Prime Time Crime
(Published in the Chilliwack Times week of Nov. 29, 2010)
R.I.P. political correctness
By John Martin
The most interesting aspect of the motion at a Chilliwack school board meeting to refer to the upcoming school break as the Christmas Holidays is that it became a news item at all. How absurd that something as basic and reasonable turned into a national news story. Yet in this day and age of sanitization and hyper-sensitivity, it's almost radically heroic that a school trustee would wade into such controversial waters.
Kudos to trustee Heather Maahs for eschewing political correctness and putting one in the win column for common sense; we need more solid people like her in leadership positions. And hats off to the rest of the trustees for unanimously supporting the motion.
Predictably, the usual suspects feigned horror and shock at the motion. Most notable was Chilliwack Teacher's Association president Katharin Midzain who rambled considerable nonsense about how intolerant the move was.
People such as her who worship at the temple of political correctness are a dying breed, slowly going the way of the dinosaurs. They had their day in the sun during the previous couple decades but, mercifully, fewer and fewer of us now have the time of day for them.
The Midzains of the world are, for the most part, an insecure constituency who need to validate their sense of self worth and moral superiority by lecturing us unenlightened sorts about what is or is not appropriate. They see themselves as socially conscious, tolerant progressives and the rest of us as, at best, insensitive trailer trash and at worst, incorrigible bigots.
I defy Midzain or anyone else who is adamant we should celebrate the "winter break" to document so much as one solitary Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Jew or anyone else who has actually expressed a genuine sense of personal injustice at any official recognition of Christmas. They may pretend they are champions of social justice who are here to protect the sensitivities of visible minorities and non-Christians, but they spout this politically correct drivel for themselves and no one else.
Like most social movements, political correctness began for all the right reasons. It drew attention to figures of speech that were clearly insulting to specific ethnic and religious groups. But eradicating terms such as "Indian-giver" and "he gypped me" soon turned into a full fledged witch hunt; except you couldn't use the word 'witch" because that would offend Wiccans.
Christmas, in particular, became a favourite target of the politically correct posse--much of it couched in a less than subtle intolerance of Christianity. Soon bureaucrats and other busy bodies with too much time on their hands and not nearly enough work on their desk made it their business to hunt down any and all official state recognition of Christmas. City halls and legislatures were soon making fools of themselves by erecting "multicultural trees" and hanging "solstice wreaths."
Retail stores were instructing staff to avoid greeting customers with a "Merry Christmas" and a couple years ago we actually saw department store Santas being told not to say "ho, ho, ho" because it might offend sex trade workers.
This is the legacy left behind by political correctness--one boneheaded absurdity after another.
It's called "Christmas" and always will be so Katharin Midzain and the rest of the do-gooders may as well get used to it.
John Martin is a Criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley and can be contacted at John.Martin@ucfv.ca