Opinion: kxtreme Political Correctness Grant Bachand Team Member t is time for university students have a talk about political correctness and cultural sensitivity. I, like many of you have engaged in political correctness and I have rephrased my words in order to not offend anyone. That’s the fear right? I better make sure I say everything with exact surgical precision, that way no one will call me a racist, homophobe, or a bigoted ass. Our need to not offend anyone has led us to never saying anything of any meaning. I realized this fact when I read an article that the Student Society at University of Victoria denied funding to a conference at their school because they did not consult with the indigenous groups on campus, because their topic was sovereignty. How dare they have a conference on sovereignty, and not talk to the indigenous groups first! Indigenous people should be consulted anytime, anyone, wants to think about maybe, possibly, talking about something, to do with land and who owns what! I feel this is a byproduct of our over sensitivity to everything, and our need to not offend or challenge anyone. It’s ok you can have a conference share ideas and not ask every different ethnic group if it’s ok. I know it seems scary progressives but we can do it, why because not everything is an earth-shattering social injustice. As a progressive liberal who believes in freedom of expression, and speech as one of our most important rights, this really bothers me. I believe we must be understanding and open. Sometimes things we do because they are social norms do perpetuate stereotypes. Policeman, Fireman, these should be changes to firefighter, police officer. That being said we do not need to run from everything we say and do just case someone might take offense to it. As progressives we need to stand by minorities and help them advocate for their rights, and better integrate into our society, we do not need to bow down and do nothing that might offend them. People get offended by each other, it is called living ina society, I get offended when I see Confederate flags, does that mean the idiot should not have the right to fly them? Of course not. Fly the flag, and prove to everyone that being a dumb redneck is awesome. Let us expand this idea, recently the University of Ottawa suspended some yoga courses because they felt it was cultural appropriation. Yes, yoga is from India, and yes it can be linked with their culture. However, just because something is a good idea and it was thought up by another group does not mean it is off limits. An idea in a globalized world gets around, and sometimes things that other cultures do are a good idea, and we use them to make money off them. Yoga is a way to live a better lifestyle, and as progressives we don’t need to worry about offending people because we like to do the downward dog. This essence of my article is this, if we fight every battle in the hopes to ensure that we are being politically correct then we are fighting too many battles. In society we are going to do things which will make other groups uncomfortable and possibly mad, the question you need to ask yourself “is what I am doing harming someone” if it is a yes then stop doing it. Here is an example: “Man I really don’t like black people, I am going to make sure that black family feels unwelcomed and hated here.” In this case you are being a racist ass and you need to stop. However, you don’t need to go overboard with this, for example if you hear someone in a bar making a joke at the expense of certain racial groups and he is doing it to be funny. I suggest you relax, I understand your sensitive liberal sensibilities want to go over and make sure that he knows how rude he is being, but do you need to get outraged at him. Will going out and being the guardian of everything liberal and tolerant make the world any better, probably not, but what it will do is isolate people and push us further part. Our world feels the need to make sure that everything we do is right and respectful but it never really accomplishes anything. We are so concerned about people not wearing culturally insensitive costumes, but as soon as we see minorities starving on the street we say “Sorry, I don’t have any change.” My favorite form of slacktivism is on social media. People were changing their profile pictures when the attacks in Paris happened killing 130 people, and injuring many more. This was a terrible event, and the only way many of us could muster ourselves to help was changing our profile picture. “If I didn’t change my picture how would people know Iam standing with the people of Paris and against terrorists,” they must have thought. I guess donating money to victim support groups, writing emails to politicians, or generally doing anything to help was too much, but thank goodness you changed that profile picture. I assume we will be changing our profile picture all the time then, for all the people who die because of extremism. My suggestion? Look into the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, South Sudan, Nigeria, Mali, and many other countries who routinely have people dying from various forms of violence. It is important in our world to be respectful and understanding. I am not arguing to not stop people who are being purposefully Opinion! massageyogawellness.corn ignorant. What I am saying is pick your battles; being so worried about not offending different groups, that they don’t do anything is silly. A person being so worried about making jokes because they know they might offend some people is silly. It not racist to point out our differences, we are all different, deal with it. Noticing someone is black, brown, or white is ok we aren’t any less progressive, and possibly having a laugh at the silly things the different groups generally do is ok. What we must not do is be so scared to say anything that might offend someone that we never say anything of value at all. I say this, wear that costume at Halloween that makes people frown, make that joke about people walking it a bar you always wanted too, but when it comes down to it you better be standing up for people when they really do need you, and not changing your profile picture, get into the fight and be a true progressive. The merit of any progressive person isn’t measured by how many things you are outraged by, but how many things you stand up for when it matters.