By Victor L. Midyett
How do we choose to react to something we consider rude, politically incorrect, or demeaning to a situation or to ourselves? Do we first ask ourselves some questions? Or do we simply assume that what was said was intended to be demeaning? Was it said as a joke simply for a joke’s sake? Was it meant as a slam of “my kind” or of me in particular?
I think that if we don’t know the answers to these questions, we are doing ourselves a disservice. As I have said before, OTHERS cannot MAKE US feel. We CHOOSE how we react to others and everything.
By Victor L. Midyett
My DNA heritage is Argentinean, German, French, English, and most proudly, Cherokee. I have predominantly olive skin and in the right circumstance could possibly pass as an Iranian or Middle-Eastern terrorist. What would my label be on sight? What would you call me? “Half-breed”? I have been called that, and so be it, even though it is biologically and mathematically impossible.
I recall that when I was younger than ten, adults in my father’s home state of Tennessee referred to all African Americans as “niggers.” In my early teenage years I was part of the government’s mandate to desegregate the schools. Suddenly my friendship world grew. My learning, acceptance, tolerance, being better informed, and fun times grew with it. During that time I do not recall ever labeling any of my African American friends by anything other than their given names. The white “adults” in the community, however, still labeled them the same way they always had. This habit gradually diminished, and the label survived mostly as hush-hush and in “safe” circles.
Which is more powerful, positive, and future-building?
By Vic Midyett
Political correctness – why does any government think this is its mandate?
Political correctness has become completely ridiculous in society, stifling discussion and even pushing truth aside. It serves my purpose to quote a definition that some anonymous person wrote: “Political correctness is a doctrine, recently fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and promoted by a sick mainstream media, that holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end.”
