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Clint Eastwood recently spoke to Esquire and said Donald Trump was "onto something, because secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren't called racist." It was a pretty strong statement, to say the least.
In November this year, Republican nominee Donald Trump could become the president of the United States. The man who gave Vince McMahon a slaphead at Wrestlemania, slagged off Bette Middler on Twitter for no reason at all and offered relationship advice to Robert Pattinson could very well end up sharing a CV vacancy with Abraham Lincoln.
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A few months ago, journalist Milo Yiannopoulos voiced his support for a Trump presidency hoping he would 'blow apart the political consensus [and] political correctness in particular' which, in his eyes, is 'one of the great cancers of public life.'
Are they right? Should the former Apprentice host and billionaire have every right to express whatever humdinger comes into his strategically combed head? After all, he is at the forefront of speaking for America, the land of free and the home of the brave - a country more or less founded on the Enlightenment and escaping the shackles of thought-policing. Surely he ought to be lauded for speaking his mind.
Donald Trump, arguably saying something risque. Image: Getty
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Here's where I'm at: when Donald Trump says he's against the idea of Mexican immigration 'cause only the 'rapists' and 'criminals' seem to get through, I can concede: 'Yeah, that's inflammatory. Maybe there should be some unsolicited agreement that stops this type of language ever making it into a serious constitution'. But when the University of East Anglia's student union bans people from wearing sombreros, I think 'fuck that'.
Though to be fair, whenever a student union does anything today I think 'fuck that' - but that's just me. I don't like the self-righteous white middle classes acting as patron saints for minorities who are in a perfect and rightful position to speak for themselves. Same goes for spiked journalist Tom Slater, who is actively involved in the endemic of student campus censorship. He says: "I think students, whether they're from a minority or anything else - why are we suggesting that just by accident of your birth somehow makes you more vulnerable? You should be encouraged to argue back."
It's easy to say this from a straight white male perspective. I'm very aware that someone like myself complaining about the extent to which PC culture has spread makes me sound like an arsehole. Of course white men would lament that 'PC's gone fucking mad' down the pub because it stifles a lot of the cheap humour that we're never subjected to. But it exists out of that sphere.
Students protest Marine Le Pen's appearance at Cambridge University in 2013. Credit: PA
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Milo Yiannopoulos, for instance, is openly gay, yet hates political correctness. Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, two comedians who have quit playing to college audiences because they are 'so PC', are Jewish and black respectively.
Before his death, legendary stand-up George Carlin also chimed into the creeping reactionary intolerance of younger audiences. 'Political correctness is America's newest form of intolerance', Carlin wrote in his book When Will Jesus Bring Back The Pork Chops? ... and it is especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It presents itself as fairness, yet attempts to restrict and control people's language with strict codes and rigid rules. I'm not sure that's the way to fight discrimination. I'm not sure silencing people or forcing them to alter their speech is the best method for solving problems that go much deeper than speech."
Chris Rock is one of many comedians who has criticised PC culture. Credit: Getty
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I'd agree, schooling jokes and language can have the opposite effect than is intended. Rather than successfully shutting down the exaggerations made by extremists and the far-right, it gives them a dangerous allure and credibility they don't deserve. Rather than trivialising and spamming hatred by ridiculing stereotypes, you fail to re-appropriate terms from those that want to use them as legitimately harmful. Chris Rock, for example, sustained a career on redefining the word 'nigger', as have many rappers.
A hysterical campaign of self-censorship on jokes or conversations that pertain to ethnicity or gender will be liable to encourage and uphold the very thing that is coming between successful multicultural and multiracial relationships. I think being free to discuss whatever we're feeling - whether it be 'right' or 'wrong' - is far better an approach than to live our lives in this uber-delicate fashion where everyone sticks to their own out of fear of offense.
We've got to be empirical about it - to communicate with and challenge junk prejudices rather than brush them under the carpet and pretend they don't exist.
Words by Josh Teal
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