The idea of political correctness is a highly controversial, often overblown issue in today’s day and age. What many don’t realize, especially the teenagers and early twenty-somethings that are today’s biggest proponents of it, is that this is by no means a new issue just because it was brought into the public eye again in the past couple of years. The political correctness movement was alive in well as far back as the late eighty’s and early ninety’s when it was originally founded. After dying out for some time in the late ninety’s through the turn of the century, the movement reared it’s head once again sometime since the second Obama administration, bringing us where we are today. There are certainly some positive aspects to this: respecting others feelings and thinking more about your words as an overarching theme of this movement seem like perfectly harmless, positive messages. Inevitably however, as with any movement, there are plenty of negative aspects. These generally come in the form of excessive “language policing” and just generally taking the whole political correctness too far to a point where the movement is more of a nuissance to many than a positive. In 1992, author Margaret Atwood pointed out this negative, excessive language policing in her short story “There Was Once.” In 2015, college student and article writer Omar Mahmood again pointed out the fallacies of the movement in his article “Do The Left Thing” for The Michigan Review. Through successful uses of satire, Atwood’s “There Was Once” and Mahmood’s “Do The Left Thing” work in conversation with one another to expose drawbacks to this idea of political correctness with humor and wit. 

“Skip the description. Description oppresses. But you can say what color she was.” (Atwood, 512). This quote from Atwood’s short story may best exemplify her use of satire to make fun of excessive language policing. The first speaker is attempting to describe a character in the story she is telling when the second jumps in with the above quote. The second speaker language polices the first to a point of hilarity where even describing a character is not allowed because it could offend someone. This level of language policing, while humerous in the short story, actually stiffles conversation and free thought as seen by the end of “There Was Once” when the first speaker cannot even get one word out without being stopped and corrected. Johnthan Chait may have put it best in his article “Not A Very P.C. Thing To Say: How the Language Police Are Perverting Liberalism” when he said “All over social media, there dwell armies of unpaid but widely read commentators, ready to launch hashtag campaigns and circulate Change.org petitions in response to the slightest of identity-politics missteps.” (Chait, New York Magazine). These commentators that Chait speaks of are so quick to try and stifle anything that they find remotely offensive that no exchange of ideas will ever happen. They hinder themselves and those around them, whether they realize it or not, by blocking out those that they disagree with. It is these same type of people that Omar Mahmood makes fun of in his story “Do the Left Thing.” Although presumably unintentional, Mahmood’s “Do the Left Thing” works in conjunction with Atwood’s “There Was Once” to poke fun at flaws in the “political correctness” movement. Written in the first person of one such oversensitive college student about whom Chait spoke, “Do the Left Thing” is another masterful piece of satire that effectively points out much of the ridiculousness with the “political correctness” movement while managing to keep a grin on the readers face throughout the entire read. 

Behind his words I sensed a patronizing sneer, as if he expected me to be a spokesperson for my whole race. He offered his hand to help me up, and I thought to myself how this might be a manifestation of the patriarchy patronizing me. I doubt he would’ve said those violent words had I been white, but he would take any opportunity to patronize a colored man or woman. People on this campus always box others in based on race. Triggered, I waved his hand aside and got up of my own accord. 

This quote perfectly captures the tone of Mahmood’s piece “Do The Left Thing” with it’s satiricle irony. In Mahmood’s fake narrator’s mind, even being offered a hand getting off the floor by a white person was enough for his triggered self to take serious and personal offence. Hilariously enough, depending on how you look at it, is that Mahmood’s short story making fun of “politically correct” and “triggered” college students would ultimately result in him losing his position at The Michigan Review due to the efforts of those same people. “Some students took offense, saying it belittled their concerns about social justice.” (Lott, Foxnews.com). While unfortunate, these actions only go to prove that Mahmood was spot on in his writing, and make his writing ever more relevent.  

“He doesn't fit their social justice agenda so they attack him, censor him, try to get him to shut up.” (Lott, Foxnews.com). This attempt at censorship that was a direct result of Mahmood’s article is the very same reaction that Atwood’s character had in her piece “There Was Once,” only further intertwining these two works of writing. Like Atwood’s character, many University of Michigan students attempted to censor the voice of someone simply because their views upset them or were contradictory to their own. Because they could not stop him mid-sentence, they instead went after his job and reputation, but the implications were all the same. It is quite ironic that in fact, it was the same type of students as Mahmood’s main character that ultimately brought him down. In his article “A Political Correctness War that Never Really Ended,” Anthony Zurcher says says that at this point, political correctness is “more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate.” (Zurcher, bbc.com). 

In order to expose the drawbacks to this idea of political correctness, Margaret Atwood’s “There was Once” and Omar Mahmood’s “Do the Left Thing,” definitely work in conversation with one another to achieve their goals. Through humor, satire, and wit the two works successfully make fun of the same thing: political correctness and the culture that comes along with it. Although written decades apart, “There was Once” and “Do the Left Thing” still undoubtably work together to preach the same message. The political correctness movement was around once before Mahmood was around back in the ninety’s, but this new and improved one is more censoring and more vocal that ever before. Ultimately as was seen in both works, without any level of stimulating conversation or exchanges, the ability to share ideas and views is all but shut off—but then again that sounds like exactly what the “protesters” were trying to stop. Together, the works remind us of the dangers of taking political correctness too far in this day and age because apperently, you might just lose your license! 