It originally-referred to disagreement with the ruling Communist Party in countries such as Red China, and was adopted in the 1970's by the Counterculture to refer to disagreement with themselves. As the leaders of the Counterculture became the leaders of Academia, they kept the practice.
When it became a semi-ironic reference to overly-stringent (sometimes to the point of absurdity) restrictions on language use, however, a backlash developed, so now when someone objects to offensive language, they're frequently accused of being "politically correct." As in, it's "PC" to object to racial and sexist epithets.
Which is kind of what I was alluding to with my tongue-in-cheek LJ cut which you seem to be taking so very seriously.
I've known of too many cases in which the careers of good people were ruined by spurious, or quite deliberately bigoted, accusations of "hate speech" for failing to toe the PC line to consider Political Correctness merely one big merry joke, thank you.
You actually make some good points in your original critique, though I would question the assumption that non-white people are less capable of judging a book by its historical times than are white people. That is "polylogism," the assumption that there is more than one kind of logic, which is not the same thing as assuming that there is more than one point of view, and you are assuming that points of view are racially limited. That is, amusingly, exactly the same assumption which Margaret Mitchell made in Gone With the Wind when she presented her "simple, frightened darkies" -- the only difference is that you're assuming that black people are more likely to be honestly offended by offensive material than are white people, rather than assuming that they are simple and childlike.
"They" are "us." We're all the same species. And the relevant question here is cultural background, not genetic background.
I think black people are more likely to be offended by offensive material than white people are. Not because of any genetic thing, but because racism actually negatively impacts them personally (whereas it positively impacts white people personally), so they are quite understandably more aware of racist aspects to a book and less likely to overlook them. This isn't a defect--quite the opposite, actually; if white people were more attuned to racism the world would be a better place.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 07:40 pm (UTC)When it became a semi-ironic reference to overly-stringent (sometimes to the point of absurdity) restrictions on language use, however, a backlash developed, so now when someone objects to offensive language, they're frequently accused of being "politically correct." As in, it's "PC" to object to racial and sexist epithets.
Which is kind of what I was alluding to with my tongue-in-cheek LJ cut which you seem to be taking so very seriously.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 08:32 pm (UTC)If you aren't one of the folks screaming about "political correctness" when told that using derogatory names isn't cool, then you have no beef here.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 08:29 pm (UTC)"They" are "us." We're all the same species. And the relevant question here is cultural background, not genetic background.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 10:14 pm (UTC)(Disclaimer: I am myself white.)