In order to move away from centuries of bigotry and oppression in our nation , there has been a recent increase in the effort to avoid speech that may marginalize a socially disadvantaged group of people. This idea of moving past discrimination is how the era of “political correctness” began. Today, we have seen the repercussions of this era in all parts of our society. Comedians feel the backlash of telling a joke that may have crossed the line; politicians must chose their words with care so they do not come off as an advocate of bigotry. There is no doubt that at times, this idea of political correctness has overstepped its bounds, targeting people for simple slips of speech rather than genuine bigotry.

This has been the case on college campuses whose students commonly attack many Presidents and headmasters because they do not seem to be quite as “accepting” as their students. At times, the anger towards a school’s President has been more than warranted. Last November, University of Missouri’s President, Tim Wolfe, was strictly criticized for his handling of racism on campus. Wolfe resigned after the football team promised to strike, the students protested, and faculty threatened to walk out because “the administrators had done too little to combat racism on campus.” In this case, the political correctness era helped turn the tides on racism, and hopefully will allow the university, as well as many others throughout the country, turn a new page of social acceptance and progress that makes racism a thing of the past.

However, college campuses are infamous for taking this political correctness too far. Many comedians have stopped performing at these campuses in protest of this overreaction. Chris Rock labeled the self-proclaimed progressive colleges as too conservative “Not in their political views— not like they’re voting Republican— but in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody” (www.salon.com).

There is no doubt that colleges and pop culture have, at times, overreacted and had an negative effect on the effort towards social justice. Today, the movement that seems to have more momentum is the backlash to this political correctness. This backlash is perhaps the reason that Donald Trump has done so well in the polls. In the past, political correctness has suppressed the voices of bigotry. Trump has spoken using a sensor, not to filter out hate or unpopular speech, but to ensure such speech has a place in his campaign. The anti-political correct movement has been a strong supporter of Trump and his bold tactic has been rewarded in the polls.

People have been quick to criticize political correctness, often with good reason. However, we forget that, although flawed, the movement has honest and honorable intentions. We have been quick to judge people for overreacting during this time of political correctness, but if anything merits an overreaction, it’s the culture of inequality and discrimination that runs deep in today’s American society. The civil rights movement happened at a relatively recent time in our nation’s history and it has not been long since our government finally took action to avoid discrimination in the workplace (1964 to be exact). After this legislation, it took decades for it to have any real effect on impeding discrimination; the same discrimination the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was trying to prevent still lives strong in America today.

These politically correct activists are only trying, once and for all, to smother the discrimination that has existed in our nation since its birth. The discrimination was blatantly ignored at the moment of our country’s creation when Thomas Jefferson blindly proclaimed that “all men are created equal,” yet neglected to do anything about it. Inequality is not just part of the United States; inequality is the United States. It may take waves of people overreacting to end the discrimination that lives in the roots of our nation. Like any movement, there are extremes; but we can’t let that take away from the sincerity of the movement at its base. “PC culture” has received a lot of backlash for a variety of reasons. Many of these are warranted and many are not. In all honesty, this backlash can more easily be traced back to America’s fear of change than anything else. Even though we, as a nation, would like to say we strive for social justice, the backlash has proved that we might not be ready for it.