Tag: Politically Correct

Osama, Obama and the Politically Correct

I think it’s finally happened.  We may have finally chased the White Rabbit of Ridiculous down the dark hole and are about to end up a shell-shocked Alice in some Bizarro-Wonderland.  I expect to see the Cheshire Cat any day now, and once he shows up, the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen won’t be far behind.  My infernal optimism for the future of our society has been shaken to the core.  Recent events are turning my girlish laughter into tears.

As everybody from Biloxi to Bangkok knows, Barack Obama turned loose his weapons of mild destruction the other day, and the result was a double-tap to the head of the President of the Evil Club — Osama Bin Laden.  I, for one, broke out the champagne and watched the cheering in the streets on TV.  However, it appears our celebrations were premature.  Nobody in the US military ran the operation, codename Geronimo, past the all-powerful Politically Correct police.  Apparently, using “Geronimo” as the codename for the operation is a direct insult to all Native Americans.   (I’m not making this up!)  Apache Tribal Chairperson Jeff Houser, of Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has sent a letter to the White House (displayed on their Tribal Website) to ask the President to apologize for juxtaposing Geronimo’s name with Osama Bin Laden’s.  According to the letter, Native American children “are facing the reality of having one of their most revered figures being connected to a terrorist and murderer…”   Houser continues: “Think about how they feel at this point.”  This is an interesting rhetorical question to a black president who grew up around a few stereotypes, himself.  The letter goes on to say that Native Americans in general — and Apaches in particular — find the codename “painful and offensive.”  Regardless of intent, the military use of Geronimo is yet another manifestation of the history of oppression Native Americans have suffered ever since Chris Columbus brought his tour group to the Americas, over 500 years ago.

I’m not one to downplay the raw deal Native Americans got during the great European migrations of the 18th and 19th centuries.  Nor am I one to try and talk history in an age as repressive as our own.  However, stretching the umbilical cord of injustice from the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona to a mansion in the suburbs of Islamabad, Pakistan is beyond reasonable.  We are about to go through the looking glass at warpspeed, so I think we should pause briefly and examine our trajectory.

At the risk of splitting hairs, it might be useful to note that Geronimo’s name wasn’t even Geronimo; it was Goyathlay or Goyahkla. (It’s impossible to render spoken Apache* into written English)  According to the story I was told many times, and partially confirmed historically, the name Geronimo was an Apache joke nickname given to Goyathlay after a Mexican he was busy killing, repeatedly invoked the name of Saint Jerome (in Spanish Jeronimo.)  Apache warriors thought it was hilarious that, in the middle of a life-and-death situation, someone would call on an imaginary spirit for mercy.  Later, Americans heard Goyathlay called this, didn’t know any better and figured that was the guy’s name.  It stuck — on both sides of the cultural divide.

Secondly, Geronimo himself was probably the greatest hit-and-run military tactician North America has ever produced (along with Cochise and Jeb Stuart.)  For thirty years, off and on, he challenged the might of both the United States and Mexico, simultaneously.  Although always vastly outnumbered, he outmanoeuvred and outfought every military force sent against him, and he was never actually beaten in battle.  His daring raids tied up entire armies in fruitless chases that covered the entire southwest, from Texas to Arizona and the northern Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, as well.  While I can’t speak for the guy personally I think Navy Seals dropping out of the sky in the middle of Pakistan, tapping the hammer on the Archduke of Evil, grabbing the body and getting out of there without a scratch, is just the kind of operation he would have loved.  By all reports, he was a feisty old fella up until the day he died and probably would have gone in with the Navy Seals, given half a chance.

Lastly, I don’t know anything about covert military operations, but I do read a lot.  Codenames are not chosen because they bear any relation to the objective — nor, by the way, are they chosen at random.  They are chosen because they are particularly distinct, usually have more than one syllable and avoid too many p’s, b’s and v’s.  All this is so they can’t be screwed up by excited young people in the heat of the moment.  “Geronimo” fulfills these criteria, and that’s it.  A few of the Navy boys may have made the big fist and yelled, “Hell, yeah!  Geronimo!” but considering they were about to be shot at I don’t think anybody should be too offended by that.  Frankly, I don’t think anybody should be offended, at all.

I’ve said all this to say we need to step back from the linguistic House of Horrors we are creating for ourselves.  The time and energy we spend being outraged verges on the ridiculous.  Any number of groups have gotten the shaft over the years, but witch hunting our language is not going to change that.  Certain words are always going to be offensive, I agree — especially when spoken in anger or hate.  But not all words carry that connotation in every circumstance.  We need to quit chasing hurt feelings and use that same energy to deal with real bigotry in our society.

Oops!  Forget it!   I just heard the military has changed the name to Operation Neptune Spear.  I’m off to find Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

*I’ve used “Apache” instead of “Chiricahua” because it is more familiar to everyone.

Seeing is Believing

Sometime in the late 1970s, a clandestine team of top scientists developed a super-secret formula.  This formula was so secret and so dangerous that each of the scientists who worked on the project was immediately killed in what looked like a series of unrelated freak accidents.  This formula was then introduced to a small segment of the population.  It was a formula for invisibility.

This isn’t just another idiot conspiracy theory like Roswell, Area 51 or Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone.  This is backed up by hard evidence.  So before you pooh-pooh it and lump it in with the Illuminati and WMDs in Iraq, let’s look at the facts.

In 1970, Toni Cade Bambara wrote in The Black Woman, “…a man cannot be politically correct and a chauvinist too.”  This was the birth of Politically Correct, an ethos of inclusion that was welcomed by a society too long dominated by old, bald, Euro-American men.  For a few years, people followed its tenets with some very good results — firemen became firefighters, mailmen became letter carriers, and so on.  This worked out quite well for a while: unfortunately, like all movements embraced by the middle class, Politically Correct went nuts.  Eager to prove their sensitivity and superiority the Middle class jumped on the PC bandwagon like it was heading to Oprah Winfrey’s house.  They decided that our entire society should be regulated by their vision of politically correct, and, as per usual, would not take no for an answer.  Soon PC thugs were roaming cocktail parties, being indignant and shouting at people.  They crashed political gatherings to be offended and call people names.  Ordinary folks — who had never been racists, sexists, bigots or anything else — were intimidated in the face of this naked aggression and usually just shut up and went home.  All during the 70s, the population cowered in fear as Yves St Laurent jackboots prowled the pavement, kicking people into line.  It wasn’t until the Culture Wars of the 1980s that a brave resistance fought back and proved — beyond any doubt — that Politically Correct was totally stupid and anybody who expounded its virtues was an idiot.  Yet the movement didn’t die.  Why?

Around the same time, it suddenly became trendy for fashionable people to drink incredibly overpriced bottled water.  They sucked away on this stuff like starving piglets at every inappropriate opportunity and generally left a mess wherever they went.  It was everywhere, from the gymnasium to the boardroom.  Then, just as suddenly, it stopped.  The water is still being sold, and the empty plastic bottles are still choking the life out of our landfills, but you never see anybody drinking the stuff anymore.  Why?

There is only one conclusion.  The Politically Correct have become invisible.  It sounds far-fetched, but when you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense.  Just ask yourself a few simple questions.  Who drank that overpriced bottled water?  Those pain-in-the ass, holier-than-thou middle class muffins.  Do rednecks ever drink Perrier or Pellegrino?  No, they’ve never even heard of them.  How come people still lower their voices and glance around whenever they talk about “inappropriate” things – even in their own homes?  And how come we have to go through the same old “Happy Holidays”/“Merry Christmas” crap every year?  You’re starting to come around, aren’t you?  Now here’s the kicker, and this really puts the croutons in the Caesar salad, believe me.  Do you actually know anybody who admits they’re Politically Correct?  You probably don’t.  In fact, most people go out of their way to declare that they’re Politically Incorrect.  So where did they go?  Think about it.

Here’s what happened.  The Politically Correct knew they were fighting a losing battle, but rather than surrender, they just took a page out of their Nazi forefathers’ playbook and went into hiding.  With all the money they collected from civil rights lawsuits, they bought and perverted modern science to give them an opportunity to stay close and lie in wait.  This is why we’re all still scared stupid about which term to use when and about who we may be offending.  They’re still among us — listening.  So the next time you feel that tingle on the back of your neck, or a cool breeze on your ankles be afraid – be very afraid, because they’re still out there – watching — waiting for their opportunity.