There is a phenomenon in American society today that has received a lot of media attention recently because of the recent election. The phenomenon is known as political correctness and is a very heated issue in American politics today, but many people don’t even know what political correctness is. Political correctness is when a group tries to make their political opinion the “correct” way of thinking (Cummings). When this happens one group tries to make their opinion accepted fact, while making other opinions seem incorrect. This can cause marginalization of groups who do not agree with the politically correct way of thinking. While political correctness has grown in America, there are more and more people who try and enforce their way of thinking that is politically correct. “Call out culture” is a new issue in America, especially with the rise of the internet and social media. Call out culture is when someone sees something that is politically incorrect, they, as the name suggests, call them out for being rude, offensive, and wrong. Rather than accepting that people have different views and being inclusive call out culture encourages trying to ignore and put down the legitimacy of different opinions. The Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of speech and that means that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but when one group declares themselves correct and calls out those who disagree freedom of speech can be diminished. As political correctness has grown in America and the way people enforce the politically correct beliefs have changed, it has begun to harm freedom of speech in this country.  

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right that is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and should be respected. While there are some things that are not protected, for example, eminent threats to another person is not protected speech. The freedom of speech is the ability for anyone to express their opinion freely no matter how outrageous (Kurthen). Not everyone has to agree with everyone else’s opinions, but freedom of speech allows people to share their opinion. This collection of different ideas is what America has been built on and why the democracy works. The difference in ideas prevents the government from being totalitarian, and is what keeps the government officials constantly changing with the views of the people. The principle that everyone’s opinion matters is very important to the democracy that the US government was founded on. There is no one correct way of thinking everyone has their own opinion, and when people disagree, they are encouraged to debate so they can better understand the other side so they can reach a compromise (Kurthen). 

America is a country of immigrants, which means that a vast majority of people who live here’s ancestors were not from North America. The country was founded on an idea that everyone is equal and their ideas and opinions have equal weight and deserved to be heard. Since then America has grown and become vastly more diverse. These different ideas and cultures have come together to form a new culture, American culture. America is based on the coming together of different people and creating something new, and has been called “A Melting Pot Nation” because of all the diversity. These different ideas and cultures are given a safe place to express their ideas and be exposed to different views form theirs. The largest example of this melting pot is in New York City, because of the amount of people and different cultures in such a small place. New York is full of different cultures, for example China town and little Italy are right next to each other. There is no other place on Earth where people can experience two cultures that different within two street blocks. All of the diversity in America is possible because of the freedoms given to Americans by the Constitution, especially the freedom of speech. The different ideas and cultures being allowed to express themselves together have given America man different views and is better for it. Having so many different views allows for elected officials represent all walks of life and allows the government to make laws accordingly. This diversity is one of the main characteristics of America and if the freedom to express different viewpoints is taken in an effort to not offend people that can be seen as Un-American.

Political correctness in America today can be seen as a noble thing, because it has taken on the role of protecting marginalized people and minorities from offending people, but there are problems than come with it. While this is a good cause political correctness at its base is a very totalitarian principle. Having one correct way of thinking is an extreme view and is very similar to George Orwell’s novel 1984. They goal of political correctness is to turn an opinion into accepted fact. An opinion can not actually become fact, though, and this is why political correctness is not effective. While the true definition of political correctness is something that most people would appose the definition has become corrupted (Cummings). Today political correctness is accepting of all people no matter their beliefs, race, or situation, but mainly those who are minorities and marginalized group. While this is a good cause those who try and get everyone to be politically correct can go about it the wrong way. The use of call out culture is a widely used tactic used by the politically correct to prevent the politically incorrect opinions from being heard. Call out culture is when someone sees or hears something that they don’t agree with them call the person who said it out and shames them for it. This method of dealing with opposing view points has become more prevalent with the rise of the internet and social media (Graham). It does cause more hate filled arguments between people of opposing views rather than respectful debates, and this causes a further divide between opposing parties. 

Many people today agree with the definition of political correctness just being kind and accepting of all people. As political correctness goes in America political correctness is just being polite to people, and treat them how you would want to be treated. This is better than everyone being rude and impolite to each other without regard for each others feelings. Being non offensive to everyone is a very important part of being in a society. The idea of being polite and kind to people is a good thought and is important for society. President Obama said in an interview about what he though political correctness were just being polite, but people are just going around looking for insults. He also said that some groups in America do believe that political correctness is trying to take away their freedom of speech (Soave). Without decency in society, there will be constant conflict and the society will fall apart. Also, discriminating against people is a large problem is every society and is prevalent in America. Mark Hannah a writer for Time wrote an article called “Political Correctness is an Absolute Must” explaining how important political correctness is today in America. He talks about how Trump and people like him have demonized political correctness in America as a tactic used for censorship of the American people. Hannah writes "The opposite of political correctness is not unvarnished truth-telling. It is political expression that is careless toward the beliefs and attitudes different than one’s own” (Hannah). Hannah also equates being politically incorrect to being ignorant and insensitive to people whose situation or beliefs differ from each other. Fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves is a very noble thing and is what modern political correctness is. With this being the motivation and goals of modern political correctness in America people can see the merit in what they are trying to do. 

Many Americans see political correctness as being kind and inclusive to the members of society that have no one to stand up for them and cannot defend themselves, but it can have the opposite effect. Call out culture’s purpose is to stop people from saying things that are politically incorrect and seen as offensive. By calling people out and shaming people the desired result is that they realize they are “incorrect” and change their way of thinking. While this seems good in theory, it is extremely rare that calling someone out will cause them to change opinions. Call out culture is also rarely done in a respectful way with keeping the person’s feelings in mind while calling their opinion incorrectly (O’Neil). This can be very condescending for people to hear that their opinion is wrong while someone else’s is considered correct. Call out culture is most commonly done over social media instead of a rational discussion of opposing ideas it consists of name calling and irrational arguing. By calling people out and name calling because their ideas differ it makes a further division and makes compromise harder to accomplish. These call outs make the people trying to spread inclusion and kindness seem rude and pushy about their ideas. When people who try and preach inclusivity marginalize people that don’t agree with them it takes away from their message (O’Neil). While trying to get people to include everyone they end up corrupting their message and excluding a large amount of people who might not agree with them. Along with being exclusive and demanding call out culture is extremely anti-freedom of speech. While the ones calling people out are entitled to their opinions delegitimizing other people’s opinions isn’t going about getting their point across effectively. 

Call-out culture at its core has good intentions when calling out the people that they see as offensive. While it is a very popular method of fighting against they politically incorrect it does have its problems. Many people who support political correctness and being inclusive to all strongly disagree with the practice of calling people out with different views. They see it as public humiliation for the one who is being called out and don’t think that is helping their cause and goes against their message. Asam Ahmad a writer at Briarpatch magazine who is a avid supporter of political correctness wrote “What makes call-out culture so toxic is not necessarily its frequency so much as the nature and performance of the call-out itself. Especially in online venues like Twitter and Facebook, calling someone out isn’t just a private interaction between two individuals: it’s a public performance where people can demonstrate their wit or how pure their politics are” (Ahmad). He goes on to write how he is a homosexual minority in Toronto Canada and does experience prejudice towards him, but does not look for opportunities to make someone else feel bad about themselves. Ahmad writes about how only radical activists or people ignorant to their cause use call-out methods in combating offensive people and ideas. The people who actually make change and equality show respect for the other side in order to receive the same from them (Ahmad). 

Political correctness has become a major topic in politics because of the recent election and the role it played in Donald Trump’s victory. Political correctness does have its place in politics though. Politicians are trying to be elected and represent their voters, as best they can and if they are offensive and rude they cannot be a good representation of their people (Friedersdorf). The Trump campaign recognized that many Americans did not like how politicians dodged questions and didn’t say what they really felt in an effort to stay politically correct (Fang). Trump quickly became a polarizing figure because of his blatant disregard for political correctness in his campaign. This message of going against the “correct” way of thinking resonated with many Americans that felt marginalized by political correctness. Trump made political correctness a main focus of his campaign and claimed he was declaring a war on it (Fang). President Obama gave his opinion on political correctness and how the use of it in Trump’s campaign. Obama told the Washington post that he believes that there are two definitions of political correctness in America today. He explains that it can mean being polite and not saying something that would offend someone purposefully. The other definition he gives is that the left is trying to censor people’s opinions and speech (Soave).

There is even a legitimate scientific study that proves that people censor themselves while talking to people of different races in order to be politically correct. There was a study done at MIT to see is people interact differently with people solely based on their race. The researchers gave a someone a photo of a person and told them to describe them to someone else. The person listening to the description, then had to pick out the person in the photo from a line up of people. They first had the people describe a person of their own race to another person of their own race. They used race, hair, eye color, height, and weight to describe them to the other person. Then they had them describe someone of another race to someone of the same race, and this time they have done the same, but were hesitant to use race but still did fairly quickly. When having to describe a person of another race to another person of a different race is when they really started to watch what they say. The people describing tried to use all of the descriptions of the person for the other person besides race. They only used race as a last resort description word as if they didn’t want to say it at all. When asked why they didn’t use race to describe the people the last time most people said they didn’t want to offend the other person or seem racist by describing him with his race. They then asked the people of the other race if use race as a descriptor would bother them and the answer was mostly no (Apfelbaum). This shows that people involuntarily censor how we talk about race while around other races. Even if it isn’t anything offensive people are scared they will come across as offensive or racist. This study shows that there is a natural stigma that has been put on the topic of race in America. While there are racist things people can say about each other using race to describe someone should not be taboo or avoided, because generally people are proud of their race. Only when people see race as an offensive topic does it become taboo and offensive.  

The political correctness that is growing in America is dangerous for the freedom of speech that America currently enjoys. The phenomenon of political correctness is very damaging to freedom of speech by trying to make one way of thinking the accepted correct way. The call out culture that has developed around the political correctness in America has already started attacking people’s freedom of speech. When the politically correct see something they don’t agree with they are now immediately calling it out. Instead of proving their ideas as correct as they result to name calling and playing the victim of the offensive statements (Graham). If this continues, there will be no way for those who disagree with the politically correct norm to express their opinions and there will be a decrease in diversity of ideas. The politically correct value people’s feelings over the freedom of speech and diversity of thought and this is taking away from people’s freedoms. They hide behind the fact they support groups who are historically persecuted and this makes it hard to fight against the spread of political correctness. Being accepting of other’s opinions and non-judgment of different ideas is the best way to go against call out culture and political correctness. Even though call-out culture is harmful and goes against freedom of speech, it should be protected by freedom of speech. Political correctness is part of American society now and even if people do not agree with it it should be respected. If the idea of call-out culture is suppressed that just becomes another example of something becoming politically incorrect. As a society, it is important to protect rights such as freedom of speech, and it might mean hearing opinions that you may disagree with or find offensive. Freedom of speech is an extremely important to keep a diversity of thought and is a basis of American freedom and should be protected. 
