A Schizophrenic Nation

A Schizophrenic Nation

What's happening to the America that I love so much, the land I spent an impressionable year as a high school exchange student, and where I came back to settle for good eight years later? She's becoming schizophrenic, that's what's happening. And no cure seems to be on the horizon. 

A few days ago, some quarters called for an outright firing of a host of Fox News Network talk show for using the word "Chinamen" once instead of "Chinese" although he quickly corrected himself a second later and used "the Chinese" in the  same sentence. Naturally, the Chinks in China are now adding fire to the "furor" and clamoring for his dismissal. There are a few cooler commentators in China, though. They slyly are voicing an observation that media personalities in China routinely talk about the Japanese and the Koreans in disparaging terms, but nobody in China is championing for the dismissal of these indelicate users of language. 

Superficial political correctness is taking over America by storm and threatening to debase American English. Euphemism is running rampant while the obscenity of the vast and increasing disparity in income between the CEO and the front line worker is allowed to flourish; racial disharmony ignored; problems in education, infrastructures, social safety nets, and immigration barely addressed. America is sinking while the people in charge seem to enjoy in being polite and politically correct. We are told not to use "Negro" because it is "antiquated" and sounds too close to "Nigger" even though blacks address one another as "niggers" all day long. Now, I just learned the top people of Associated Press Stylebook in April of 2013 issued an injunction against using "illegal immigrants" because they "argued" that human beings can't be illegal! These people seem to forget a basic rule in the English language and that is adjectives add extra meanings to, but do not replace, nouns. So in the case of "illegal immigrants", the presence of the adjective "illegal" only calls attention to the fact that these immigrants have entered the land by using unlawful means. Nothing in the word construction of "illegal immigrant" suggests that there are elements of racism and dehumanization, as a well-meaning but over-refined and hyper-sensitive friend of mine recently argued with me. He, as well as the people in charge of the AP Stylebook, seemed to forget that words must be understood within their context and the tone of their delivery. 

Yes, I do realize that words are powerful and do matter. But I strongly believe in freedom of speech and expression. Censure should come from self, social interactions, clarity of thoughts, and the law, not from a tyrannical few who are over-polite and bloodless. In language usage, majority rules. I intend to live until the ripe old age of 100 and want to see the confirmation of my hypothesis that as long as the illegal immigration problem unaddressed frontally in America, the word construction "illegal immigrants" continues receiving widespread currency. 

July 16, 2014