That ain't PC, Bitches!

 As I recall the conversations I had with others as a child, it seems a large amount of that time was spent making fun of each other or other people.  I don’t know if it was something that we picked up from adults or if we were just finding it hard to distinguish ourselves as individuals with no really great role models to reinforce good behavior.  Either way, I remember walking home from school each day and the whole conversation was one set of kids making fun of another set.  This would go on back and forth until the last kid found his home and there was no one left to rabble with.  Back then hair color, weight or general ugliness were the points of interest or contention.  Rarely would someone bring up sex, race or creed.  That was the 1970s. 
In the 1980s and 1990s, people seemed to be a little more conscious of their differences.  Certain things became off limits and taboo to speak about.  They just wasn’t Politically Correct.  As if born in some suburban utopia, the phrase “PC” became a way to describe not only topics not to be spoken of, but became a general list of forbidden ideals and notions.

Beyond racism, almost every known generalization became targets for the “PC” police.  I finally drew the line when a friend of mine who just happen to have very dark skin informed me that was offensive for me to refer to them as black.  I had been trained that African American had become the preferred reference but did not understand how to be called black was offensive.  He told me that he was of a Jamaican French ancestry.  He and related that black was a color reference that lumped him in with all the other people who were slaves at the time his ancestors arrived.  Black was the white man's way of stripping away the individuality of people and casting them all into one class devoid of nationality. They were all slaves and all slaves were black.

  I began to see that everybody has a way that they are viewed that they do not agree with.  Nobody can be conscious of all the nuances and distinctions of discrimination that bother people.  To be overly conscious of some biases that doesn't mean you don't have other prejudices that exist below the surface or are imbedded in your upbringing.  Me and my friends saw the politically correct movement for what it was, another attempt for some people in society to act like they're better than everybody else.  We quickly dawned these elitists with a PC name of our own, we called them “Hippies”.

 Mind you we were in Texas. With fervor and reverence, we never missed a chance to hang the label “damn hippies” on any one who acted holier than thou or one out of their way to make someone pick up their trash or inform someone that they weren't recycling properly.  Livin’ in Austin Texas you could imagine the fun we had watching the confused looks, faces of people,: convinced that they were born to be their brother's keeper, twist as we would mutter “hippies” under our breaths as they questioned the Starbucks waiter as to the organic nature of the creamer or the recycled paper content of the cup.  Years later in a slightly related social linguistic experiment we indoctrinated many young white urban kids bent on saying the word “nigga” and got them to switch it with the word “bitches” ….  Yeah, that was me….