User:OnBeyondZebrax/sandbox/Political correctness

Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is the attitude or policy of being excessively careful not to offend or upset any group of people in society who have a disadvantage. The term was not used much in the U.S. until the late 20th century. Mainstream usage of the term began in the 1990s by right-wing politicians who used the term as a shorthand way of conveying their concerns about the left in academia and in culture. A 1991 article used the term to refer to U.S. academic policies that sought to increase multiculturalism though affirmative action, prevent "hate speech", and change the content of university curriculum. The term was also used by conservatives to criticize progressive teaching methods and curriculum changes in U.S. secondary schools. These debates about curriculum changes have been referred to as a Culture War. In the 1990s, the term was increasingly commonly used in the United Kingdom.

In modern usage, the terms PC, politically correct, and political correctness are generally pejorative descriptors, whereas the term politically incorrect is used by opponents of PC as an implicitly positive self-description, as in the cases of the conservative, topical book-series The Politically Incorrect Guide, and the liberal television talk-show program Politically Incorrect. Disputing this framework are advocates for ending discrimination and scholars on the political Left who suggest that the term was redefined in the early 1990s by conservatives and libertarians for strategic political purposes.

en | journal=Journal of Communication | year=1992 | volume=42 | issue=2}}</ref> The previously obscure term became common-currency in the lexicon of the conservative social and political challenges against progressive teaching methods and curriculum changes in the secondary schools and universities (public and private) of the U.S. Mainstream usages of the term politically correct, and its derivatives – “political correctness” and “PC” – began in the 1990s, when right-wing politicians adopted the phrase as a pejorative descriptor of their ideologic enemies – especially in context of the Culture Wars about language and the content of public-school curricula.

There were attempts to change social reality by changing language, with attempts at making language more culturally inclusive and gender-neutral. This meant introducing new terms that sought to leave behind discriminatory baggage attached to older ones, and conversely to try to make older ones taboo, sometimes through labelling them "hate speech". The principal applications of political correctness concern the practices of awareness and toleration of the sociologic differences among people of different races and genders; of physical and mental disabilities; of ethnic group and sexual orientation; of religious background, and of ideological worldview. Specifically, the praxis of political correctness is in the descriptive vocabulary that the speaker and the writer use in effort to eliminate the prejudices inherent to cultural, sexual and racist stereotypes with culturally neutral terms, such as the locutions, circumlocutions, and euphemisms presented in the Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook (1993) such as:

• “Intellectually disabled” in place of mentally retarded
• “African American” in place of Black and Negro, in the United States
• “Native American” in place of Indian, in the United States
• “First Nations” in place of Indian, in Canada
• Gender-neutral terms such as “firefighter” in place of fireman and firewoman, “police officer” in place of policeman and policewoman
• Value-free terms describing physical disabilities, such as “visually impaired” in place of blind and “hearing impaired” in place of deaf
• Value-free cultural terms, such as “Holiday season” and “Winter holiday”, in place of Christmas