Recently several commentators have complained that concern over political correctness has either one limited their first amendment rights or two somehow limited the public debate in a way that handicaps us as a society. Both contentions are wrong. The reality is that the First Amendment has never been a shield against criticism of ideas by people who oppose your point of view. The idea that private parties should not be able to criticize what you say or think because it would somehow violate your free speech rights is a total perversion of the idea of freedom. As for the latter contention, most of the time things that are politically incorrect are really simply incorrect, dismissing them does not hurt he public discourse.
Your First Amendment rights protect you from one thing and one thing only. The government cannot punish you for your expressing your views on particular topics. When a commentator says something that offends a broad cross section of other citizens you are immune from them throwing you in jail not from them criticizing you and trying to limit your ability to broadcast your views. When a group of citizens say that they will boycott your sponsors based on what you said they are simply exercising their First Amendment rights in the same way that you have exercised them. If it turns out that the organization that argues that your views are so offensive that they should no longer be broadcast is more powerful than the people that think your views should be heard, you are silenced. But you are silenced by private action, not the government.
When what you says offends a large group of Americans they are free to lobby your employer to fire you. On the other hand when what you say offends the majority of Americans they are not able to use the coercive force of the government to fine, imprison, or silence you. The latter is prevented by the First Amendment. The former is a category of speech that is and should be protected by the First Amendment. Be wary of those who say something and then hide behind the First Amendment when others criticize it. If their view or comments are defensible they should be defended on their merits not on whether they are protected. On the other hand, if you get hauled off to jail for expressing even the most offensive of views call the ACLU they will help defend your First Amendment rights.
Moving on to the contention that things that are politically incorrect need to be said because they are an important part of the debate, all I wish to say is that for the most part the emphasis should be on incorrect. Time after time someone has suffered a political backlash for saying something that never should have been said and then spent a few days doing the rounds on news shows bemoaning the loss of their free speech rights and how political correctness is polluting the public discourse.
The recent example of the n-word is telling. The person speaking seems to believe that the context of her comment were benign and that while maybe she should not have used the word, what she was saying (Dr. Laura if you don't know) was somehow a valuable point of view. She basically said that there should not be a melanin content test to determine whether it was appropriate to use the n-word. Fundamentally what she wants to do is ignore the fact when a racial epithet is used, the race of the speaker is a tremendously important part of the context. The fact that Eminem, a rapper widely known for trying to avoid controversy, is sensitive to how his use of the n-word would be perceived should indicate how controversial whites using the n-word usually is. In addition, this comment is simply not true. In the movie Boyz in the Hood one of the most memorable early scenes in the movie was a black police officer using the n-word with as much maliciousness as the word can be used with.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger further compounded her disgrace with what she said later in the phone call. Basically she said that if someone was going to marry outside their race they needed to have a sense of humor about racist comments and not be hypersensitive. The only proper advice here was to encourage the caller to talk to her husband about the issue and provide her with advice or resources about how to educate the people she thought were being insensitive. Our society has not come far enough in race relations to pretend that racial prejudice is simply a joke. In fact, a good indicator that we live in a society where justice instead of prejudice reigns will be when people no longer think making such jokes is acceptable and the jokes are no longer funny.
Even the point Dr. Laura was trying to make is tragically misguided. The use of the n-word by black comics as well as any comedy routine that relies on caricatures of common racial stereotypes by members of that race are not uncontroversial. Many people of all races find such routines to be offensive. One of the more disturbing facts about that genre of comedy is that there are still serious questions of black face and minstrelsy when those comics are performing for a white audience (not just the ones watching at homes, but the ones producing and choosing which comics will be given a national stage). Since some white commentators are now asking why they can't call people the n-word or use the n-word the critics of those comedy specials are perhaps being proven right.
As for Dr. Laura basically said that all you hear on HBO is n-word, n-word, n-word, and that since it is o.k. for black comics to say it, it must not be all that offensive. This is wrong and displays tremendous ignorance for at least a couple of reasons. The first is the context issue mentioned above. The second is that while viewers may feel more comfortable laughing at black comics who use the n-word than they would be if a white comic was doing so, any use of the n-word is not uncontroversial. Dr. Laura is not being criticized for a lack of political correctness she is being criticized for a lack of correctness.
My final point on this matter is simple. When educated people jump to conclusions about race or sex and then air them, they are at the very least displaying prejudice of a very common sort. The fact that a black person on television uses the n-word does not mean that the term is not deeply offensive to people of all races. Dr. Laura's feigned or real ignorance of the simple idea that one or even several members of a group saying something derogatory about that group or using terms historically used to defame that group means that all members of that group should not be offended is the basest sort of prejudice. A black comic is not an authority for all black people, just like a white radio host is not the voice of all white people. Confusing one, or some, or even a majority of people of any grouping with all people who share that trait is the act of treating them like things instead of persons. Doing so is simply incorrect the politically can and should be dropped.
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