A Touch of Political Correctness in Talkback Land

The locum morning host at my favourite talkback station announced that today we would be addressing a subject that really incensed her, got under her skin and rendered her frustrated and exasperated: Political Correctness! Things we could no longer say in case others felt offended, affronted, even slightly miffed. Well she did not go out of her way to offend people but she was totally fed up with having to walk on egg shells in case someone somewhere just might feel slighted by something she said! Oh good, I thought to myself as I swallowed the morning’s stay-alive pills and contemplated last night’s dirty dishes, elegantly stacked beside the sink by the husband now nowhere to be seen. I had to stay home all morning awaiting the plumber so a radio wrangle about whether it was still acceptable to describe the grossly obese as fat or refer to the larger part of the prison population being Maori would be a splendid diversion. It took the locum a while to get things going I have to admit and it was nine thirty before a genuinely outraged listener rang in to complain about insults to Catholicism posing as so called `works of art’ but she was quickly followed by someone who felt slighted when she was described as a `partner’ rather than a `wife’. But our radio host was anxious to get into the meatier aspects of political correctness and urged the discussion forward. What about the use of even more offensive terms she demanded. It was then that the earnest sounding elderly man who had recently returned from New York happened to ring in. He had been shocked on the streets of that city by an African-American female newspaper seller calling out to other (presumably) African-Amercans to `come and get your N***** Newspaper here….’ He said that he had not heard that word spoken in public for a number of years and he had been totally taken aback by it because you certainly would not hear the term on the streets of New Zealand cities. The gasp of horror from the host was followed by a stunned silence – five seconds is a long time in talkback land. We listeners waited in excited anticipation of what might happen next whilst she recovered enough to hit whatever dump button was necessary to dispatch the world traveler back into whichever suburb of the city he had emerged from. `We simply cannot have words like that used on this programme,’ she reprimanded in the admonishing voice of my old Sunday School teacher, `That word is completely offensive – every right thinking person would agree…..yes, I know it was being used in context but all the same it is absolutely unacceptable…..’ I reflected that one of my own pet hates is being told what every right thinking person is currently agreeing with. Did I have the energy to ring in and tell her so? No, I did not. So – on to the next call and the discussion concerning political correctness continued.