PC movement blurs the line between hate and pride

The rejection of STRAIGHT's charter by the Undergraduate Student Government supreme court has raised some disturbing issues concerning the nature of tolerance at Penn State and elsewhere.

It is now OK for anyone to be anything they want to be, as long as it isn't the majority. You can be proud to be black; you can be proud to be gay; you can be proud to be a woman (although I think men are the minority now, but they're not treated as such); or any other outnumbered population.

But you can't be proud to be white, straight or male. It just isn't politically correct. Why is that?

For example: When I told my friend Patrick about the idea for this column, he recounted the tale of a high-school student who was suspended for wearing a T-shirt that said "White Power."

I'm sure this would not have happened had the shirt read "Black Power."

The fact is that the majority has for the past few years tried to make amends with minorities concerning its past injustices. Affirmative action is a visible part of this attempt, as is political correctness. And while the majority has probably not done enough to promote equality, and may be going about it the wrong way, the point is that it is honestly trying.

Therefore, it disturbs me when attacks on the majority persist. This action is, no doubt, the result of years of oppression and bitterness. However, I don't think it's the most correct form of action. If the minorities were to work together with the majority to better things instead of enacting revenge, then the ugliness and animosity between groups could be avoided.

However, in place of cooperation, the minorities are trying to take away the rights of the majority (often with help from its members) and punish it for past wrongdoing. This implies that two wrongs DO make a right. Well, I personally have never done anything wrong to a member of a minority, and I am tired of being branded as the Father of Death simply because I am a straight white male.

After all, the spirit of political correctness is making people not feel bad for things that they can't help. I can't help that I am white and straight and male. But I hear every day that all whites are devils and slave owners at heart, and heterosexuals are all militant homophobes and gay bashers, and men are all date rapists and chauvinists.

Thus the double-standard emerges: It's OK to apply stereotypes to the majority, but not the minorities. And anything bad the minorities want to say about the majority is OK, but not vice-versa.

Think of it like this: What if a White Caucus or a Men's Concerns or a Heterosexual Student Alliance were to be formed on campus? (That last one shouldn't be too hard to imagine.) There would be a tremendous uproar and they would be denounced as racist, sexist and homophobic groups, respectively, regardless of what their constitution says or what their true purposes may be.

Therefore, one must conclude that the majority no longer has the right to assemble and be proud of some aspect or another of their existence, even though this assembly would not infringe on others' rights. It would, however, be assumed that the organization would infringe on others' rights, even though no one says its counterparts (Black Caucus, Womyn's Concerns, the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Student Alliance) do.

Now some may say that these groups are not needed. That assertion would be fine, except that's not what was being argued when STRAIGHT's charter was up for approval. People were screaming that it would be anti-gay, even though it claimed to be pro-straight.

So there is the assumption: Any group that forms to be pro-majority will be seen as anti-minority, no matter what it says. However, the same is NOT true of pro-minority groups. So the double-standard is clear again.

And besides, these groups may be needed eventually, with as many attacks as there are fired at the majority daily. You can see the groups forming now. Groups like STRAIGHT are the result of members of the majority tiring of being told how evil they are, and they are now taking up arms to defend themselves.

This mobilization is a direct result of the attacks of PC and the minorities, similar to the uprisings the minorities staged to assert their rights, such as the Civil Rights Movement and the women's suffrage movement. It's elementary: When a group feels it is being oppressed, it fights back.

I am not advocating hate here, and I don't like hate groups (whose existence DOES infringe on others' rights) any more than the next person. I'm just saying that the line between hate and pride is not recognized in the majority, but it is in the minorities. Hypocrisy like this is a dangerous side effect of the PC/tolerance climate.

No longer aggressively silenced, the minorities have forgotten what it is like. They seem to believe that the only way to have their voices heard is to take it away from the majority. But I can't believe the only way the minorities can rise up is by pushing the majority down.

The double standard and its accompanying gags illustrate that tolerance today is a farce. Only a few things are tolerated, and opposing viewpoints are derided as intolerant. (The hate mail I will almost certainly receive after this is published will prove this point.) This kind of "selective tolerance," bearing the approval of the University's mission statement, makes no sense.

Look what's happened to Darin Loccarini. He and other members of his group, STRAIGHT, have been widely criticized and have received death threats. That's what's known as tolerance now. And no matter how much you may dislike it, he still has the right to say what he wants, but PC wants to take that away. Why? Because he's a member of the majority. He has no rights.

It's about time that the majority, like everyone else, is given back its right to be proud and say so. Otherwise, the "diversity" and "tolerance" that everyone says they want will never be had.

A true open discourse cannot be achieved when one party is afraid to speak up for fear of being branded an "-ist."