satires about them as you like as long as you mark them as satire. But it does forbid you to spread wrong information as facts about religions or minorities.
However there seem to be certain audiences who don’t get the difference between a news report / serious statement on the one hand and satire on the other hand.
@Thick Of It you’re sounding a bit preachy now. We get it: you’re all for being PC all the time, cause “feelings.”
Being gay is now become a closet issue for a lot of straight people. They just bottle up their real feeling and just shut up about it to avoid the backlash with all the PC agenda out there. I bet a lot of celebrities don’t support gay or transgender people but just do in publics thnks to all the social media who will eat them up alive !
That’s undoubtedly true for many people. But if you’re afraid people can no longer speak their minds, fear not. You have apparently not met my relatives, who are constantly, loudly whining that the world is falling apart because the everything is so PC and nobody reads the Bible anymore, and it’s no fair that people say they hate gays just because they think homosexuality is a sin, and they are being muffled, and their free speech is being trampled on because they can’t tackle a woman outside of an abortion clinic and tell her what a murderer she is, and how everybody cares about Cecil the Lion but not unborn babies, and how nobody but them pays taxes and why can’t we say Christmas instead of holiday and it’s horrible that little children are not allowed to pray in schools and that’s what’s wrong with America. They actually consider themselves the “silent majority.” If only.
Oh, the reserves of patience you must have to put up with all of that.
Why haven’t we met, GNAT? We have some of the same relatives.
Her eyebrows bother me.
“Political correctness is bullsh-t. If I ask you a question right now, the first thing that comes in your mind is the truth. But we’ve all be been trained to breathe, digest the question, and manipulate the answer.”
Political correctness is rejected mostly by those who want to keep going with their primitve racist discriminating mysoginist chauvinist xenophobic academically-plain-wrong abusive religiously-fundamentalist hate speech rants.
“The truth” can and should be put into educated non-racist non-discriminating non-mysoginist non-chauvinist non-xenophobic academically-largely-correct non-abusive non-fundamentalist non-hate-speech statements.
Taraji definitely has a point about political correctness. It’s totally out of control in this country. The Atlantic’s (a relatively liberal to moderate magazine) cover story discusses how political correctness is ruining education and has created a generation of coddled individuals -not a good thing.
I saw the author of the article – Jonathan Haidt – in an interview this week. He’s a very smart guy (not a conservative freak), but probably rather liberal. He is a social psychologist and a professor at NYU. Haidt said that the majority of college professors in this country lean to the left and that even they believe this hyper political correctness is hurting the country.
In the interview with Haidt, it was also discussed, among the members of the panel, that on one hand millennials are so concerned about being PC, but on the other hand, they are a generation that uses social media to bash and bully one another (and celebrities) with abandon. (Of course, not all millennials do this, and of course, people of all ages use the internet to spew hate.) It just doesn’t make sense.
What Taraji said in her interview is totally true: “If I ask you a question right now, the first thing that comes in your mind is the truth. But we’ve all be been trained to breathe, digest the question, and manipulate the answer. Cookie doesn’t do that.” I don’t believe most people’s hearts are that good, but they jump on the bandwagon about virtually EVERY LITTLE THING, so they look like they’re doing the right thing, but the majority of people aren’t being honest.
There’s another article in The Atlantic that talks about stand-up comedians and what’s expected of them from the average college student when they perform on campuses throughout the country. It’s very interesting and pretty crazy how PC their acts have to be.
Speaking of comedians, I thought it was nuts when the replacement for Jon Stewart – Trevor Noah – was getting a bunch of crap a couple months ago because the PC police decided that some of his material was offensive – racist, sexist, anti-Semitic. First of all, his stuff was slightly off-color, but nothing major. And second of all, this guy is from South Africa, where he and his family experienced tremendous hardships because his mom is white and his dad is back. When he was growing up, his mother couldn’t even hold his hand in public for fear that she could get arrested (and she was arrested several times). I imagine Trevor Noah knows way more than the average politically correct American about the horrors of racism and hate.
And no I’m not a Fox News watcher, a Republican, or a member of the NRA. I’m 40 years old, a life-long liberal, who thinks Bernie Sanders should be president.
We need to get a grip in this country. I don’t truly see that we as a nation are that much kinder to one another than we were before the PC movement. Things are better and people are more sensitive, that’s true, but the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and the results are damaging in some very fundamental ways.
If anyone is interested here’s the links to the articles I mentioned.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/thats-not-funny/399335/
Thank you for your post, as well as for the links to the Atlantic articles – all of which I found a refreshing bit of critical analysis in this discussion.
I’m so often distressed in conversations about ‘PC or not to PC’ by how far the labels take people away from the words themselves. The words people actually use. The split second someone begins paying more attention to the meta-text issue of whether or not something is PC can be the split second you start relegating the actual meaning & intent of the words said or written to secondary or tertiary status.
It can so easily become an argument or judgement about the perceived category of what was said vs. an open and ongoing discussion about the content and effect of what was said.
After my experience at the university the film ‘PCU’ was based upon, I feel familiar with this subject as a cause – and can certainly report that there are inflexible, tyrannical, censoring, entitled, mocking and disrespectful zealots on both extreme sides of the PC spectrum.
The thing that always, ALWAYS suffers: communication based upon freely expressed ideas – and the room to allow for freely expressed reactions. Learning and education and exchange and shifts in behavior and thought take an even further backseat when open debate is shut down before it has a chance to breathe and begin.
It is simplistic in the extreme to blithely aver that anyone who objects to ‘PC speech’ is doing so merely because they must land on one prejudiced side or another prejudice-free side of the political, racial, social or sexual spectrum. I object to the self-appointed PC police primarily because I do not grant them the moral or lexiconical authority to define the C in “Correct” when it comes to my ideas and my speech and my intent.
Amy, I 100% agree with your comment! Thank you for speaking to another side of this debate so articulately. I’m a bit dismayed by the shortsightedness of all the comments stating as fact that anyone who doesn’t like some aspects of the PC culture must feel that way because they want to be free to be bigoted. Nothing could be further from the truth for me. I, like you, am a lifelong liberal and consider myself to even be on the ultra-liberal side of the spectrum. Like you, I am in my 40s and support Bernie Sanders. I have no desire to say or think anything bigoted. Yet, I feel uncomfortable with the way things have evolved in recent years to outright prohibit saying anything that might remotely offend someone. Stifling thought, speech, and debate (whether officially or just through social pressure) is not good. We don’t want people to refrain from being openly racist just because of pressure, but because they understand what’s wrong with it. We should deal with the actual issues and not just speech. PC language, as I understand it, means altering one’s language simply to be non-offensive. It does nothing to address the reasons why a person might be prone to saying something offensive in the first place. We need open dialogue, not repressed speech.
Caveat: OF COURSE anyone who uses “I’m anti-PC” as an excuse to be a bigoted a**hole is wrong. (See: Donald Trump) I’m not denying those people exist, and that they’re wrong and awful. But just because they’re idiots, it doesn’t mean anyone who dislikes the PC movement is in the same category as them.
That was interesting Amy, and something that I guess I was completely oblivious to, not having been in school for a while and not knowing anyone beyond the past 5 years who graduated from college. Millennials are such a large group, in age range, that I think it’s almost bizarre that they are lumped together.
The triggering and the committees. oy vey.
The committees seem to be eliminating comedians who actually got great laughs and feedback, so it’s not that they weren’t funny. *I had a different opinion on this subject when hearing Seinfeld’s joke, used as an example of too much PC, which I thought sucked, not that it was largely offensive, just lazy and unfunny. I can’t comprehend this at all, since it seems that the target audience enjoyed it, regardless of off-colorness or edge. It read as rather kindergarten-like, in determining taste for others. As did the ‘trigger’ warnings, to a larger extent.
It will make me rethink some of the complaints about word or thought policing, at least in terms of higher education, where my experience there was not curated to such a limited view of comedy or every day life experience.
I haven’t let it all soak in, but my gut feeling is that some of this is not warriors to control all speech, as much as the result of helicopter parenting reaching way beyond grade school, and infiltrating their offspring’s mind to carry the torch of over-protection into adulthood. The parents pay an excessive amount to fund the continuing education and have hijacked adulthood along with the direction of studies. College is such a questionable investment these days with the enormous costs and lack of opportunity upon graduation, especially for someone who doesn’t take study in a specific field. If it can’t provide critical thinking skills, nor guarantee employment, then maybe its usefulness should be called into question. It sounds as though, for those who can afford it, or are willing to be indebted by it, it is just another level of delaying adulthood and the real world.
That said, as iggy mentioned above, I don’t think advocating for free speech gives a pass to intentionally spreading hatred or promoting falsehoods regarding any one group.
Everyone should be more sensitive to intent of words rather than the words themselves. This is a lesson I’m beginning to take to heart myself.
I certainly wouldn’t want the result to be the pendulum swinging back, in rebellion, to a time when people were viciously verbally assaulted with epitaphs (and harmful intent).
“You know what I hate though? This new movement to ban “political correctness.” That’s horses—t. Being anti-PC is like waving a flag reading “I’m comfortable in my own bigotry!”
Exactly. It’s like a lot of people either can’t see or don’t care about the connection between abuse, excuses made for abuse, and discrimination that specific groups of people face… and the things that are said about those groups of people. People think that in a ‘free’ ‘constitutional’ American society, they are entitled to still have everyone’s support or endorsement no matter what they say about others, and if they don’t get that, their ‘rights’ are being violated. Then there’s the mentality of “my right to feel comfortable saying whatever I want about whoever I want Trumps (ha!) other people’s right to not be treated as lesser because of race, gender, ethnicity, appearance, or sexuality.”
All that aside though, I like the way she’s styled here.
I absolutely agree with her 1 billion %!! Being the new PC “everybody’s things I judge in private, but out loud will totally commend” is bull****. That being said, I guarantee you, more than 1/2 the ppl commenting on this site don’t espouse their enlightened views in their private lives.
How many times on here has someone called out a celeb’s look as being cheap or hookerish & somebody else will pull the “slut shame” card on them? It’s getting completely outta hand when ppl can’t even have fun judging tacky celebs without somebody screaming at them about how unfemenist of them to have said that.
I’m a woman, & I’m in my mid to late 30s…I could give a rat’s ass about being PC either here, or in my private life. And no, I’m not gonna jump on the In Vogue PC Bus either, I’ll say it like I see it & take my chances thank you very much 🙂
People all over the world have been punished with prison time, beatings, and even murder for harmless things they’ve said. And yet here you are whining because you feel oh-so-oppressed by the fact that if you say something actually harmful on a PUBLIC forum, people criticize you for it? Talk about entitled American wimpiness.
“How many times on here has someone called out a celeb’s look as being cheap or hookerish & somebody else will pull the “slut shame” card on them? It’s getting completely outta hand when ppl can’t even have fun judging tacky celebs without somebody screaming at them about how unfemenist of them to have said that.”
That’s how free speech works. You totally have the right to say what you like on a public forum, but other people who hear your message also have the right to call you out on your internalized misogyny (or whatever else you’re defending), talk about how what you said causes problems for people, and point out that what you’ve said IS anti-feminist. I’m pretty sure you’re old enough and smart enough now to realize that things like victim-blaming, discrimination, sexual harassment, and violence against women- all possible results of slut-shaming-are just a TEENSY bit more important than your imaginary right to not have your ‘fun’ of denigrating ‘unchaste’ women (and, by extension, all women) in public spaces interrupted.
I don’t know if you’re as anti-pc as you claim to be though. Imagine if we were talking about a male celebrity on here with an unattractive outfit, and one commenter started making homophobic comments and throwing around the terms gay and ‘f**got’ to judge, insult, and make fun of him. Would have a problem with or think it was over the top for other commenters to criticize that bigot and call out what they said as antifeminist and homophobic?
In my book PC stands for Polite Consideration.
I don’t particularly want to offend anyone when I speak- because nobody will listen to my point, just the horrible words I use. I was really tempted to make a horrible, racist reply to what Taraji said, but that’d debase me more than it would hurt her. If I want to feel impeccable and correct- not easy to feel that way once I’ve wallowed in shit.
Who wants enemies? I know I don’t. I’d rather make friends, I really would. “Make friends with them until they beg you for mercy”
I used to really like TJ but I’m about ready to jump off her fan train. The more she talks, comparing herself to other other actors (Liz Taylor? dream on) and complains that she hasn’t been adequately recognized for her talent compared to white actors sounds like sour grapes. Accusations of racism don’t help her cause. Be amazing & most folks will notice.
Take a page from Meryl’s movie wardrobe & don’t go bare front, showing off the saggy girls. Best way to get Bette Davis eyes is to drink a lot of bourbon. My grandfather was her agent & her contracts required glasses of bourbon to be hidden on sets behind every possible object – like the portraits on the mantle, vases on pianos,flasks under pillows, etc. Bette gave amazing stares when she was well over the current B.A. limit.
“Best way to get Bette Davis eyes is to drink a lot of bourbon. My grandfather was her agent & her contracts required glasses of bourbon to be hidden on sets behind every possible object – like the portraits on the mantle, vases on pianos,flasks under pillows, etc. Bette gave amazing stares when she was well over the current B.A. limit.”
I checked in for something else, then found this remembrance. It made my entire evening. Please send a thanks to your grandfather for me.