Co-written by Alexandria Piette
[dropcap]U[/dropcap]pon June 16th, 2015, and April 12th, 2015—the inauguration of the presidential campaigns for president-elect Donald J. Trump and Secretary Hillary Clinton, respectively—collectively summing to one thousand and ninety eves prior to the presidential election of November 8th, 2016, it is unquestionable that the political climate throughout everyday communities has mutated into that of ill will and antagonism.
With reference to an analysis administered by the Southern Poverty Law Center, “In the [ten] days after Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, the country experienced a surge in hate crime. […] The prominent U.S. civil rights group released a report [November 29th] identifying [eight hundred and sixty-seven] incidents of harassment and intimidation between November 9th and November 18th. Many of those incidents involved harassers invoking Trump’s name, making it clear that the outbreak of hate was primarily due to his success in the election.”
Individually, it was documented that November 9th was perverted with the paramount inflation of animosity at two hundred and two confrontations. Moreover, its successors logged a sweeping one hundred and sixty-six of November 10th, and one hundred and thirty-eight of November 11th.
The acclaimed Forbes Magazine accumulated a pie-chart of statistical investigation with regards to the motivations behind the societal aggressiveness, including anti-immigration, anti-African American, anti-semitic, anti-LGBTQIPA, anti-muslim, anti-woman, anti-Trump, Trump general, and white nationalism.
However, the lion’s share of the offenders instigating the politically-charged transnational bigotry and oppression are predominantly of adulthood.
Therefore, that raises a fundamental anxiety: how is the sociopolitical climate of today’s society influencing the garden variety of the United States’ youth population?
Envision a run-of-the-mill birthday commemoration for the fresh-faced year of fourteen, parading conventional pastries broiled to a mouthwatering golden brown with an atmosphere of pigmented streamers and helium balloons.
In an effort for Affinity Magazine to abide by the entreated anonymity per her relatives for the sake of safeguard, the name of the party-giver will not be divulged.
Nevertheless, a Jewish Arizona townsfolk had the aspiration of lighthearted merriment at her celebration amongst her peers, an unblemished age of vim and vigor breaching the threshold of her optimistic horizon.
However, the high-spirited festivities were promptly befouled by a duo of classmates, who had tailored a batch of chocolate cupcakes yielding a frosting ornament—a swastika.
In accordance with The Huffington Post, it was chronicled that the schoolmates had been educated of late with the malevolent, unmerciful monstrosities of the Holocaust, which was a sadistically unrelenting genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany from January 30th, 1933, until May 8th, 1945.
Within a Facebook status bearing her grievances, the mother of the victimized vocalized that, “I thought long and hard about writing this, but you know, it [is] better to lose some acquaintances than remain silent. This is not a political post, but [I] believe this has everything to do with the political environment we [are] now living in. […] Let me tell you that I am Jewish, my daughter is Jewish, there was another Jewish girl at the party[,] as well as many other girls of different religions who do [not] have a negative bone in their bodies. But then there were the two girls who created this. Why? Is this funny? Is this right? Is this nice to do at another person’s party in another person’s house? Are the kids to human kindness and decency ripped off so permanently that this can happen to your kid in your house?”
Although the wrongdoers have apologized for their unbecoming, unsympathetic conduct, their foundational justification for it was because they perceived it to be “funny.”
Unfortunately, what should be distinguished as elementary compassion is recurrently misconstrued for a pessimistic perspective on what is characterized as “political correctness”, wisecracking that not disgruntling anyone within 2016 is inconceivable.
Pertaining to the technicality of political correctness, the definition is affirmed to be, “[T]he avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”
The issue with both the normalization of hate crimes, not necessarily by authority, but by people and society collectively, in addition to the ever-expanding boundaries of what constitutes ‘politically correct’ is that they bring with them a misconception of what is not only offensive, but harmful.
Normalizing hate crimes would teach privileged children there would be no consequences for bullying and hateful intolerance. With platforms as vast as social media, such as Twitter and Facebook broadcasting pictures of swastikas on church walls or sold in common clothing stores as jewelry, children will no longer understand the weight of the offense that the symbol carries, despite what they have “learned in school”. It has appeared far too many times before their eyes, sometimes even celebrated, with barely any consequences. Even if these children consume media that denounces these acts of bigotry, they are just as exposed to supporters of these acts as much as critics. Children are desensitized and see no harm in those actions because it has been repeated enough times to lose it’s meaning.
In other cases, children may even be encouraged to perform these actions. The rise in hate crimes conducted by those in adulthood set a model of sorts for kids to follow. After all, it has been proven time and time again that children learn by example. Bullying has not only increased in high schools or colleges, but in middle schools and even elementary schools all around the US as well.
A paper published by the Southern Poverty Law Centre interviewed teachers from all over the country, only to find that “They [students] feel more emboldened to make derogatory comments, or to speak exclusively of some groups,” and “The divisive rhetoric has certainly split students, many who are young and impressionable. Discussing politics has become a huge challenge to maintain civility.” The most telling display of this argument is this one answer to the survey: “Students at my school say hurtful things sometimes about minority groups (African Americans, people of alternative sexual orientations, Muslims, etc.). Before the campaign, when they said hurtful or disrespectful things and I called them out on it, they would stop and nothing else would be said during that class period. Today, when such things are said, they question me why I think it is not appropriate to say when their parents and the future president of this country is saying it.”
An often used argument in defense of hate crimes, such as the aforementioned, is that people are too easily upset when non-politically correct statements are made. However, the line between choosing to refrain from being considerate and harming, not just insulting, another person has become far too blurred in today’s messy political climate. When presidential candidates use insult and mockery as legitimate political statements, the same rhetoric their statements spread are no longer insulting, but merely a ‘different view’. Supporters take this sentiment and say damaging, cruel things before hiding behind the defense that they are stating a sensible ‘political’ opinion and that the other party is merely being too sensitive.
Constantly using the anti-PC argument in situations that have no relation to the use of politically correct language easily and constantly dismisses legitimate issues that harm large amounts of people. When you call a marginalized person ‘butthurt’ because you only do not care about being ‘politically correct’ tells them that they have no reason to be hurt by what you said despite the fact you could never place yourself in their shoes. You tell children that they have no right to feel upset when people use words that have been frequently used to insult them as casual language. Merely choosing not to be ‘politically correct’ is not a defense for blatant damage done towards already marginalized communities.
Privileged kids are not the only ones desensitized or made to feel that hate crimes are no big deal. Minority children will receive the same message. When members of their community are told by people on television to “stop whining” by commentators such as Tomi Lahren because they are standing up for what they believe in, what message do children of these communities understand about their voice? Only that it should be quiet, or met with invalidation and hatred.
The recent election and this frightening atmosphere has created a new way for kids of vulnerable groups to be targeted. More kids are unable to understand as to why they are disliked by such a large group of strangers for something they are made to feel bad about despite the fact there is nothing to apologize for. The question that has been on every worried mind is when cruelty becomes common, what constitutes as cruel?
Children are sent varied messages depending on their identities, but all are equally as horrible. The effects of the sociopolitical climate filled with rhetorics of extremity and hatred are reflected in the children that are raised in it because it is what they understand first-hand from the world around them. In our current political environment, amplified by easily accessible media, it is not enough only to tell our youth that the acts of bullying carried out by elders and themselves is both unacceptable and punishable. We have become uncivilized in our discussions and we must change the way we approach one another for any progress in our society be made. In other words, we must set the right example.
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