After more than 30 years, it has finally happened
"PC" begets "woke" begets "bat-guano insanity"
I was doing radio news in the early-to-mid-90s when the term “political correctness” became vogue. It was a minor annoyance, particularly since I didn’t really heed any of its rules.
But I distinctly remember attending a RTNDA meeting during that time. (Radio/Television News Directors Association). Our open discussion centered on the way “political correctness” was neutering the language. Radio requires the masterful use of impactful words to fully convey meaning and context.
The room was about 90% liberals, but these were Old School liberals. You know, the kind that really believe in Free Speech. There was near-uniform opposition to the emerging tenets of the PC doctrine. I felt pretty good about the future of our profession. We openly joked about the day that PC Culture would prevent us from being able to give a physical description of a B-O-L (Be on the Lookout) case. We chortled at a world where we could not convey something so basic and essential as the physical characteristics of an active criminal suspect because such information could damage people. *guffaw, guffaw*.
I began noticing the sea change a few years later with AP guidance on certain words. It went into overdrive after 9/11, with the official AP style guide dissuaded reporters from referring to terrorists as terrorists. It was advice that I, as News Director of three stations, gleefully ignored. By the time I left full-time radio news in 2016, the rules were indecipherable. But still, we hadn’t quite reached the point of silliness where a physical description of an active, potentially-dangerous suspect was verboten.
We finally crossed that fetid bridge this week. In a Tweet (below), our munificent Department of Homeland Security, rivaled only by the TSA in their general uselessness, sent out this message.
Wow. It’s happened. Our society has now “advanced” to the point where ANY reference to one’s physical characteristics done in the service of alerting the public to an imminent danger is a bad thing.
I do not have a background in criminal investigations but I *am* steeped in common sense. A suspect’s physical description is absolutely crucial to know if you are trying to catch them, particularly catch them in the act of a felony. I cannot believe I have to type this. Welcome to the Upside Down.
I can only imagine the DHS’s phone tip calls.
"Yes. I'm at the airport and someone has opened fire! The shooter is a tall Asian..."
"WHOA! Hold on there, racist caller! You don't need to describe them for us! That would be a microaggression!"
I had hoped that this situation would happen long after I became senile. But it appears my cognitive deterioration could not keep up with the cheetah-like pace at which these changed have advanced.
Wise people keep assuring me that “the pendulum always swings back” eventually. Well, it hasn’t in my professional lifetime. It is not only still swinging in the same direction, but it appears to be exponentially picking up speed.
As we careen at breakneck speed towards a “post-truth” society, I think the only coping mechanism I have left is to drink heavily and keep writing. Honestly, I don’t know what else to do. I have tried to create a better world for my kids and for others, but the evidence increasingly suggests that I have failed…that the bad guys are winning.
This sucks.