Published: November 30, 2009 09:28 pm      

CURRAN: Keep that to your self

The bumper sticker reads, “Don’t I assume I share your prejudices.” Amen to that!

The Fort Hood shooter caused considerable grief beyond the unimaginable pain he distributed to the victims of his terrible crime and their loved ones.

The identification of Maj. Nidal Hasan as the suspect in the shootings provided fodder for pundits, bigots, plain idiots and sincere patriots ignorant of how wrong their words sound to argue for the suspicion of all Muslims.

What appears to have been an extreme case of incompetence and, yes, political correctness gone tragically awry, has allowed the charge that the idea of political correctness — respect for differences and refraining from using degrading language and treatment — is itself to blame for the violence and should be abandoned.

A writer friend of mine, a good guy, recently began discussing an argument he was working out. He made the mistake of putting his conclusion out there to me before he started making his case. His argument was against President Barack Obama’s decision to put two Muslims in key Homeland Security roles.

As a still-youngish person, raised on political correctness and instilled with a healthy dose of white guilt and whatever you call the equivalent qualms regarding negativity toward other cultures and religions, I immediately became uncomfortable and defensive.

Maybe had he gotten the chance to lay out his entire argument, I would’ve at least understood where he was coming from, but in the time allowed, with the support he offered for his thesis, I was left wondering how someone I had pegged for better and smarter came off with such a thing.

The extent of his argument for religious discrimination in certain jobs was based on his belief that the positive associations we have from childhood contribute significantly to our behavior as adults. An adult, lifelong Muslim must’ve had fairly positive associations with the religion as a child. Islam advocates jihad against the infidels. As nonMuslims, us Americans are the infidels. Therefore, we can’t really trust any Muslims.

Here’s the thing: I do not agree with all of the premises he uses to make this argument, and I believe reason and factual evidence can prove the faultiness of this position, but it wouldn’t really matter if the facts and logic were perfect.

There’s an emotional, maybe brainwashed, reflexive part of me that is tempted to put my hands over my ears and sing, “la, la, la, I can’t hear you,” to keep my ears from being contaminated.

I cannot believe that our founders’ insistence on separation of church and state and protection of religious freedom were bad ideas. I cannot believe that you can or should generalize about the behavior of all individual members of a group by latching on to the behavior of some in the group. I will not believe that values such as tolerance and acceptance are dangerous ignorance that invites violence. And I’m not the only one.

An acquaintance who is really the epitome of a right-winger who knows only what Rush and Glenn tell him, a miserable and mostly unliked guy that, at every opening, disparages blacks, gays, Muslims, liberals and Obama decided to crack a joke about the president pardoning turkeys because he wants fried chicken anyway.

God forgive me, I reacted beyond what the mild joke deserved and cussed him. I told him it was “blanks” like him that get me called a racist for opposing Obama’s policies.

If you people that talk like this are only interested in making yourselves sound good to others who agree with you, I guess keep it up, but you sound like idiots to the rest of us. You debase whatever intellectual reasons one may have for holding the policy view you’re advocating and give ammunition to those who want to dismiss any criticism as hateful in nature.

I think most of us understand and accept the older folks of all backgrounds who say things or say them in ways that wouldn’t pass a test of political correctness today, but your 50s aren’t old enough for such a defense.

Obama was elected president. That means a whole lot of the people surrounding you when you speak voted for the guy. People 40 and younger grew up watching Bill Cosby as the perfect dad and Michael Jackson as the coolest entertainer. Gay kids are among the most popular at many local high schools, and most young people are getting a dose of that political correctness brainwashing every day at school.

Older white males are a minority now, and your numbers as a percentage of the population are decreasing. Where is being a hateful jerk going to get you 10 years from now?

My niece and her husband are younger than me. At Thanksgiving, the subject of Obama arose. One of the guests said the N-word in front of a few adults, teenagers and three young children.

The reaction was unified and immediate. “Hey.” “Watch the language.” “Man, there’s kids in here.” “Nice,“ with an eye roll.

The guest was then treated to a discussion of how much my niece liked Obama and the time my kids put in on the campaign.

Maybe we’re oversensitive. Maybe we’re naïve and therefore vulnerable. But it is the way we were raised.



Jeffersonville resident Kelley Curran wonders who wrote the complex lyrics to the “La, la, la, I can’t hear you” song. If you know, write her at kelinawriterhat@aol.com