[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 72 (Friday, June 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5681-S5683]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              ``POLITICAL CORRECTNESS''--ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it seems that concern with so-called 
``political correctness'' has been elevated to a near religion in 
recent years.
  I thought it might be well to speak on this subject this afternoon 
when we

[[Page S5682]]

are not overly busy with other matters. I am sure it is a subject on 
which not everyone will agree with me. But that doesn't necessarily 
concern me. I feel that I have something to say, and I am going to say 
it at this point.
  It seems, I say, that concern with so-called ``political 
correctness'' has been elevated to a near religion in recent years. 
Well, I have long been puzzled by the doctrine, if it may be termed as 
such, the doctrine of political correctness. When it comes to benefits 
of this overtly patronizing assault on thought patterns and 
contemporary speech, I have to admit that I guess I just don't get it.
  It has always seemed to me that one of the intrinsically valuable 
things about America is its ``melting pot'' aspect. I heard about the 
melting pot when I was a boy, and there have been many, many, many 
valuable aspects of the melting-pot policy.
  The phenomenon of American life and culture has been its uncanny 
ability to absorb a reasonable number of people from all around the 
globe of different races, religions, nationalities, abilities and 
talents, and inspire them to embrace the ideals of freedom, and work 
toward the common good of the Republic, without destroying their 
individuality.
  But today's trendy, misguided urge to vigorously emphasize in 
contemporary thought, and speech, not the value and worth of individual 
difference, but merely the inoffensive security of ``sameness'' seems 
to be going against the time-honored grain that has facilitated the 
successful achievement of a richly diverse, yet united nation.
  The gross, linguistic overreaching for the goal of being perfectly 
politically correct that goes on in most public discussions, both 
written and spoken, is not only insultingly gratuitous, but, at times 
sublimely ridiculous as well. It is as if everyone who writes or speaks 
in the public arena today is making a concerted and rather forced 
effort to banish from the face of the Earth the obvious differences in 
gender, race, religion and genetic codes inherent in all human beings 
through the clumsy device of disavowing verbally all dissimilarities. 
And the results are often either humorous or downright sad.
  In order to avoid offending anyone in anyway we have come up with 
such linguistic acrobatics as Chair or Chairperson to replace chairman.
  When I think of the Chair there in the front of the Chamber, I think 
of the position. I address the Chair. I am thinking of the position. 
But the person who is in the chair is not a chair. He is not a piece of 
wood; he is not a piece of furniture; he is the chairman.
  Well, one may say what if it is not a ``he,'' what if it is a lady? 
Then I would say ``Madam Chairman.'' I would still refer to the person 
as the chairman. That has been the case for centuries --eons of time. 
And here in this latter part of the 20th century we have decided we 
have to change all that. So, I don't think of the distinguished Senator 
from Ohio, who presently presides over the Senate in a very dignified 
and efficient way--I don't think of him as a piece of wood. If I would 
refer to him personally, I would not call him ``the Chair.'' I would 
just as soon that nobody referred to me as a piece of wood, as a 
``chair.'' I was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. If we 
want to address the Chair, that is the position. I have no problem with 
that. But don't refer to me as ``the Chair.'' I may object to it.
  I see letters that come to my office with reference to the ``chair.'' 
And I have told my staff, when you respond to such a letter, you should 
use the word ``chairman.'' Don't use the word ``chair.'' I am not going 
to get in that parade and go down that road, falling into that pothole 
of ``political correctness.''
  So, we have come up with other linguistic acrobatics, in order to 
replace any reference to skin color other than white; and Native 
American to replace American Indian. Well, I am a native American. I 
was born in North Carolina. If I am not a native American, of what 
country am I a native? I am a native American. I have no problem with 
referring to the Indians as ``original'' Americans. But when they are 
referred to as ``Native'' Americans, I think that is demeaning to the 
Indians. I am a native American. But I don't pretend to be an original 
American--the American Indian.
  Some day, in the misty future when political correctness is dead and 
gone, (may that day come with all speed) our descendants may remark on 
the peculiarity of such terms as ``Chairperson.'' Did it mean that the 
poor unfortunate soul possessed a body like a chair? Could it refer to 
the quality of one's intellect? Or maybe it was related somehow to 
one's lack of mobility--perhaps akin to the popular expression, ``couch 
potato.''
  Gender neutrality, which is an absolute fetish in our country at this 
time, produces a plethora of strange choices for its adherents. What, 
for example, to be gender-neutrally correct, do we call a man-hole 
cover? How do we neutralize the very necessary ``his'' and ``her'' 
designations on restrooms? And whatever do we do to purge such common 
expressions as ``man-alive,'' ``he's a macho-man,'' ``he's a ladies 
man,'' and ``man overboard'' from the population at large?
  If one stops to think about such things, it becomes absolutely 
ridiculous. It is laughable, indeed.
  This insane preoccupation has even been carried so far as to apply to 
the good Lord and his words as related in Holy Scripture, as some ``new 
age'' Bibles have done.
  I don't want any of them in my house. They won't find a resting place 
in my house. That kind of Bible will find its way to the wastebasket if 
it ever gets to me or to anybody in my family. We will stick with the 
King James version.
  Personally, I think enough is enough when it comes to political 
correctness. I think we should all stop this unhealthy preoccupation 
and consider what effect it has had on the content of public dialogue 
in general. Far from erasing differences from the public mind, I think 
political correctness in all of its suspect forms has tended to overly 
accentuate them. In order not to risk offending anyone, we spend so 
much time focusing on race, gender, country of origin or whatever 
aspects of an individual we have to tiptoe around, that we then tend to 
ignore all of the other truly valuable and important aspects of that 
individual, such as brainpower, level of achievement, talent or quality 
of character. In other words, our anxious efforts not to emphasize such 
surface differences as race and gender have, in my view, paradoxically, 
had precisely the opposite effect.
  On a more subtle level, political correctness has encouraged us to 
become much less honest with one another and with ourselves and, as a 
result, much less willing and able to come to grips with the troubling 
problems which beset our land. In our obsequious efforts not to offend 
anybody, we in public life thereby mentally partition our population 
into groups by race or by gender or by some other category, obscuring 
the inarguable fact that we are all citizens of the United States of 
America, that our fates hang together, and that public debate should, 
in the best of all worlds, be about what is good for the country, not 
what may appease this group or that group or this individual. That is 
one reason why I absolutely abhor hyphenated-American designations. 
They separate and divide us into arbitrary categories which are based 
for the most part solely on what the eye can readily see. And we find 
the same problem in our textbooks in the schools.
  How can we help the entire population of our land, the men, the 
women, the blacks, the Hispanics, the white or the Asian populations, 
if we submerge honest and forthright discussions of what is best for 
the Nation in favor of pandering to the sensibilities of this group or 
that group? The answer is we can't. And the real answer is we don't 
want to. It is far easier to observe the customary taboos and the 
popular, awkward, and thoroughly phony norms of political correctness 
than to actually grapple with real problems in a meaningful and 
substantive way.
  Personally, Mr. President, I hope that ``political correctness'' will 
soon go the way of high-button shoes or the lace-up corset. It is shop-
worn window dressing far, far too constraining for a fast-moving, 
difficult age, crying out for courageous leaders, frank discussion, and 
innovative solutions.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe we are in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for as much time as I 
may consume in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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