Social and Political Education

In this day and age it seems it is impossible for anyone to say anything without someone taking offence to it. It varies from racism to discrimination against people with Epilepsy. I would like to know who protests against people using clearly non-offensive statements.

I am a currently in full time education so I bear the full brunt of political correctness as teachers have to be sure to not offend anyone. A case in point a brainstorm, clearly a technique used for getting down ideas. It is now not socially acceptable to say it because it is offensive to Epileptic people. I have a friend who is an Epileptic and so are a large number of his family. I have asked them about this subject and they are just as confused as I am about why this is offensive.

Racism is a topic that I assume always comes to the fore in political correctness discussions. It is clearly for the good to get rid of this sort discrimination but we have righted the scale too much and allowed people to play the race card too often. Tommie Smith and John Carlos are hailed for their black power salute at the 1968 Olympics. This was a ground breaking moment in the struggle against racism. It is still acceptable for people to shout ‘black power’ as was demonstrated in one of my history lessons. If I was to stand up and shout ‘white power’ however, the outcome would be very different and I would be suspended for racism remarks. In the supposedly equal world that we live in surely these two statements are either both acceptable or unacceptable.

A scenario in recent times from where I live. A white teenage male was stabbed to death by a number of black males. The newspaper headline? ‘Knife crime is still a growing concern’ of course there is nothing wrong with this headline. 10 weeks earlier however a black guy was beaten up by a white male because of harassment to the white guy’s sister. The newspaper headline? ‘Racist Attack in Park’ It was later learnt that the white male was clearly not racist as he was married to black woman. People just jump to the conclusion that as soon as it is a clash between people of different ethnic backgrounds that is the white guys fault and that he is a racist.

The Police are a great source of political criticism because of their accused racist actions. I put it across you as the figures. Over 80% of people in jail are from an ethnic minority. This is definitely not to say that all people from ethnic minorities commit crime and I am not trying to say that there aren’t racist police officers. But isn’t sweeping statements that the police are racist the kind of stereotype that you people are trying to abolish?