The Wily Filipino

Pants on Fire; on "PC."

A little item on the First Lady buried in the Times yesterday caught my attention:

The first lady also said that the "Roses are red, violets are blue" poem she read at a National Book Festival gala in October was not actually written by her husband even though it has been attributed to him. She did not say who wrote the poem.

"But a lot of people really believed that he did," she said. "Some woman from across the table said, 'You just don't know how great it is to have a husband who would write a poem for you.' "

Let's look at this closely: what is she saying about those people who "really believed" it?

Compare that with the officlal White House press release of her remarks at the National Book Festival Gala last October:

We delight in great works of literature and especially in the works of budding new artists. President Bush is a great leader and husband -- but I bet you didn't know, he is also quite the poet. Upon returning home last night from my long trip, I found a lovely poem waiting for me. Normally, I wouldn't share something so personal, but since we're celebrating great writers, I can't resist.

Dear Laura,

Roses are red, violets are blue, oh my lump in the bed, how I've missed you.

Roses are redder, bluer am I, seeing you kissed by that charming French guy.

The dogs and the cat they miss you too, Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe.

The distance my dear has been such a barrier, next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.

I'm happy to be the inspiration behind this poem.

Hmm. Maybe people believed it because she said so?

This proves a simple point: No one from that administration can be trusted.

It sounds an awful, awful lot like this exchange between Tim Russert and Dick Cheney on "Meet The Press " last September:

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know.

To shift gears abruptly, here's a quick unorganized response to Rhett's recent post on political correctness.

Okay, there are two separate points here: It's probably just me, but I always separated "the PC movement" from "the multicultural movement" because they seemed to have different functions and aims. Though obviously part of the same package, the desire to include someone other than a dead white men into curricula seemed to me part of a multicultural agenda rather than the primarily gatekeeping-function of being "politically correct" (see below). When a public library celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and sets up a display of Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat in its front window (for instance), it seems prompted more by an effort to be more "multicultural" rather than it being "politically correct." I don't know if that makes sense.

Rhett's gay lit vs. Roman history example is a little misleading, because I don't think advocates of multiculturalism all saw it that way -- i.e., with emphasis on the "versus." While I'm quite sold on the idea that, say, the model of ethnic studies is the site of oppositional politics against a white, heteronormative mainstream (and that multiculturalist discourse is simply a fancy reworking of the old melting-pot narrative), I don't think gay lit was supposed to supplant Roman history. The last time I checked, students were still quite free to take Western Civ classes.

Conservative groups started using "political correctness" as a cudgel against the left, which is no wonder Rhett's Google search turned up right-wing websites. But there is a separate use of the term "PC" -- one that has trickled into popular discourse -- and one that specifically pertained to language and semantics, which is the way the phrase mostly survives now.

Its legacy, I think, has been somewhat more important than it's given credit for: a lot of my students, coming straight from high school, use "she" or "s/he" or "Dear Madam/Sir" way more often now. Despite the intricate idiocies of PC run amok ("waitron," "vertically challenged"), people (at least around here) do use "mail carrier" and "flight attendant" and "chair" more often as well. Does this mark a change in people's consciousness about gender? Maybe. (Or is it still the same sexism, but cloaked in a more polite disguise?)

And I can imagine that it has done much more for the workforce as well, particularly in terms of bringing issues of sexual harassment to the surface. Do people say less homophobic / sexist / racist jokes in public now? (Or am I being completely naive, considering where I work?)

Having said that, the term "PC" is also often used as a prefatory warning to something un-PC, e.g., "I don't know this isn't going to sound PC, but..." Kind of like "Look, I'm not a racist, but..."

Posted by the wily filipino at December 30, 2003 09:35 AM