A shocking accusation was recently shoved down my throat – I was branded a racist. Since this is news to me, I had to examine the reasoning behind such a statement.
One attack came about because of a joke I made about the Arroyo Chico bike path and then, just to add to the horror, I may have mentioned one of my ongoing beliefs of how nice it would be if Americans were required to speak English.
To top off my alleged bigotry fest two weeks later, I then posted a photograph of two New York City tourists and pointed out a menacing man in the background. Since the menacing man happened to be black, I was again branded as an Archie-Bunker-wanna-be. Edith, get me a beer.
Since it didn’t even occur to me that pointing out a menacing figure in a photograph, regardless of the menacing person’s ethnicity, could be construed as racism, we have to wonder why some folks came to that conclusion.
Perhaps they are suffering from their own racist beliefs. Or they could be so hell-bent on finding discrimination at every turn that they will create things that are not there.
Using this type of illogical thinking, we can find other instances of prejudice that we never knew existed.
I must be anti-Catholic because I haven’t been to church in about four years. I must be anti-white people because, alas, I always opt for wheat bread, sometimes with nuts.
I’m surely anti-Polish as the only words I know in my ancestors’ native language translate to “butt,” “poop,” and “pee pee.”
I drive an American car, which can only mean I am anti-Japanese.
I must be anti-cat because I own two dogs, anti-mouse because I own two rats and anti-life since I am learning to shoot a gun.
I undoubtedly hate trees because I still use paper, hate the Earth because I drink from plastic water bottles and hate wildlife because I have screens on my windows to keep out bugs.
Give me a break.
Politically correct tip-toeing has gone too far when we have to fear everything we do will be construed as bigotry, hatred or some type of anti-everything crusade.
As the attack proved, if some people are looking for something hard enough, they are going to find it. And some people do look that hard for someone or something to hate.
It also proved that sometimes those who cry the loudest for tolerance are themselves the most intolerant of other points of view. There’s a word that sums it up nicely: hypocrite.
One more lesson gleaned from the rabid attack is that some people really need to lighten up.
No wonder folks are frequently dropping dead from stress – if they become so wound up over something as innocuous as an Arroyo Chico bike path sign, we can only imagine what happens when real problems arise.
They may simply run for the hills – provided they could find the hills with those narrow blinders on.
What do you think?
Have you run into such situations?
Has political correctness gone haywire?
