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The Silence Breakers: Time Magazine 2017 Person of the Year [image credit: Time Magazine]

Bah. Humbug. When I wrote this TWO YEARS AGO, I never thought it would become my annual Christmas post. This year I—like many women who endured a work lifetime of uncomfortable jokes, unwelcome “hugs”, and unassailable double standards—watched with awe as brave women came forward with their #MeToo stories, and as powerful men in the entertainment, business, and political worlds saw their careers ended. With, of course, two glaring exceptions. Apparently, if you’re a pussy-grabbing president, it’s more important to support an accused pedophile than to question his fitness for one of the country’s highest offices. As Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway puts it, this is just one more sign of the president’s “tremendous moral standards”. 

Ho, ho, ho.

 

It’s all Donald Trump’s fault.

Back in 1994, I wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal that poked gentle fun at yuppies who tried to make Christmas more ‘politically correct’. The WSJ added the illustrations and ran it 1/6/1994. Since then it’s appeared on hundreds of websites, and has been attributed to several people including my (surprised) husband.

Every Christmas I like to reblog it, but this year I’m just not sure.

I blame Donald Trump. He doesn’t actually know what “politically correct” means. He’s not alone.

[image credit: knowyourmeme.com] http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/480300-you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

[image credit: knowyourmeme.com]

It’s happened over and over again. Back when I headed up HR for companies full of those who should have known better, I found myself—with depressing frequency—confronting people accused of harassing their coworkers. And always—EVERY. SINGLE. DAMN. TIME.—their response was to accuse the one making the complaint.

  • “She wants to be one of the boys, but she can’t take a joke.”
  • “Since when is kidding around against the rules here?”
  • And…wait for it… “He/she/you are just being politically correct.”

I wish I could explain to Donald Trump what I told them. “There’s no such thing as Politically Correct. It’s just your way of saying that a big issue doesn’t exist because you don’t value it. So you deflect the debate onto what constitutes humor, or workplace camaraderie, or whatever else you want to call it. But to paraphrase the Bard—A turd by any other name would still smell like crap.”

(Okay, and I kind of wish I could then fire Trump’s ass like I did theirs. But at least I don’t didn’t have to vote for him.)

So here’s a little test. What happens if you replace the words “politically correct” with what they really are—a coded form of “people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies I don’t like?”

In his tweets:  

[1:29 p.m. – 8 Aug 2015] ~ So many politically correct fools people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies I don’t like in our country. We have to all get back to work and stop wasting time and energy on nonsense!

[9:53 PM – 30 Jun 2015] ~  @webster07 @realDonaldTrump wish there were more people in the public eye with this attitude. It’s only way 2 defeat political correctness people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies I don’t like“

[3:18 AM – 20 Jul 2015]  ~ @RW84JR: @realDonaldTrump Glad U R Man Enough 2 Speak the Truth in this Pathetic Politically Correct World of people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies I don’t like! 

Or in his public appearances:

6 August, 2015–GOP candidates debates:

Fox News’ Megyn Fox: “Mr. Trump, you’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks, and you once told a candidate on Celebrity Apprentice that it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of someone we should elect as president? And how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who is likely to be the nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”

Donald Trump: “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies I don’t like.“

6 July, 2015— After several corporations withdrew support following Trump’s press release stating that “The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States.”

Donald Trump: “Macy’s, NBC, Serta and NASCAR have all taken the weak and very sad position of being politically correct people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies I don’t like even though they are wrong in terms of what is good for our country.

9 December, 2015 — Speech explaining his call for ban on all Muslims entering US

Donald Trump: “We can’t worry about being politically correct people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies. We just can’t afford any more to be so politically correct people with points of view other than mine or those pesky fact thingies.“

Well you know what Donald Trump? “Politically Correct” isn’t even a thing. It doesn’t exist. But I’m perfectly happy and proud so say that I own up to being one of those people you hate, those annoying people with points of view other than yours. I might even have a few of those pesky fact thingies. 

So I’m going to do it anyway. Here’s my old Wall St. Journal Christmas piece. Ho, ho, ho Donald Trump.

The 12 Days, Deconstructed

On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival, my acquaintance-rape survivor gave to me,

TWELVE males reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming,

ELEVEN pipers piping (plus the 18-member pit orchestra made up of members in good standing of the Musicians Equity Union as called for in their union contract even though they will not be asked to play a note…),

TEN melanin-deprived testosterone-poisoned scions of the patriarchal ruling class system leaping,

NINE persons engaged in rhythmic self-expression,

EIGHT economically disadvantaged female persons stealing milk-products from enslaved bovine-Americans,

SEVEN endangered swans swimming on federally protected wetlands, SIX enslaved fowl-Americans producing stolen nonhuman animal products,

FIVE golden symbols of culturally sanctioned enforced domestic Incarceration,

(Note: after members of the Animal Liberation Front threatened to throw red paint at my computer, the calling birds, French hens and partridge have been reintroduced to their native habitat. To avoid further animal-American enslavement, the remaining gift package has been revised.)

FOUR hours of recorded whale songs,

THREE deconstructionist poets,

TWO Sierra Club calendars, printed on recycled processed tree carcasses and a Spotted Owl activist chained to an old-growth pear tree.

–Barb Taub (The author acknowledges inspiration from the Los Angeles Times booklet “Guidelines on Ethnic, Racial, Sexual and other Identification,” and Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf’s “The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook.”)