I remember a peculiar moment in my first year at Brown during the Third World Transition Program, the pre-orientation event run by the Third World Center, which effectively and powerfully introduces topics related to social oppression. One of the Minority Peer Counselors talked casually to me and a group of other students at the Sharpe Refectory, saying, “It’s hard to party after doing something like TWTP. You have to deal with the fact that a lot of the songs you’ll dance to are sexist.”
One reaction to this statement would be to tell the person to just have fun and not be so “politically correct” about everything. Another would be to urge him to take a stand against any and every type of oppression wherever it presents itself — whether in popular culture or in your personal life. But this begs the question: Is either option practical or even desirable? Is it possible to “have it both ways”? To dedicate yourself to social justice while not being a party pooper? I will problematize both options to think of ways that we can enact the changes we want to in productive ways.
To start off with the first hypothetical suggestion, I take issue with the commonly used phrase “politically correct,” because the term distorts the reality of social inequality. Oddly enough, people who use the term apply it to issues regarding the political sphere. Therefore, when people are charged with being too politically correct, they are accused of having the ulterior motives of a vote-seeking politician. In reality, this term does not apply to most of the situations for which it is used because most of us are not thinking like politicians when forming our opinions. The phrase “politically correct” is therefore a calculated tool for discrediting someone else’s opinion.
Regardless of my disdain for the term “politically correct,” I still wish to problematize the first suggestion. The suggestion amounts to telling someone to simply ignore the casual societal wrongs that plague our everyday lives. This dismissive and potentially victim-blaming method may have been accepted in the past but will no longer fly in our contemporary times. Every representation, no matter how seemingly small or unimportant, is a site of meaning that has the potential to subjugate vulnerable populations.
The second route is a little trickier because it is an idealized, if unrealistic, vision of fighting against and reversing social ills. Many of us would like to think that we contribute to positive changes in society, and what better way to do so then by standing up and rebelling against oppression each time that you see it? As Martin Luther King, Jr., aptly put it, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The quote suggests that if you don’t point out injustice everywhere you see it, then you’re part of the problem.
For starters, passionately reacting to every social problem is not an intellectually efficient endeavor. An example of this is the Kony 2012 viral video campaign, which once upon a time was convincing enough to gather 55 million views in a week and gain the support of President Obama. Every Brown student who saw that activist video would agree that egregious wrongs were being committed to a vulnerable population of children in Uganda. It was clear that action from a large group of people was necessary. But if one were to take immediate action, one wouldn’t meditate upon the significant shortcomings of the campaign. One would see the oppression and do anything to aid the effort without knowing the full story.
Immediately becoming a passionate supporter for any cause is dangerous given the incredibly complex problems of our time. Issues such as the violence depicted in the Kony campaign demand to be understood in all of their complexities. Understanding serious issues takes a lot of time, and acting immediately when spotting what appears to be a clear problem may be more complicated than one originally thought.
To find a middle ground between passivity and over-exuberant activism, you must know when and how to be offended. You will find that taking action against offensive statements or cultural products often happens in retrospect. If you hear a sexist song during a party, it probably won’t do you any good to point it out to every attendee on the spot. Having conversations whenever possible is the best route to take. There is no need for any of us to feel like cowards if we don’t immediately act when confronted with social injustice. By taking time to react, you are giving the requisite amount of thought to the issue. The intellectual endeavor of social justice takes time and is rarely accomplished by virtue of instinct.
David Romero ’14 likes to soak everything in before speaking, which makes talking to people kind of awkward. He can be reached at David_Romero@Brown.edu.
ADVERTISEMENT
