Political Correctitude

It’s time we paid attention to the racist terms we use daily

I was recently on a flight to New York when I bumped into a popular television actor who has become a household name in India for her comic portrayal of an earthy Gujarati homemaker.

At JFK airport, I offered to help with her luggage but she politely declined, insisting that she would engage a porter. She then saw one in the distance and yelled:

“Ay negro! Come here!!”

As passengers around us froze in horror upon hearing this racist term, I bundled the naive woman out of the airport before she was arrested or a race riot could break out.

As countries such as the UK and the US grew into a melting pot of diverse ethnicities and cultures, it became imperative to be sensitised to slang words and terms that could offend different groups. For instance, pejoratives such as nigger, negro and even black are today considered anathema. The politically correct or PC term is African-American, stressing the heritage of this proud people. Native American is the term now used to describe the indigenous inhabitants of the US and not Red Indians, as many of us still call the Apache, Sioux and Cherokee. Whites should be referred to as Caucasians whilst Mexicans and Puerto Ricans as Latino or Hispanic. Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, who were once all offensively dubbed Pakis, are now clubbed as South Asians. Non-white ethnic groups are referred to as Persons of Colour.

But it’s not just diverse cultural groups that have been given new PC sobriquets. Various gender-neutral terms are now employed in the workplace such as Chairperson instead of Chairman, Firefighter instead of Fireman, Actor instead of Actress and Homemaker instead
of Housewife. Interestingly, a garbage collector is now a Sanitation Engineer.

Terms relating to disability, such as visually challenged and hearing-impaired are used in place of blind and deaf. People are no longer described as handicapped but as differently-abled or even handicapable. Instead of mentally retarded, the correct term is intellectually disabled.

Racially offensive titles of books have also been changed. Hence Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Niggers was re-released as And Then There Were None. Enid Blyton’s The Three Golliwogs is now considered unacceptable reading for children whilst Tintin in the Congo has been banned for its racist content.

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Whilst a debate has sprung up in the West as to whether the world is becoming too PC, we Indians continue to spout racial epithets and ethnic slurs with impunity.

samarofdiscontent@gmail.com

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