Politically Correct This

Last night's Baseball All Star Game was only the latest example of something insidious that is eating away at this nation's consciousness. The game I'm talking about ended in an 11-inning, 7-7 tie, and the insidiosity (haha) I'm referring to is the so-called "PC" revolution; that is, a society's obsession with being politically correct in everything it does.

To put this tie-ballgame thing in perspective, it was only the second tie in the game's history, and the only one ended because of baseball's ineptitude (the other was called because of rain). There is no clear scapegoat in this situation, but I can only say that there must be something really messed up if two teams can play a game, which so happened to tout itself as "the only All-Star game that matters," and finish with neither team winning (and everyone losing). You can't lay all of the blame on Commissioner Bud Selig, nor the players or either manager, but you can blame all of them (and a little of ourselves as fans) for succumbing to this dumb phenomenon called political correctness.

Two ideas borne out of the politically correct school of thought were the biggest factors in causing this travesty to occur. First, the rule that a player from every team must be chosen for the All-Star team. Not only does this rule cause less deserving players to be chosen over the more deserving, but it severely limits the effectiveness and power of the managers who are supposed to be running the team (I will acknowledge that this rule was not instituted just to be PC, but there were economic reasons that were more prevalent. Just bear with me, please).

The other idea, that all players on the roster should appear in the game at some point, is an even bigger cause of last night's result. While it's understandable that players don't want to be overworked for an exhibition game, using a pitcher for 1/3 of an inning is simply a joke. You're better off leaving him on the bench to rest and watch the game - doing that doesn't take away from the honor of being chosen for the All-Star game. And when you use pitchers like that, no one should be shocked when the teams run out of players in an extra-inning game, which was exactly what happened. By that time, it's too late.

So while the game might be more politically correct these days, it is obvious that the outcome is not important anymore; you definitely can't call it "the only All-Star Game that matters." Not that winning or losing is all that counts, but this is baseball at the Major League level (not little league), players are there to compete and win. Fans paid $175 to watch them compete and win. And after playing a great game for a few hours, all was for naught, because we had to be politically correct about everything.

I know not everyone who reads this blog cares about baseball as much as me, so I'll move on and make my point more general. It's not just about baseball, but it is about almost everything we see and hear nowadays. Only a few months ago, a pair of Russian figure skaters won the gold medal in the Winter Olympics over a pair of better performing Canadian skaters, because of shadiness and scandal within the ranks. Amid controversy, the Olympic Committee decided to award the Canadians a gold while letting the Russians keep theirs as well. A great solution, eh? Not in the least! Such an action is an insult to all intelligent life - it diminishes the value of the gold medal for both pairs, basically saying that "neither of you are the best in the world, we just majorly f---ed up so here you go, have a gold medal on us." You might also argue that all past and future gold medal winners should feel a little less proud about "earning" that honor.

In case you are wondering if my whole life is sports, the answer is no. I'm getting to making a point about the big picture. So how does this political correct crap relate to our lives? I'm not talking about the euphemisms we hear so much of these days, even if those are annoying. If you must, use the phrase "biologically inactive" instead of "dead" or say someone is "vertically challenged" instead of "short." As for stuff like the All-Star Game, I didn't waste $175 but I did waste a few hours of my time following an exhibition that was insulting to me as a fan. Even that much, I can deal with.

But the fact is, it starts with these little things that seem like they don't matter, but translates into bigger things that do affect us. Example: affirmative action. I'm not bashing all of affirmative action, but in most cases it has been taken too far. I know that some of it is necessary to account for the disparity in opportunities between the different groups, so we shouldn't get rid of it completely. But, there is this strange idea that in everything we should have a certain percentage of this type of person, a certain percentage of another, etc. in all our institutions and organizations. Recently, in my last semester at U of I, a friend came across an ad to be a "model" for pictures to be used in University brochures and stuff. He emailed responding to the ad, and the guy emailed back with a message that sounded something like this:

"We are still looking for a limited number of candidates. To provide a more diverse representation of our school, we are especially welcoming models of underrepresented minorities or possibly individuals that have facial piercings (nose ring, etc.) or dyed hair."

I wish I had kept a copy of that email, but as silly as it sounds, believe me, it read pretty much exactly like that, no lie. You can ask Chras if he remembers. Now this type of thing is pretty trivial, but what I'm trying to say is, think about it: if this type of thing goes on in something this small, it goes on in the bigger things too. Just the other day I was told about how cliques are a fact of life at UIC medical school. This is partly because Urban Health Program (UHP) students benefit over other "normal students" from more access to TA help and lab study, based purely on the fact that they are identified as underrepresented minorities. This is happening even though they are in the same class, take the same tests, and will eventually seek many of the same positions as the other med students. And there's no doubt in my mind that any time I apply to a school or interview for a job, I am at a disadvantage to someone if they have the exact same credentials, but belong to an "underrepresented minority." Is it fair that two people can work equally hard, achieve equal performance, but get treated unequally because of race, gender, or whatever else? Racism against minorities isn't right, but reverse discrimination is not a solution.

To better show how dumb this kind of thing can get, imagine if each NFL team (yes, I am resorting back to sports) were forced to have at least 3 Asian players. Not that there's no good Asian players around, but this would be an absolutely ridiculous rule and everyone knows it. Players don't get to the NFL by chance, they get there because they are the best at what they do. That's how it is, and that's how it should be, whether it's the NFL, NBA, MLB, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, IBM, Intel, or Price Waterhouse Coopers. That may make me sound overly capitalistic, but this country was built on capitalism. We shouldn't have to drive on roads and bridges designed and by any less than engineers and construction workers who got there by being the best in their field. We all use and benefit greatly from computer software and operating systems every day because someone used their genius to develop such a thing (and that someone deserves to be as rich as he is now). Kmart is soon out of business, but Walmart is still here and going strong because it is the best at what it does, selling good products at lower prices.

Affirmative action is not the only idea spawned by PC that is hurting America. Consider how the country reacted to the Sept. 11 attacks and the fear of further terrorist threats. Suddenly, President George W. Bush could do no wrong. It's not wrong to support your leader when your country is in precarious times, and even cut him some slack when you don't agree with everything he says or does. But it seemed like the guy had morphed overnight from the man everybody thought was dumb as wood to the man with the highest approval rating. Criticize Bush, and you border on the risk of being considered a traitor. This example might not exactly fit with the all of my points about political correctness. But it certainly rings quite loudly in my mind that the poster boy of all that is not PC in this country, Bill Maher, did happen to criticize Bush after 9/11, and quickly found himself out of a job hosting his show, which was so aptly titled "Politically Incorrect."

Or, what about the whole Eminem controversy of a couple years ago. There's nothing cool about describing the killing of your wife and daughter, and using words like "bitch" and "fag" a lot is probably such not a great thing either, especially in music that little kids seem to listen to a lot. Still, why did people make such a huge deal about a rapper? Gay rights activists and women's groups are obviously gonna be insulted, but it wasn't just them. Politicians jumped on the bash-Eminem-for-destroying-our-kids bandwagon because it was the easy way out. What they shouldv'e been doing, but were too sissy to do, was say something more to the tune of "it's a free country, and we have free speech. We don't necessarily condone Eminem's lyrics, but it's the parent's job to keep an eye on what their kids are listening to, not the government's."

Unfortunately, all this PC sentiment has been growing for at least a few years now, and I don't see it going away any time soon. Quite frankly, I'm getting real tired of it. All PC really comes down to is saying something because "it seems like the right thing to say" or doing something because "it seems like the right thing to do." It doesn't matter if we're talking about the Baseball All-Star Game, affirmative action, supporting our President, or bashing Eminem, we should all just say and do what we believe is right, without having to care about being politically correct.

Once again, it seems I've managed to write a horrendously long blog such that people who have read this far will be bored by now, but the always insightful Chris Rock knows exactly what I mean. I'll just let him sum things up for me:

"a lot of politics this year... people saying 'Colin Powell, Colin Powell! He should run! He could win!' ... Colin Powell can't win - Colin Powell's got a better chance of winning the bronze in female gymnastics, than being President of the United States ... white people ain't voting for Colin Powell! they say they are, they are not ... white people say they're gonna vote for Colin Powell cause it seems like the right thing to say ... it just seems like a cool thing to say, 'yeah i'm gonna vote for him' [snicker snicker] ... just like if you ask somebody if they wanna be an organ donor, they're gonna say 'yeah' ... nobody want's to be an organ donor, it just seems like the right thing to say!!"