I don't get why, as Americans, we have become so terrified of people speaking their minds simply because it may offend someone.
This country has allowed us—all of us—generally to live our lives any way we want. I am sure someone is reading this and already noting that America is certainly not perfect, that there are oppressed and repressed members of our society or that opportunity is shared equally in this nation. While those things may well all be true, the fact remains that we live in a country where you have the freedom to make that very point as publicly and loudly as you like. Our lives are not dictated by a tyrannical leader or an extremist sect that will immolate you, torture you, behead you. And that is a very, very good thing.
However, I fear that we are starting down a road of figurative immolation in this country that is just as dangerous. Anytime that anyone says anything that is controversial or deemed unacceptable by any particular group, that person is hoisted on a petard via internet shaming, mass protests, call for the loss of a his or her job or otherwise punished. We exist in a world where political correctness and the desire to ensure that each person's "safe space" is not threatened trumps freedom of speech and expression.
Some of the views in this country are, of course, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic or just plain evil. As repugnant as they may be, we cannot forget that these voices are equally important to the healthy functioning of free and open society.
Open discussion of viewpoints provides opportunity to engage in a national discourse on difficult issues. For instance, the undergraduate student government at the University of Minnesota rejected a 9/11 remembrance ceremony because it could elicit anti–Islamic rhetoric. Ignoring entirely whether or not people have the right to remember and memorialize the America and those lost in 9/11 to focus on the hypothetical threats to the University's "safe space" robbed the school community of any possible dialogue on the issue. Had anti–Islamic rhetoric bubbled up publicly rather than simply simmer under the surface, it could have been confronted and discussed.
We have become so overly concerned with being politically correct and avoiding offense that we are unable to actually engage in a free and open conversation. I believe we are at war with the evils we face in society as well as the evils we face abroad. We should be at war with racism. We should be at war with prejudice of religion and sexism, with hatred itself. But a war requires confrontations, and those are never comfortable. They are never safe, and they are messy. But ultimately, they promote change.Without moments that challenge our beliefs, without having to defend everything that you hold to be true, we will be forever imprisoned in this dreadful perception of reality that we find ourselves in today.
